The Prescience of Dune
Dune's vision of our human future is probably more accurate than most other Sci-Fi
The new Denis Villeneuve Dune films are quite the rage, and rightly so. They are very good, minor quibbles aside, because they drop you into the Dune universe and immerse you therein without much exposition. This lets the viewer appreciate Dune with some intensity. I watched the new Dune: Part Two twice in the theatre, something that I almost never ever do for any movie.
The two movies that have been made so far are both based on author Frank Herbert’s first book, titled Dune. I have always been an avid fan of the Dune series because I think it is more prescient than most science fiction. If one compared Dune to Star Wars, for example, one would notice a difference in how the two series each approach the future. While Star Wars is basically 1970s America in space, Dune carefully considers the implications of current technological and social trends for the future. In that sense, I find Dune to be especially prescient about the future. The following is a partial list of how this is the case.
Butlerian Jihad: Technology without AI
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
“‘Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’” Paul quoted.
“Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible,” she said. “But what the O.C. Bible should’ve said is: ‘Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.’” -Dune by Frank Herbert
At the heart of the backstore of Dune is the event known as the Butlerian Jihad, a war waged in the distant past against “thinking machines.” This leads to a universe without computers or AI, but not one necessarily devoid of mechanical technology. In place of computers, some humans are trained mentats to take their place. Some argue that technological and cultural changes are inevitable and cannot be reversed or prevented, but a lot of human cultural life revolves around the notion of taboos. Taboos—for example, the prohibition of the consumption of pork by some religions—may become norms if communities believe in and enforce the taboos. Therefore, it is not implausible for taboos to form against things that are plausibly useful in some ways and harmful in other ways. Every culture has its own taboos. It would be plausible for a taboo to develop in the future against AI as its effects are considered.
Regardless of whether it does or does not, Dune is interesting in anticipating some of the contemporary debates over social media, smartphones, the internet, and artificiation intelligence. In the past twenty years, computers, phones, the internet, and now AI have become deeply embedded in the daily lives of most humans throughout the world, even in poorer countries. It is no longer clear if these technologies are an absolute good, and we are still discovering how they may alter societies and individual behavior. As such, it is worth exploring alternatives to an internet-based society in fiction, whether as a thought-exercise or as a mine for potential future policies.
Non-Western Future
Something like 15 percent of the current global population lives in the West: Europe—minus Russia—and its offshoots in the Americas and Oceania. Only three countries have put people into space—USSR, U.S., and China—whilst India is aiming to do so this year. The center of world affairs is rapidly moving away from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. It is highly likely then that the future of humanity in space would reflect world demographics and cultural values more accurately than what some science-fiction would have you believe. Dune shows this alternative future with many non-Western elements, particularly with its strong Islamic influences on Arrakis. Other elements of culture in Dune are derived from Indian and Chinese civilizations, among others. Dune does not assume that the future will be built on Western culture by default. The values of societies in the Dune universe, their artistic traditions, monastic entities, guilds, art, and cuisine, all demonstrate influences from multiple Earthly sources.
Religion
Religion, or at least the tendency toward worship, belief, and magical thinking is unlikely to disappear in the future, innate as it is to the human experience. Science fiction that shows the future as throughly secualized and irreligious in unlikely to be accurate. What is more likely, however, is the continuing evolution and adaptation of religiosity in a future setting. Dune, again, accounts for the survival of religion in the future, and even envisions some interesting future syncretism, such as Buddhislam and Mahayana Christianity.
I am not sure if the religions of the future will so closely resemble present day ones, or be derived from them, but the future is unpredictable. More likely, I think that a human civilization spread across multiple planets and solar systems will have religious built on a reconceptualization of many spiritual concepts that are currently Earth-centric. The imagery and language of these new religions may shift from things such as gardens and mountains to stars, galaxies, black holes, and such. Space, its magnitude, its solitude, and its weird phenomenon, is as likely as any earth-based experience to inspire awe and spiritual experiences, not to mention the experience of living on new planets radically different than the Earth.
Nonetheless, religion’s survival in the future is likely, but not often accounted for in much of science fiction, which assumes greater irreligiosity linked to the present-day scientific worldview. In fact, religiosity and the often strict ethical codes linked with that phenomenon are more likely to increase in survival environments—as the first colonies in space are likely to be—where group cohesion, obedience to rules, and discipline are keys to survival.
Neo-Feudalism
The Dune universe is feudalistic. This may seem like an implausible turn back to the Middle Ages, but the direction that the world is going may lend itself to some sort of neo-feudalism. In an increasingly complex world, more and more decisions are made by experts or technocrats, while the influence of ordinary people to influence the shape and direction of society by means of political participation in the democratic process is weakening. Yet, throughout much of history, people were able to make their voices heard through the court of public opinion, in the forums and markets, at religious festivals, and so on. Our present-day internet and social media is like that, but that lends itself to the voices of many being channeled by a few with massive followings.
In the sphere of politics—many decisions today are made by large corporations or world leaders who run their entities like fiefs. Power flows through patronage networks, whether in Silicon Valley or in Russia. In some cases, power literally flow through the bloodline of a family, such as in the Gulf region (i.e. Saudi Arabia), or in many companies, particularly those that are structured like the chaebol model of South Korea. It may be—contrary to the common belief of the decline of the institution of family—that in an increasingly uncertain and swiftly-changing world, where people are no longer stay within their communities of birth for life, where relationships are increasingly ephemeral, that blood ties will in fact be reinforced. This is because one can always fall back on these ties, and trust one’s children, siblings, and parents throughout a lifetime, whereas other relationships come and go. The family is one of the single-most persistent institutions of human society, and it has seen religions, kingdoms, republics, and much else come and go. It would not be surprising if it persisted as an organizing principle into the future, even for politics.
Ecology
Dune is well-known for its emphasis on ecology, being a pioneering work in the use of ecological insights in fiction. Today, ecology is widely studied and accepted: the notion that organisms are impacted and interconnected with each other and their environment. This is a subject that has been much covered, so I will only add here that a lot of early science fiction mostly focused on technology, engineering, and the mechanics of traveling through space, and less on the difficulties of living on planets with vastly different biomes than Earth. Dune’s Arrakis isn’t so wild that it isn’t comparable to the Sahara Desert on Earth, but Frank Herbert clearly put a lot of thought and effort into seeing the environment of Arrakis as a system and into understanding the impact of the environment on the culture and society of the people who lived there.