Talk:Sixth Column

POV
This article needs NPOV revision - at the moment, there is a strong element of defending the book against charges of racism The Anome

From the article:


 * However, any hatred directed at the invaders seems to be a response to their activities rather than their race. For example, they crushed an abortive rebellion by killing 150,000 American civilians as punishment. Also, in the end, Major Ardmore permits the invaders all to return to their home overseas without retribution -- hardly the act of a racist. It's more likely that the Pan-Asians are the racists, based on their justification of enslaving subject nations of their empire.

This is an argument defending characters in a book against racism - not sure how this plays in the NPOV stakes.

I (clarka) pulled this paragraph because it's untrue. Heinlein did his homework on Asiatic cultures and pulled together strong common themes.


 * Although the Panasian invaders are specified in the novel as not being Japanese, some of their characteristics are bound to provoke just such an association, particularly to readers in the World War II era. The book emphasizes the idea of "face" among the colonial forces and their resort to "honorable suicide" after losing face; the use of brush writing; the elimination of the written native language in the occupied territory, as Japan did when it colonized Korea from 1910-1945; and so on.

Date of publication
The Robert A. Heinlein article claims the publication date of this novel is 1949, however this article says 1948. Obviously these two references need to be consistified by someone who knows. -- Ellmist


 * My paperback copy says: "Copyright &copy; 1949 by Robert A. Heinlein. Reprinted from Astounding Science Fiction, &copy; 1941 by Street and Smith Publications Inc." --Brion 06:06 Mar 31, 2003 (UTC)


 * I think it was originally published as a serial and then later collected into a novel and have added this info to the page. &mdash;Lowellian (talk) 11:40, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * There is no way this could have been written in 1941 if it began serialization in January 1941. I have changed "written" to "serialized" in the "Portrayal of racism" section. 173.61.139.203 (talk) 05:22, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Fifth Column
Is the title an allusion to Fifth Column (disambiguation)?

Yes, it is such an allusion. The idea is of these characters as a response to them, I think.


 * I haven't read the book for many years, but if my memory's right, there's a passage early in the book explaining that a fifth column consists of enemy agents working against the invaded nation while this is an organization of patriots working to overthrow the invaders, making them a sixth column not a fifth. JDZeff (talk) 18:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I know of an off-site review of this page at http://srehn.com/books/rh_sixthcolumn.html but I feel it would be dishonest for me to link to it because it's on my site.

If anybody else feels it's appropriate to put that link there, do so, but I won't.


 * Self-published reviews like that generally aren't linked from Wikipedia. If you ever get it published somewhere besides your own web site, feel free to bring it up again. IPSOS (talk) 04:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Racist Text Edits?
I don't have access to my copies of the book, but I've been discussing it with friends, and I suspect that some of the most racist text may have been removed from later editions (just as later editions of The Story of Doctor Dolittle are universally expurgated).

Specifically, after Japanese-American Frank Mitsui is coagulated to death while saving the heroes from the mad Calhoun, one of them says as a tribute: "He may have been a yellow man, but he was white inside".

That line is apparently missing from later editions. I realize that this is original research, and therefore shouldn't be added to the main article, but it's a point that I thought deserves some future examination.

It also has always struck me as an (unintentionally?) macabre line, since the coagulated Mitsui was (in my recollection) compared to a hard-boiled egg - which is, of course, white inside (albeit with a yellow center). PMaranci 14:54, 20 August 2007 (UTC)


 * But any future examination will need references, so someone would need to find an original edition. &mdash; Val42 04:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Actually, wouldn't looking it up in the original edition be considered original research? To discuss a work of art, wouldn't we need to reference secondary sources instead of the work itself? Applejuicefool (talk) 20:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Seeing if the line is in the original but not in subsequent editions would be something that anyone could do. I don't think that this would be original research. &mdash; Val42 (talk) 05:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a paperback copy from 1949 that does not include that line. 184.250.17.216 (talk) 01:24, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Cuts if any would have been made to the original Astounding serial (1941). Usually though the book version is an expansion of the serial, and/or restoration of text cut for length in the magazine. In a country invaded by Asians, to not have common racial epithets would be absurd, despite how they appear now. 202.81.249.14 (talk) 08:20, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Watchmen link?
There is a scene in the Watchmen movie (and quite possibly the graphic novel, I haven't read that yet so perhaps someone else could comment) which reminds me strongly of a scene in this novel.

