Editing Robert A. Heinlein (section)

==Views==
[[File:Robert A Heinlein 5311 (filtered).jpg|thumb|Heinlein {{Circa|1953}}]]
Heinlein's books probe a range of ideas about a range of topics such as sexuality, race, politics, and the military. Many were seen as radical or as ahead of their time in their social criticism. His books have inspired considerable debate about the specifics, and the evolution, of Heinlein's own opinions, and have earned him both lavish praise and a degree of criticism. He has also been accused of contradicting himself on various philosophical questions.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Sturgis |first=Amy |title=Heinlein, Robert (1907–1988) |author-link=Amy H. Sturgis |editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |year=2008 |publisher=[[SAGE Publishing|SAGE]]; [[Cato Institute]] |location=Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n134 |isbn= 978-1-4129-6580-4 |oclc=750831024 |lccn=2008009151 |pages=223–24 |access-date=February 16, 2016 |archive-date=September 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930070314/https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Brian Doherty (journalist)|Brian Doherty]] cites William Patterson, saying that the best way to gain an understanding of Heinlein is as a "full-service iconoclast, the unique individual who decides that things do not have to be, and won't continue, as they are". He says this vision is "at the heart of Heinlein, science fiction, libertarianism, and America. Heinlein imagined how everything about the human world, from our sexual mores to our religion to our automobiles to our government to our plans for cultural survival, might be flawed, even fatally so."<ref name="RH at 100">{{cite web|url=http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/09/robert-heinlein-at-100|title=Robert Heinlein at 100|date=July 9, 2007|website=Reason.com|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=July 12, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120712072229/http://reason.com/archives/2007/07/09/robert-heinlein-at-100|url-status=live}}</ref>

The critic [[Elizabeth Anne Hull]], for her part, has praised Heinlein for his interest in exploring fundamental life questions, especially questions about "political power—our responsibilities to one another" and about "personal freedom, particularly sexual freedom".<ref name="Church of All Worlds">{{cite journal|url=https://usyd.academia.edu/CaroleCusack/Papers/757605/Science_Fiction_as_Scripture_Robert_A._Heinleins_Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land_and_the_Church_of_All_Worlds|title=Science Fiction as Scripture: Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and the Church of All Worlds|first=Carole|last=Cusack|journal=Reprinted in Lawrence J. Trudeau (Ed.), Twentieth Century Literary Criticism, Vol. 337, Detroit: Gale, Cengage, 2016, Pp. 282–293.|access-date=November 26, 2017|archive-date=June 5, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210605003116/https://www.academia.edu/738499/Science_Fiction_as_Scripture_Robert_A_Heinlein_s_Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land_and_the_Church_of_All_Worlds|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Edward R. Murrow]] hosted a series on [[CBS Radio]] called ''[[This I Believe]]'', which solicited an entry from Heinlein in 1952. Titled "[[Our Noble, Essential Decency]]". In it, Heinlein broke with the normal trends, stating that he believed in his neighbors (some of whom he named and described), community, and towns across America that share the same sense of good will and intentions as his own, going on to apply this same philosophy to the US, and humanity in general.

{{blockquote|I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime.}}

===Politics===
Heinlein's political positions shifted throughout his life. Heinlein's early political leanings were [[Modern liberalism in the United States|liberal]].<ref name=Wooster>{{cite web |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2010/10/heinleins-conservatism-martin-morse-wooster/ |title=Heinlein's Conservatism |first=Martin Morse |last=Wooster |website=[[National Review Online]] |date=October 25, 2010 |access-date=December 29, 2022 |language=en-US}} (a review of William Patterson's ''Learning Curve: 1907–1948'', the first volume of his authorized biography, ''Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century'').</ref> In 1934, he worked actively for the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] campaign of [[Upton Sinclair]] for [[Governor of California]]. After Sinclair lost, Heinlein became an anti-communist Democratic activist. He made an unsuccessful bid for a [[California State Assembly]] seat in 1938.<ref name=Wooster/> Heinlein's first novel, ''For Us, the Living'' (written 1939), consists largely of speeches advocating the [[Social Credit]] philosophy, and the early story "[[Misfit (short story)|Misfit]]" (1939) deals with an organization—"The Cosmic Construction Corps"—that seems to be [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]'s [[Civilian Conservation Corps]] translated into outer space.<ref>{{cite web|url = http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/real/c_real.htm|title = A Heinlein Concordance|website = www.heinleinsociety.org|first = M. E.|last = Cowan|date = 2004|access-date = April 20, 2019|archive-date = May 11, 2019|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190511222511/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/real/c_real.htm|url-status = dead}}</ref>

