Public Administration through the Lens of Frank Herbert’s “Dune” Series
By
Patricia Bunker
Culture of Formal Work Organizations
PADM 9070 Fall 2013
November 25, 2013
Dr. Lee Allen
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“Bureaucracy develops the more perfectly, the more it is “dehumanized,” the more completely it
succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all the purely personal, irrational
and emotional elements which escape calculation.”
Max Weber (Farmer,2005,177)
Introduction
David John Farmer opens Chapter 17 of his book, “To Kill The King: Post-Traditional
Governance and Bureaucracy”, with the above quote from Max Weber. I chose this quote to
open this essay on public administrative truths as seen in Frank Herbert’s Dune series because, to
me, the politics and policies of Dune, Children of Dune, and Dune Messiah, can be seen both in
reference to Max Weber’s philosophy and as the antithesis of Weber’s philosophy. Accordingly,
this essay will examine each of Weber’s main principles in the light of the political realm and
bureaucracy of the planet Arrakis and the empire to which it belongs. In addition, the societal
structure of the Dune worlds will also be examined in relationship to Herbert Simon’s “proverbs
of administration” (Simon, 53) and Woodrow Wilson’s timeless essay on administration from
November, 1886 will be reviewed because of its pertinence to American public administration
and comparisons will also be drawn between the philosophy of Weber and of his predecessor,
Georg Hegel. Lastly, Friedrich Nietzche’s influence on Herbert’s novels will be examined.
The Imperium
In order to understand the bureaucracy of Dune, it is helpful to first look at the structure of the
empire itself. At the top of the bureaucratic pyramid (Figure 1) sat House Corrino, the Imperial
House. Ruled by House Corrino, the most prominent houses in the novel were the House
Atreides which was the house of Duke Leto I; his wife, Bene-Gesserit Jessica; his son, Paul, and
daughter Alia; and grandchildren, Leto II and Ghanima; the House Harkonnen with primary
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characters Baron Vladimar Harkonnen and his nephew, Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen; and the House
Fenring, with primary characters Baron Hasimir Fenring and his wife, Bene-Gesserit Lady
Margot Fenring.
In between the Imperial House, ruled by Padishah Shaddam Corrino IV, and the other
houses, sat the Landsraad, a council of the ruling houses. While all houses held seats in the
Landsraad, the House Corrino held controlling voting interest. Also important to note were the
Sardukar, the military force of the House Corrino. The Sardukar were of such overwhelming
strength that they were a source of power and control for House Corrino.
House Corrino
CHOAM
Space Guild
Gild
Sardukar
Landsraad
House Altreides
House Fenring
Fremen
Figure 1
House Harkonnen
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Faufreluches
In “Terminology of the Imperium”, an appendix to the original Dune, Herbert defines the
term “faufreluches” as “the rigid rule of class distinction enforced by the Imperium. ‘A place for
every man and every man in his place’ (Herbert, 1965, 501). This clear definition is important in
an effort to understand the politics of the Dune empire because it sets the standards for a society
that has returned, after the Butlerian Jihad, to a feudal society where rank and privilege comes as
a birthright and where women, including the highly trained Bene Gesserit, have little value.
Sons follow in the footsteps of their fathers and status is determined by birth, not ability. Jessica
succinctly states this during a conversation with Thufir when she says, “Humans live best when
each has his own place, when each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things” (Herbert,
1965, 150). Despite her advanced Bene Gesserit training, Jessica understood her place as consort
to the Duke. She might not have emotionally accepted it but she knew it logically and lived
within that structure. DiTomasso, in discussing the “tyranny of oversimplification”, points out
that this structure is so rigid that even those houses or groups with highly developed security and
intelligence agents seem to have little knowledge of the other groups (DiTomasso, 314).
Hierarchical Structure
Weber stressed a formal hierarchical structure. His ideal was a top down approach where
control stemmed from the top and came down through a pyramidal structure with each level
reporting and accountable to the level directly above them. Roles would be clearly defined by a
set of rules and laws and the responsibility of public administrators would be to enforce those
rules and laws (Aschner; Johnston; Pfiffner; Samier). In discussing this hierarchical structure,
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Aschner cites Weber, stating, “if this relationship is to survive, ‘those who are ruled over must
always acquiesce in the authority that is claimed by the rulers of the day.’” (145).