The scene that made me wonder is the one wherein a giant-sized Doctor Manhattan is walking through rice paddies in Vietnam exploding bad guys with the power of his mind. In the book, suppression of the surface tension in the cells of bad guys' bodies makes the cells' internal pressure cause them to explode. This is used in conjunction with holograms of a giant, heroic figure to strike terror into the hearts of the enemy... who are Pan-Asian.

The similarities are striking enough to make me wonder. Is this just my imagination?

Racism re-edit
I took out everything dealing with suppositions of racism or not hinging on book references; that is OR. Having just read the book, the later "race-base" comes from adjusting to resonating frequencies of hemoglobin (because every race has its own), but there was no claim made as to minorities, etc., initially - the Ledbetter effect also spared the mice and rats because it was oscillating across the "human" spectrum. Mitsui's wife, by the way, could very well have been Mexican (it being California), because the book says "brown children", not "black" as the article here states. There's very little in the way of race explicitly stated other than that the PanAsians are basically within their racial stereotypes, but are not Chinese or Japanese.

My point here is not whether something differs in relation to a particular edition, or what the text says, but more the fact that this is a story, and that presuming author intention through a work of fiction when the author has not indicated that intent (New Criticism, anyone?) is very definitely OR and not appropriate for an encyclopedic article (synthesis, speculation, and primary source are all involved - pick one). Thus, I have removed everything cited from the book in the racism section and any points depending on it. MSJapan (talk) 21:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Jack London connection?
Maybe the original inspiration for the ethnic bio-weapon came from the 1910 Jack London short story The Unparalleled Invasion The_Unparalleled_Invasion where the Western Powers eradicate China with biological weapons.

Leridan (talk) 09:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Unlikely.
 * http://books.google.com/books?id=IxafmqhrjMEC&lpg=PA98&dq=sixth%20column%201940%20heinlein&pg=PA98#v=onepage&q=sixth%20column%201940%20heinlein&f=false
 * 173.61.139.203 (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
 * 173.61.139.203 (talk) 05:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Elephant in the room?
In all the discussion concerning racism, there is one topic conspicuous by its absence - from both the book and the discussion. Where is the "black" or African-American element of the American population? The book seems to have two ethnic elements - White and Asian (Panasian or Asian American - Mitsui & family). The entire scientific basis of weaponry as per the book is based on differentiating between whites and Asians. The history as used for background refers to actual realpolitik between China, the Soviets and India leading to war with the United States. Realpolitik would also need to account for any change in the makeup of the United States - specifically why the United States is now all white with some Asians who are being eliminated by the Panasians. In the final war episodes, the troops are told to shoot anything that moves - they can't hurt a white man, but it is death to all Asians. That being the case, it is odd that there is no mention anywhere in the book of the African-American population of the United States - it is as if they do not exist. And that, to my mind, is the real issue of racism in the book - the elephant in the room no-one mentions. Ptilinopus (talk) 23:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

"unpublishable"
The word "unpublishable" was used twice in the article. I changed the first instance to "unpublished" but left the second -- BUT would ask: WHO says it was "unpublishable"? Seems to me that this is a POV word -- shouldn't it be sourced? If it was Heinlein, himself, say, writing about it in one of his commentaries somewhere, shouldn't that be noted? Hayford Peirce (talk) 18:16, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Second meaning (political)
Aleksandr Dugin describes or better said defines the general political meaning of the 6th column: "the fifth column which just pretends to be something different" (29 April 2014). See: Aleksandr_Dugin So, shouldn't there be another article about this or an additional chapter in this article? Mirriam shares this definition: 6th Column  Manorainjan  08:06, 10 July 2023 (UTC)