Of this time in his life, Heinlein later said:

{{blockquote|At the time I wrote ''Methuselah's Children'' I was still politically quite naïve and still had hopes that various libertarian notions could be put over by political processes... It [now] seems to me that every time we manage to establish one freedom, they take another one away. Maybe two. And that seems to me characteristic of a society as it gets older, and more crowded, and higher taxes, and more laws.<ref name="schulman">J. Neil Schulman, ''The Robert Heinlein Interview, and other Heinleiniana'' (1973)<!--publisher & place?-->{{page needed|date=December 2018}}</ref>}}

Heinlein's fiction of the 1940s and 1950s, however, began to espouse [[Conservatism in the United States|conservative]] views. After 1945, he came to believe that a strong [[world government]] was the only way to avoid [[mutual assured destruction|mutual nuclear annihilation]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=October 25, 2010 |title=Heinlein's Conservatism |url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2010/10/heinleins-conservatism-martin-morse-wooster/ |access-date=July 13, 2024 |website=National Review |language=en-US}}</ref> His 1949 novel ''[[Space Cadet]]'' describes a future scenario where a military-controlled global government enforces world peace. Heinlein ceased considering himself a Democrat in 1954.<ref name=Wooster/>

The Heinleins formed the [[Patrick Henry League]] in 1958, and they worked in the 1964 [[Barry Goldwater]] presidential campaign.<ref name=autogenerated1/>

{{blockquote|text=When Robert A. Heinlein opened his [[Colorado Springs]] newspaper on April 5, 1958, he read a full-page ad demanding that the Eisenhower Administration stop testing nuclear weapons. The science fiction author was flabbergasted. He called for the formation of the Patrick Henry League and spent the next several weeks writing and publishing his own polemic that lambasted "Communist-line goals concealed in idealistic-sounding nonsense" and urged Americans not to become "soft-headed".<ref name="In A Strangle Land" />}}

Heinlein's response ad was entitled "[[Who Are the Heirs of Patrick Henry?]]". It started with the famous Henry quotation: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!!" It then went on to admit that there was some risk to nuclear testing (albeit less than the "willfully distorted" claims of the test ban advocates), and risk of nuclear war, but that "The alternative is surrender. We accept the risks." Heinlein was among those who in 1968 signed a pro–[[Vietnam War]] ad in ''Galaxy Science Fiction''.<ref name="vietnamads">{{Cite magazine |date=June 1968 |title=Paid Advertisement |magazine=Galaxy Science Fiction |pages=4–11}}</ref>

Heinlein always considered himself a libertarian; in a letter to Judith Merril in 1967 (never sent) he said, "As for libertarian, I've been one all my life, a radical one. You might use the term '[[philosophical anarchist]]' or '[[autarchist]]' about me, but 'libertarian' is easier to define and fits well enough."<ref>Patterson, William (2014). ''Robert A. Heinlein: 1948–1988, The Man Who Learned Better''. New York: Tom Doherty Associates. p. 389. {{ISBN|978-0-7653-1961-6}}.</ref>

''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'' was embraced by the 1960s [[counterculture]], and libertarians have found inspiration in ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]''. Both groups found resonance with his themes of personal freedom in both thought and action.<ref name=Riggenbach/>