Herbert portrays this acquiescence throughout Dune. Jessica and the other Bene-Gesserit
Ladies acquiesce to their leadership, accepting their positions as consorts; accepting, as Jessica
did, the rule of their order even though they knew that it meant sorrow in their personal live;
accepting the test of the gom-jabbar, even though she knew there was a possibility that it might
bring about the death of her beloved son (Herbert, 1965,5-10). Jessica herself acknowledges her
conditioning to the acceptance of these rules. When Paul has defeated Jamis and Jessica senses
Paul’s infatuation with Chani, she thinks to herself, “One of these desert women would not do as
a wife to a Duke…I can think of the marital needs of royalty without once weighing my own
concubinage” (Herbert, 1965,302).
The Fremen acquiesce to the rule of their order, with the spoils of a confrontation
belonging to the victor. Paul defeats Jamis and is told by Chani that “Combat water belongs to
the winner” (Herbert, 1965, 302). While Paul’s first inclination is to refuse, Jessica realizes that,
on Arrakis, water is power and power is of utmost importance.
Indeed, there would be no Dune at all without the acquiescence of Paul’s father, Duke
Leto I, to the power of the Imperium. It is the Imperium that orders Leto to Arrakis. Notices
posted across Arrakis read “Our Sublime Padishah Emperor has charged me to take possession
of this planet and end all dispute” (Herbert, 1965, 77). While Leto did as he was ordered, he was
filled with rage that this move had almost cost him the life of his son. The emperor himself had
no respect for the people of Arrakis. In a note to Leto, he referred to them as “barbarians whose
dearest dream is to live outside the ordered security of the faufreluches” (78). For, while the
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Fremen honored their own system of laws and rules, they wished nothing more than freedom
from the hierarchy of the Empire.
However, Herbert is also aware of the problems that can arise from hierarchy. As we
move from Dune into Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, we watch the disintegration of the
society as more and more corruption seeps in. A chapter in Children of Dune begins with a
quote from Politics as Repeat Phenomenon:Bene Gesserit Training Manual:
“Governments, if the endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms,
No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the
aristrocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the
interests of the ruling class-whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of
financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.” (Herbert, 1981,190).
The plot of Children of Dune revolves around the corruption of Paul’s sister Alia and the
rise to power of Paul’s son, Leto II. In Alia, Herbert had a ruler who ruled with one interest only
– that which benefited her own goals. By this point in the series, the Atreides family was not
only hereditary royalty, but also oligarchs of financial empires with ruling interest in CHOAM
and control over the Dune universe. The rise to power of Leto II brought an end to Alia’s
corruption but led to a domination that promised to change the entire universe (Herbert, 1981).
Freedom
While Weber recognized the importance of hierarchy and structure, he also understood
the restrictions that structure placed on human freedoms. David John Farmer quotes Weber in
Chapter 3 of To Kill the King (Farmer, 2005, 33).
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“The great question is. . . what can we oppose to this machinery in order to keep a portion
of mankind free from this parceling-out of the soul, from this supreme mastery of the
bureaucratic way of life.”
In both To Kill the King and Tijsterman and Overeem’s essay “Escaping the Iron Cage: Weber
and Hegel on Bureaucracy and Freedom”, we find mention of the differences between Hegel and
Weber on this topic of freedom. While Hegel saw freedom as a key element of his philosophy,
Weber saw freedom as how it related to the rule of law. He accepted concepts such as economic
freedom to control private property and freedom that was derived from constitutional law and
regulations yet, at the same time, believed that freedom stemmed from personal choice and
decisions (Tijsterman, 2008,76). Scott Gale and Ralph Hummel, on the other hand saw not
contrasts between Hegel and Weber, but an “echoing Hegel’s explicit thought, if not word for
word then issue by issue and point by point (409) of Hegel in Weber’s works.
Herbert portrays Weber’s views on personal choice throughout Dune and its sequels.
Duke Leto I made personal choices. Princess Irulan comments, “…Or is it possible he
deliberately sacrificed himself that his son might find a better life?” (Herbert, 1965, 77). Jessica
made a personal choice to train her son in the ways of the Bene-Gesserit, thus paving the way for
him to become the Kwisatz Haderach, the male Bene Gesserit who would be able to see both the
past and the future. Paul made the choice to become the “Maud’Dib”, the savior whom his
people sought, not because it was what he would personally have chosen for his life but to try
and save his people from a fate that only he could see – a decision that ultimately destroyed him.
