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In reply to the discussion: The Origins of "Grok." [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(104,172 posts)3. Heinlein became libertarian, even if he still had some compassion. The Wikipedia article has a section
which pretty much allows anyone to apply any meaning to 'grok' as long as it includes "completely understand":
Descriptions in Stranger in a Strange Land
Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 "uncut" edition of Stranger, the word grok "was used first without any explicit definition on page 22" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original).[3] He notes that this first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'".[3] Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:
Critic David E. Wright Sr. points out that in the 1991 "uncut" edition of Stranger, the word grok "was used first without any explicit definition on page 22" and continued to be used without being explicitly defined until page 253 (emphasis in original).[3] He notes that this first intensional definition is simply "to drink", but that this is only a metaphor "much as English 'I see' often means the same as 'I understand'".[3] Critics have bridged this absence of explicit definition by citing passages from Stranger that illustrate the term. A selection of these passages follows:
Grok means "to understand", of course, but Dr. Mahmoud, who might be termed the leading Terran expert on Martians, explains that it also means, "to drink" and "a hundred other English words, words which we think of as antithetical concepts. 'Grok' means all of these. It means 'fear', it means 'love', it means 'hate' proper hate, for by the Martian 'map' you cannot hate anything unless you grok it, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you then you can hate it. By hating yourself. But this implies that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate and (I think) Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called mild distaste.[4]
Grok means "identically equal". The human cliché "This hurts me worse than it does you" has a distinctly Martian flavor. The Martian seems to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that observer acts with observed through the process of observation. Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science and it means as little to us as color does to a blind man.[4][5]
The Martian Race had encountered the people of the fifth planet, grokked them completely, and had taken action; asteroid ruins were all that remained, save that the Martians continued to praise and cherish the people they had destroyed.[4]
All that groks is God.[6]
Heinlein's politics:
In truth, Heinleins shift to the right took place over a decade, from 1948 to 1957. In the early 1950s, the Heinleins travelled around the world. The writer was already a Malthusian and a eugenicist, but the trip greatly exacerbated his demographic despair and xenophobia. The real problem of the Far East is not that so many of them are communists, but simply that there are so many of them, he wrote in a 1954 travel book (posthumously published in 1992). Even space travel, Heinlein concluded, wouldnt be able to open enough room to get rid of them. Heinlein treated overpopulation as a personal affront.
Heinlein had caught a bad case of the Cold War jitters in the late 1940s. He accused liberal Democratic friends, notably the director Fritz Lang, of being Stalinist stooges. With Heinlein's great talent for extrapolation, every East-West standoff seemed like the end of the world. I do not think we have better than an even chance of living, as a nation, through the next five years, he wrote an editor in 1957. The USSR's Sputnik launch in 1957 and Eisenhowers moves toward a nuclear test ban the following year both unhinged Heinlein, who called Ike a slimy faker. By 1961 Heinlein concluded that even though it was a fascist organization, the John Birch Society was preferable to liberals and moderate conservatives.
The turning point came in 1957. After that year, Heinlein's books were no longer progressive explorations of the future but hectoring diatribes lamenting the decadence of modernity. A recurring character in these booksvariously named Hugh Farnham, Jubal Harshaw or Lazarus Longis a crusty older man who's a wellspring of wisdom. Daddy, you have an annoying habit of being right, runs an actual bit of dialogue from Farnhams Freehold (1964). In the worst of Heinlein's later books, daddy not only knows best, he often knows everything.
