Aha.
Well... I actually read a bit of Troopers a day back to see if I could refresh mmy memory on this.
OK. In Stranger in a Strane Land, the basic tenet being preached (and Heinlein is never less than preachy in this most talk-y of his works!) seems to be the Crowleyian 'do what you will shall be the whole of the law'. In the form of Harshaw, Heinlein also seems to be advocating questioning all the deepky held beliefs of your culture, Western culture in this case, but if it was something Heinlein really held to, it ought to apply in any context. However, it certainly doesn't seem to apply in Starship Troopers where the basis of the conflict is never examined or questioned. The war is on, and it's each citizen's responsibility to help defeat the bugs. There is a specific chapter about a training class that I want to re-read before getting into this further, though.
One more point - although Stranger would appear to be place a lot of importance on the individual, there's very little thought given to simply disintegrating Smith's enemies. Just as, in Double Star, when the actor gives up his own personality, little thought is given to the fact that maybe his original self had some worth too. I believe that Heinlein was more intersted in idividualism as a way to cease power for himself, or his analogues in fiction, than as a real attempt to give dignity and importance to all human life.