===Race===
Heinlein grew up in the era of [[racial segregation in the United States]] and wrote some of his most influential fiction at the height of the [[Civil Rights Movement]]. He explicitly made the case for using his fiction not only to predict the future but also to educate his readers about the value of [[racial equality]] and the importance of racial tolerance.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Erisman|first= Fred|title=Robert Heinlein's Case for Racial Tolerance, 1954–1956|journal= Extrapolation|volume= 29|issue= 3|year=1988|pages= 216–226}}</ref> His early novels were ahead of their time both in their explicit rejection of racism and in their inclusion of protagonists of color. In the context of science fiction before the 1960s, the mere existence of characters of color was a remarkable novelty, with green occurring more often than brown.<ref>{{cite book|last=Pearson|first= Wendy|chapter=Race relations|title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Volume 2|publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]]|year= 2005|pages= 648–50}}</ref> For example, his 1948 novel ''Space Cadet'' explicitly uses aliens as a metaphor for minorities. The 1947 story "[[Jerry Was a Man]]" uses enslaved genetically modified chimpanzees as a symbol for Black Americans fighting for civil rights.<ref>{{cite web | last=Greeley | first=Henry T. | title=BioSci Fi: "Jerry Was a Man", Robert A. Heinlein, 1947 | website=Stanford Law School | date=October 17, 2012 | url=https://law.stanford.edu/2012/10/17/lawandbiosciences-2012-10-17-science-fiction-law-and-biosciences-jerry-was-a-man-robert-a-heinlein-1947/ | access-date=April 8, 2025}}</ref> In his novel ''[[The Star Beast (novel)|The Star Beast]]'', the ''de facto'' foreign minister of the Terran government is an undersecretary, a Mr. Kiku, who is from Africa.<ref name="Star31">{{cite book |last=Heinlein |first=Robert A. |title=The Star Beast |url=https://archive.org/details/starbeast00hein |url-access=limited |year=1954 |publisher=Charles Schribner's Sons |page=[https://archive.org/details/starbeast00hein/page/31 31]}}</ref> Heinlein explicitly states his skin is "ebony black" and that Kiku is in an [[arranged marriage]] that is happy.<ref name="Star249">{{cite book |last=Heinlein |first=Robert A. |title=The Star Beast |url=https://archive.org/details/starbeast00hein |url-access=limited |year=1954 |publisher=Charles Schribner's Sons |page=[https://archive.org/details/starbeast00hein/page/249 249]}}</ref>

In a number of his stories, Heinlein challenges his readers' possible racial preconceptions by introducing a strong, sympathetic character, only to reveal much later that he or she is of African or other ancestry. In several cases, the covers of the books show characters as being light-skinned when the text states or at least implies that they are dark-skinned or of African ancestry.{{#Tag:Ref |The reference in ''Tunnel in the Sky'' is subtle and ambiguous, but at least one college instructor who teaches the book reports that some students always ask, "Is he [[African American|black]]?" (see<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/faqworks.html |title=FAQ: Heinlein's Works |publisher=Heinleinsociety.org |access-date=May 16, 2012 |archive-date=April 22, 2019 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190422034221/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/faqworks.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>).

The Heinlein scholar and critic James Gifford (see bibliography) states: "A very subtle point in the book, one found only by the most careful reading and confirmed by Virginia Heinlein, is that Rod Walker is black. The most telling clues are Rod's comments about Caroline Mshiyeni being similar to his sister, and the 'obvious' (to all of the other characters) pairing of Rod and Caroline."<ref>{{cite book|author=J. Daniel Gifford|title=Robert A. Heinlein: a reader's companion|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2V6vAAAAIAAJ|year=2000|publisher=Nitrosyncretic Press|isbn=978-0-9679874-1-5|page=201|access-date= February 16, 2016|archive-date=January 1, 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170101204016/https://books.google.com/books?id=2V6vAAAAIAAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>}} Heinlein repeatedly denounced racism in his nonfiction works, including numerous examples in ''Expanded Universe''.