Only on the issue of sex did Heinlein remain faithful to the radicalism of his youth, with some of his late books portraying a future where bisexuality is the norm. Yet even on sex, late-period Heinlein is an untrustworthy guide. Many readers have been disturbed by the pro-incest arguments found in such books as Farnhams Freehold, Time Enough For Love (1973), and To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987). Perhaps the best that can be said on Heinleins behalf is that incest served as an objective correlative to his libertarianism and solipsism. What better way of being an independent free agent than by sleeping with your closest kin
https://newrepublic.com/article/118048/william-pattersons-robert-heinlein-biography-hagiography
Heinlein had caught a bad case of the Cold War jitters in the late 1940s. He accused liberal Democratic friends, notably the director Fritz Lang, of being Stalinist stooges. With Heinlein's great talent for extrapolation, every East-West standoff seemed like the end of the world. I do not think we have better than an even chance of living, as a nation, through the next five years, he wrote an editor in 1957. The USSR's Sputnik launch in 1957 and Eisenhowers moves toward a nuclear test ban the following year both unhinged Heinlein, who called Ike a slimy faker. By 1961 Heinlein concluded that even though it was a fascist organization, the John Birch Society was preferable to liberals and moderate conservatives.
The turning point came in 1957. After that year, Heinlein's books were no longer progressive explorations of the future but hectoring diatribes lamenting the decadence of modernity. A recurring character in these booksvariously named Hugh Farnham, Jubal Harshaw or Lazarus Longis a crusty older man who's a wellspring of wisdom. Daddy, you have an annoying habit of being right, runs an actual bit of dialogue from Farnhams Freehold (1964). In the worst of Heinlein's later books, daddy not only knows best, he often knows everything.
Only on the issue of sex did Heinlein remain faithful to the radicalism of his youth, with some of his late books portraying a future where bisexuality is the norm. Yet even on sex, late-period Heinlein is an untrustworthy guide. Many readers have been disturbed by the pro-incest arguments found in such books as Farnhams Freehold, Time Enough For Love (1973), and To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987). Perhaps the best that can be said on Heinleins behalf is that incest served as an objective correlative to his libertarianism and solipsism. What better way of being an independent free agent than by sleeping with your closest kin
https://newrepublic.com/article/118048/william-pattersons-robert-heinlein-biography-hagiography
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I'd guess it was assigned reading. I was at the U in the mid 60s. A lot of profs thought Heinlein
erronis
Friday
#28
Heinlein became libertarian, even if he still had some compassion. The Wikipedia article has a section
muriel_volestrangler
Friday
#3
Thanks for the link. The writer is pretty balanced but is harsh on Heinlein's flaws, as he should be.
Bernardo de La Paz
Friday
#9
What was so wonderful about Asimov is that he wrote a wide variety of topics both in fiction and nonfiction.
HeartsCanHope
Friday
#20
My background is in library science. Asimov was able to reach his readers at their level.
HeartsCanHope
Friday
#26
I think what you're describing is the difference between science fiction, and science fantasy.
erronis
Friday
#31
I like your viewpoint. And as you said, it depends on where we are in our intellectual development.
erronis
Friday
#61
I rate it in the middle part of his works, above average. But he has lots better.
Bernardo de La Paz
Friday
#14
That sounds about right. I had scifi writers I liked a lot better than Heinlein.
MineralMan
Friday
#22
I think Heinlein is the most American of all SF writers and the best story teller too. Others are more lyrical
Bernardo de La Paz
Friday
#30
...and, Grok is powered by the largest AI supercomputer in the world, Colossus.
LudwigPastorius
Friday
#11
Musk has a childish (in good and bad senses) fascination with the Red Planet
Bernardo de La Paz
Friday
#19
Pournelle has politics many here do not like. He wrote good hard science SF but has PhD in Political Science. . . . . nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Friday
#32
He was very intelligent and could be very nice and helpful. But he tended to be wrong on politics,
highplainsdem
Friday
#57
"Uncensored version"? Do tell -- I read the first paperback as a teenager mid-60s. What's the history?
Hekate
Friday
#59
Huge Heinlein fan. Although his political leanings were obvious in his fiction early on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress etc
Noodleboy13
Friday
#36
My exposure to Heinlein is all through XMas gifts from my uncle. Who was head of polisci at creighton in omaha.
Noodleboy13
Friday
#70
I have a relative who's changed political views based on her husbands' views. Always struck me as
highplainsdem
Friday
#48
Musk has referenced other SF writers as well, and IMO never really understood them.
highplainsdem
Friday
#46