One of my weaknesses as a reader is my love for old friends and the preference for their company over that of unknown, potential friends. The Dune series has become such a friend during the last decade. Frank Herbert's stunning ability to mix all things social, political, religious, ecological and philosophical with a classic, expanding narrative is deeply engrossing. He's so good that the fact that he writes with an expansive, explicit agenda is often obscured by the depth and richness of the story. Of course, any powerful writer is likely to have an agenda of some sort or other, but Frank Herbert's agenda seems far broader and more educational than most. At the same time, he avoids the commonly used device of allegory to communicate his beliefs, and he escapes becoming preachy. Instead, he weaves something new. Below are some tidbits on various topics: several are on law and governing, one on the use of technology, and others on learning, dreaming, and atrocities. Each is worth thought and not simply acceptance or dismissal.
Heretics of Dune
Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?
God Emperor of Dune
In the perception of deeper needs, I must often ignore immediate ones. Not addressing immediate needs is an offense to the young.
It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.
The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines.
The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer.
If there is a frontier, any kind of frontier, then what lies behind you cannot be more important than what lies ahead.
Children of Dune
Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating argument. [...] Atrocity merely arms the future for more atrocity.
Dune Messiah
To come under siege, he decided, was the inevitable fate of power.
Dune
It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult.
What do you despise? By this you are truly known.