Heinlein reveals in ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' that the novel's protagonist and narrator, [[Johnny Rico (Starship Troopers)|Johnny Rico]], the formerly disaffected scion of a wealthy family, is [[Filipino people|Filipino]], actually named "Juan Rico" and speaks [[Tagalog language|Tagalog]] in addition to English.

Race was a central theme in some of Heinlein's fiction. The most prominent example is ''[[Farnham's Freehold]]'', which casts a [[white (people)|white]] family into a future in which white people are the slaves of cannibalistic black rulers. In the 1941 novel ''[[Sixth Column]]'' (also known as ''The Day After Tomorrow''), a white resistance movement in the United States defends itself against an invasion by an Asian fascist state (the "Pan-Asians") using a "super-science" technology that allows ray weapons to be tuned to specific races. The idea for the story was pushed on Heinlein by editor [[John W. Campbell]] and the story itself was based on a then-unpublished story by Campbell, and Heinlein wrote later that he had "had to re-slant it to remove racist aspects of the original story line" and that he did not "consider it to be an artistic success".<ref>Robert A. Heinlein, ''Expanded Universe'', foreword to ''Solution Unsatisfactory'', p. 93 of Ace paperback edition.</ref><ref>Citations at [[Sixth Column]].</ref> However, the novel prompted a heated debate in the scientific community regarding the plausibility of developing [[ethnic bioweapon]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Appel|first=J. M.|date=July 1, 2009|title=Is all fair in biological warfare? The controversy over genetically engineered biological weapons|url=https://jme.bmj.com/content/35/7/429|journal=Journal of Medical Ethics|language=en|volume=35|issue=7|pages=429–432|doi=10.1136/jme.2008.028944|issn=0306-6800|pmid=19567692|s2cid=1643086 }}</ref> John Hickman, writing in the ''European Journal of American Studies'', identifies examples of anti–East Asian racism in some of Heinlein's works, particularly ''Sixth Column''.<ref>{{cite journal | journal=European Journal of American Studies | title=Yellow Perils of Robert Heinlein | volume=16 | issue=1 | date=Spring 2021 | last=Hickman | first=John | doi=10.4000/ejas.16749 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

Heinlein summed up his attitude toward people of any race in his essay "[[Our Noble, Essential Decency]]" thus:

{{Cquote|And finally, I believe in my whole race—yellow, white, black, red, brown—in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being.}}

===Individualism and self-determination===
In keeping with his belief in [[individualism]], his work for adults—and sometimes even his work for juveniles—often portrays both the oppressors and the oppressed with considerable ambiguity. Heinlein believed that individualism was incompatible with ignorance. He believed that an appropriate level of adult competence was achieved through a wide-ranging education, whether this occurred in a classroom or not. In his juvenile novels, more than once a character looks with disdain at a student's choice of classwork, saying, "Why didn't you study something useful?"<ref>For example, recruitment officer Mr Weiss, in ''Starship Troopers'' (p. 37, New English Library: London, 1977 edition.)</ref> In ''Time Enough for Love'', [[Lazarus Long]] gives a long list of capabilities that anyone should have, concluding, "Specialization is for insects." The ability of the individual to create himself is explored in stories such as ''[[I Will Fear No Evil]]'', "{{'}}[[—All You Zombies—]]{{'}}", and "[[By His Bootstraps]]".

Heinlein claimed to have written ''Starship Troopers'' in response to "calls for the unilateral ending of nuclear testing by the United States".<ref>Robert A. Heinlein, ''Expanded Universe'', p. 396 of Ace paperback edition.</ref> Heinlein suggests in the book that the Bugs are a good example of Communism being something that humans cannot successfully adhere to, since humans are strongly defined individuals, whereas the Bugs, being a collective, can all contribute to the whole without consideration of individual desire.<ref>Robert A. Heinlein, ''Starship Troopers'', p. 121 of Berkley Medallion paperback edition.</ref>

