For what it's worth, Soviet intelligence did infiltrate large parts of American society during the Cold War [1]. This historical fact is often obscured by accounts of McCarthyism and the Red Scare. While McCarthy was a liar and an alcoholic with little to no knowledge of actual Soviet spy networks, the networks did in fact exist.
[0] https://www.azquotes.com/author/6509-Robert_A_Heinlein/tag/r...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_espionage_in_the_United...
Heinlein has explicitly said that Stranger in a Strange Land was not an effort to convince people to live in any particular way.
>“I was not giving answers. I was trying to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines. In consequence, each reader gets something different out of that book because he himself supplies the answers... It is an invitation to think -- not to believe.”
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/l...
Advocating that people should be willing to reconsider their deeply held cultural beliefs was a major theme in Heinlein's later works.
See also: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
That said, i've only read a few of his more famous novels.
Every zealous over-reaction is typically grounded in some small truth. If it was totally separate from reality it would be much easier to fight; the kernel of truth is what makes extremism dangerous.
He’s very much a produce a very different time, and that’s what makes him so interestin.
Like there's a lot i disagree with about the views expressed in his novels, but social conservatism is not something i would accuse him of.
I’m thinking of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It had group marriages, but the marriage practices were ordained by custom and tradition. Not 20th century custom and tradition, but custom and tradition none the less.
Which stood out to me as first and foremost being shockingly mysogynistic, but also i guess is pretty strongly pro traditional gender roles.
At the same time though, the female lead is a political agitator/rebel, which is quite far removed from what i would consider traditional gender roles.
In any case though, i think when people talk about someone being socially conservative, they mean more in the context of contemporary practise. Like moon is harsh mistress may have practises deemed "traditional" in universe to the characters, but as a work, its setup as a commentary on contemporary norms, so its still arguing for change as a work, even if its not doing so explicitly in the text by the characters.
There is no such scene in that book.
In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, any man who laid a finger on a woman uninvited would find himself on the wrong side of an airlock without a suit.
> She was gorgeous. When she undulated down a corridor, boys followed in swarms.
> She started to learn farming from Greg but Mum put stop to that. While she was big and smart and willing, our farm is mostly a male operation--and Greg and Hans were not only male members of our family distracted; she cost more farming man-hours than her industry equaled. So Wyoh went back to housework, then Sidris took her into beauty shop as helper.
Its not precisely as i remember it, but i think its still strongly suggestive that some things are "woman's work"
> In The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, any man who laid a finger on a woman uninvited would find himself on the wrong side of an airlock without a suit.
I didn't mean distracting in the sense she was going to be sexually assualted, but on that score, despite what the characters claim in the book, the society depicted seems to have a very questionable definition of what consent means and ignores issues of coercion.
Sorry, but you seem to have very little notion of Heinlein's works, except for a burning desire to be offended by them, despite your unfamiliarity.
> despite your unfamiliarity
You literally just told me a specific scene didn't exist, despite the fact it clearly does as evidenced by me finding it again and quoting it at you. Perhaps i'm not the one who needs to re-read this novel.
I don't think so - yes he has this weird trope where most of his female characters after meeting the main male char want to settle down and become a home maker for unclear reasons, but prior to that point in the book typically the female characters are very independent and competent in roles that are not traditional gender roles.
Not in any stereotypical sense. Pigeonholes—whether of the 1950s or today—don’t capture him well.
I never saw much in the way of social conservatism in his writing (the religious right would probably be horrified by some of his work), but he was clearly opposed to collectivism.
You can drop the probably.
Stranger in a Strange Land explicitly points out things like the Christian ritual of communion being ritualized cannibalism, for example.