===The Competent Man===
A common theme in Heinlein's writing is his frequent use of the "competent man", a [[stock character]] who exhibits a very wide range of abilities and knowledge, making him a form of [[polymath]]. This trope was notably common in 1950s U.S. science fiction.<ref>Ellen Weil and Gary K. Wolfe, ''Harlan Ellison: The Edge of Forever'', Ohio State University Press, 2002 Page 53. {{ISBN|978-081-420892-2}}</ref> While Heinlein was not the first to use such a character type, the heroes and heroines of his fiction (with [[Jubal Harshaw]] being a prime example) generally have a wide range of abilities, and one of Heinlein's characters, [[Lazarus Long]], gives a wide summary of requirements:

{{blockquote|A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
|Robert Heinlein, ''[[Time Enough for Love]]''<ref>Heinlein, Robert A., ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'', Ace Books (paperback edition, 1988). Page 248. {{ISBN|978-0-441-81076-5}}</ref><ref>Heinlein, Robert A., ''[[The Notebooks of Lazarus Long]]'', G.P. Putnam's Sons. (paperback edition, 1978). SBN 399-12242-7</ref>}}

Predecessors of Heinlein's competent heroes include the protagonists of [[George Bernard Shaw]], like Henry Higgins in ''[[Pygmalion (play)|Pygmalion]]'' and Caesar in [[Caesar and Cleopatra (play)|''Caesar and Cleopatra'']], as well as the citizen soldiers in [[Rudyard Kipling]]'s "[[The Army of a Dream]]".

===Sexuality===
For Heinlein, personal liberation included [[sexual liberation]], and [[free love]] was a major subject of his writing starting in 1939, with ''For Us, the Living''. During his early period, Heinlein's writing for younger readers needed to take account of both editorial perceptions of sexuality in his novels, and potential perceptions among the buying public; as critic William H. Patterson has put it, his dilemma was "to sort out what was really objectionable from what was only excessive over-sensitivity to imaginary librarians".<ref>William H Patterson jnr's ''Introduction'' to ''The Rolling Stones'', Baen: New York, 2009 edition., p. 3.</ref>

By his middle period, sexual freedom and the elimination of sexual jealousy became a major theme; for instance, in ''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'' (1961), the progressively minded but sexually conservative reporter, Ben Caxton, acts as a [[foil (literature)|dramatic foil]] for the less parochial characters, [[Jubal Harshaw]] and Valentine Michael Smith (Mike). Another of the main characters, Jill, is homophobic, and says that "nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped it's partly her own fault."<ref name="theguardian.com">{{Cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jan/12/heinlein-hugo-stranger-strange-land |title=Robert Heinlein's softer side |first=Sam |last=Jordison |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |agency=Books Blog |date=January 12, 2009 |access-date=July 30, 2014 |archive-date=July 14, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714175725/http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/jan/12/heinlein-hugo-stranger-strange-land |url-status=live }}</ref>

According to Gary Westfahl,

{{blockquote|Heinlein is a problematic case for feminists; on the one hand, his works often feature strong female characters and vigorous statements that women are equal to or even superior to men; but these characters and statements often reflect hopelessly stereotypical attitudes about typical female attributes. It is disconcerting, for example, that in ''Expanded Universe'' Heinlein calls for a society where all lawyers and politicians are women, essentially on the grounds that they possess a mysterious feminine practicality that men cannot duplicate.<ref>Gary Westfahl, "Superladies in Waiting: How the Female Hero Almost Emerges in Science Fiction", ''Foundation'', vol. 58, 1993, pp. 42–62.</ref>}}

In books written as early as 1956, Heinlein dealt with incest and the sexual nature of children. Many of his books including ''[[Time for the Stars]]'', ''[[Glory Road]]'', ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'', and ''[[The Number of the Beast (novel)|The Number of the Beast]]'' dealt explicitly or implicitly with incest, sexual feelings and relations between adults, children, or both.<ref name="The Heinlein Society">{{cite web |url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/articles/Parenting.html |title=The Heinlein Society |publisher=The Heinlein Society |access-date=May 16, 2012 |archive-date=July 8, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120708052832/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/rah/works/articles/Parenting.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The treatment of these themes include the romantic relationship and eventual marriage of two characters in ''[[The Door into Summer]]'' who met when one was a 30-year-old engineer and the other was an 11-year-old girl, and who eventually married when time-travel rendered the girl an adult while the engineer aged minimally, or the more overt intra-familial incest in ''[[To Sail Beyond the Sunset]]'' and ''[[Time Enough for Love]]''. Heinlein often posed situations where the nominal purpose of sexual taboos was irrelevant to a particular situation, due to future advances in technology. For example, in ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' Heinlein describes a brother and sister (Joe and Llita) who were mirror twins, being complementary diploids with entirely disjoint genomes, and thus not at increased risk for unfavorable gene duplication due to [[consanguinity]]. In this instance, Llita and Joe were props used to explore the concept of incest, where the usual objection to incest—heightened risk of genetic defect in their children—was not a consideration.<ref>Bright, Robin. "Self Begetting Ourobouros: The Science Fiction of Robert A. Heinlein". page 167. Harvard</ref> Peers such as [[L. Sprague de Camp]] and [[Damon Knight]] have commented critically on Heinlein's portrayal of incest and pedophilia in a lighthearted and even approving manner.<ref name="The Heinlein Society"/> Diane Parkin-Speer suggests that Heinlein's intent seems more to provoke the reader and to question sexual norms than to promote any particular sexual agenda.<ref>Parkin-Speer, Diane. "Robert A. Heinlein: The Novelist as Preacher". ''Extrapolation'' 20, no. 3 (1979): 214–222.</ref>

===Philosophy===
In ''[[To Sail Beyond the Sunset]]'', Heinlein has the main character, [[Maureen Johnson (Heinlein character)|Maureen]], state that the purpose of [[metaphysics]] is to ask questions: "Why are we here?" "Where are we going after we die?" (and so on); and that you are not allowed to answer the questions. ''Asking'' the questions is the point of metaphysics, but ''answering'' them is not, because once you answer this kind of question, you cross the line into religion. Maureen does not state a reason for this; she simply remarks that such questions are "beautiful" but lack answers. Maureen's son/lover Lazarus Long makes a related remark in ''Time Enough for Love''. In order for us to answer the "big questions" about the universe, Lazarus states at one point, it would be necessary to stand ''outside'' the universe.

During the 1930s and 1940s, Heinlein was deeply interested in [[Alfred Korzybski]]'s [[general semantics]] and attended a number of seminars on the subject. His views on [[epistemology]] seem to have flowed from that interest, and his fictional characters continue to express Korzybskian views to the very end of his writing career. Many of his stories, such as ''[[Gulf (Heinlein)|Gulf]]'', ''[[If This Goes On—]]'', and ''[[Stranger in a Strange Land]]'', depend strongly on the premise, related to the well-known [[Linguistic relativity|Sapir–Whorf hypothesis]], that by using a correctly [[constructed language|designed language]], one can change or improve oneself mentally, or even realize untapped potential (as in the case of Joe in ''Gulf''—whose last name may be Greene, Gilead or Briggs).<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/books/gulf_hc.htm|title=Gulf—Heinlein Concordance|website=www.heinleinsociety.org|access-date=May 22, 2019|archive-date=February 24, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224153829/https://www.heinleinsociety.org/concordance/books/gulf_hc.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>

When [[Ayn Rand]]'s novel ''[[The Fountainhead]]'' was published, Heinlein was very favorably impressed, as quoted in "Grumbles&nbsp;..." and mentioned John Galt—the hero in Rand's ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''—as a heroic archetype in ''The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress''. He was also strongly affected by the religious philosopher [[P. D. Ouspensky]].<ref name="aolbio"/> [[Sigmund Freud|Freudianism]] and [[psychoanalysis]] were at the height of their influence during the peak of Heinlein's career, and stories such as ''[[Time for the Stars]]'' indulged in psychological theorizing.

However, he was skeptical about Freudianism, especially after a struggle with an editor who insisted on reading Freudian sexual symbolism into his [[young adult fiction|juvenile novels]]. Heinlein was fascinated by the [[social credit]] movement in the 1930s. This is shown in ''[[Beyond This Horizon]]'' and in his 1938 novel ''[[For Us, the Living: A Comedy of Customs]]'', which was finally published in 2003, long after his death.

====Pay it forward====
On that theme, the phrase "[[pay it forward]]", though it was already in occasional use as a quotation, was popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his book ''[[Between Planets]]'',<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/pay-it-forward/|title=Pay It Forward|publisher=The Heinlein Society|access-date=February 26, 2019|archive-date=March 18, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190318155828/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/pay-it-forward/|url-status=live}}</ref> published in 1951:

{{blockquote|The banker reached into the folds of his gown, pulled out a single credit note. "But eat first—a full belly steadies the judgment. Do me the honor of accepting this as our welcome to the newcomer."

His pride said no; his stomach said YES! Don took it and said, "Uh, thanks! That's awfully kind of you. I'll pay it back, first chance."

"Instead, pay it forward to some other brother who needs it."}}

He referred to this in a number of other stories, although sometimes just saying to pay a debt back by helping others, as in one of his last works, ''Job, a Comedy of Justice''.

Heinlein was a mentor to [[Ray Bradbury]], giving him help and quite possibly passing on the concept, made famous by the publication of a letter from him to Heinlein thanking him.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazingly-touching-1976-letter-from-ray-bradbury-to-rob-5840242|title=Amazingly Touching 1976 Letter from Ray Bradbury to Robert Heinlein: 'Your influence on us all cannot be measured.'|first=Charlie Jane|last=Anders|date=September 14, 2011 |publisher=[[io9]]|access-date=May 22, 2019|archive-date=September 27, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190927051417/https://io9.gizmodo.com/amazingly-touching-1976-letter-from-ray-bradbury-to-rob-5840242|url-status=live}}</ref> In Bradbury's novel ''[[Dandelion Wine]]'', published in 1957, when the main character Douglas Spaulding is reflecting on his life being saved by Mr. Jonas, the Junkman:

{{blockquote|How do I thank Mr. Jonas, he wondered, for what he's done? How do I thank him, how pay him back? No way, no way at all. You just can't pay. What then? What? Pass it on somehow, he thought, pass it on to someone else. Keep the chain moving. Look around, find someone, and pass it on. That was the only way…}}

Bradbury has also advised that writers he has helped thank him by helping other writers.<ref>{{Cite news |url= https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/interview-jonathan-maberry|title=Writers Helping Writers: Interview With Jonathan Maberry|last=Moss|first=Tyler|date=August 26, 2016|website=Writer's Digest|language=en-US|access-date=September 5, 2019 |archive-date=September 5, 2019|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20190905151904/https://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/interview-jonathan-maberry|url-status=live}}</ref>

Heinlein both preached and practiced this philosophy; now the [[#Heinlein Society|Heinlein Society]], a humanitarian organization founded in his name, does so, attributing the philosophy to its various efforts, including Heinlein for Heroes, the Heinlein Society Scholarship Program, and Heinlein Society blood drives.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.heinleinsociety.org/pay-it-forward/|title=Pay It Forward |publisher=The Heinlein Society|access-date=November 26, 2017 |archive-date=December 22, 2017|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20171222055640/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/pay-it-forward/|url-status=live}}</ref> Author Spider Robinson made repeated reference to the doctrine, attributing it to his spiritual mentor Heinlein.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.heinleinsociety.org/CentennialReader/heinleinsociety.html |title= Centennial reader |publisher=Heinlein society |access-date= November 26, 2017|archive-date=September 24, 2015 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150924025543/http://www.heinleinsociety.org/CentennialReader/heinleinsociety.html|url-status= dead}}</ref>