In an essay entitled “Just What Do You Do with the Entire Human Race Anyway?”, Greg
Littmann examines this problem as Paul, Alia, and Leto II were faced with it (Nicholas, 2011,
103-119). Littmann questions why, along with other characters such as Baron Harkoness, all are
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so attracted to power and how that attraction affects their personal decisions. Littmann looks at
the issue through the eyes of philosophers like Socrates and Aristotle but could have just as well
examined this question in light of Weber’s philosophy. Baron Harkoness made his choices
based only on what he thought would bring him more power and wealth. He had no regard for
how his decisions affected his subjects. Alia attempted to justify her decisions but was truly
corrupted by power and was eventually driven out of her mind and committed suicide. Paul,
while giving up his life to serve his people, was still an oppressive ruler who fought against the
attempts to set him up as “God” but had little concern for how he impacted the lives around him
on a short term basis. He was driven by a goal of avoiding a future that only he could see. Leto
II gave up even his humanity in an effort to accomplish what his father had not been able to
accomplish. He, too, however, was oppressive and ruled with no real concern for freedom or
democracy and accepted the role of “God” that his father had fought against. Both Leto II and
Paul felt that the ends justified the means, a view that I do not find reflective of Weber’s
philosophy.
Function and Organization
Another universal principle espoused by Weber was that skills or type of work
determined the organizational structure. This principle is reflected in Herbert’s works through
the various societies that formed the Dune empire. In addition to the Houses that were formed by
the nobility, other societies that were important in the novels were the Suk Physicians, the BeneGesserits, the Mentats, the Space Guild, the Choam, the Ixians, and the Sardaukar, and the
Fremen. Each of these societies or organizations was defined by their specific skill or job.
The Suk Physicians were valued not only because of their skills in advanced medicine but
also because of their conditioning that supposedly made it impossible for these physicians to
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harm those they cared for (Herbert, 1965,18). Although Herbert does not give much detail on
the Suk Physicians, it is implied that this society is, like most organizations in Dune, a maledominated field.
The Space Guild represented financial control of the Dune universe. Defined by Herbert
as “one leg of the political tripod maintaining the Great Convention” (503), the Guild controlled
all space travel, all commercial transport, and also banking between the Houses and planets of
the Empire. The “Great Convention” was the set of rules that formed the basis of the truce
between the Guild, the Imperium, and the other Great Houses of the universe. The biggest
weakness of the Space Guild was that they were reliant on mélange. Not only were they
physically addicted to the drug, they relied on the spice to “‘see’ in an unspecified way” (Hand,
1985,25). This need gave House Atreides, who controlled the mélange on Dune, leverage over
the Guild.
Because of the ban on machines that replicated human knowledge, the Mentat society
was developed. This group also followed Weber’s structure of organization by specific skill or
knowledge. Male dominate as were most of the other organizations of Dune, the Mentats filled
the need for logical thought and accurate computational skills not available due to the Orange
Bible’s restriction on machines that replicated the human mind.
The Ixian society filled a need in the Dune organizational construct for mechanical skills.
This society, where sons followed in the footsteps of their fathers, was comprised of those who
excelled in the design and manufacture of machinery. Although held back to some extent by the
restrictions of the Orange Bible, the Ixians still managed to invent incredible machinery,
particularly miniaturizations.
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The Sardaukar were the military arm of the Padishah Emperor. Trained from infancy,
they were a killing machine that used terror to control those whom the Emperor set them against.
They were expert fighters with no moral base and absolute loyalty to the Emperor and, much like
the jihadists of today, were willing to undertake suicide missions for their cause.
The Bene Gesserit was the one organization that was female. These women, who sought
to control their society through a breeding program that they believed would produce a leader
who they could control, were schooled in both mental and physical traits that gave them a
substantial amount of control. In particular, they relied on “Voice”, a training which equipped
them to modulate their voice in such a manner that they were able to control others just through
their voice.
The Fremen were the desert nomads. While subjects of the ruling house on Arrakis, they
maintained their own structure and organization with their own rules and standards for those who
lived as part of their society. At the beginning of the Atreides rule on Arrakis, the Fremen were
the only men who were able to harness and ride the sandworms. As such, they controlled a very
important part of the planet. A patriarchic society, they considered women as primarily
possessions and wives of those who were defeated in contests were awarded to the victors along
with other possessions.
Lastly, the CHOAM or Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, was the
organization that controlled trade in the Empire. Not a standalone organization, CHOAM was a
trifecta of the Emperor and other Great Houses in partnership with the Guild and the Bene
Gesserit. Because it included the Guild who controlled transportation, the Bene Gesserit who
could use Voice to control others, and the Emperor and Great Houses which controlled the other
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resources of the universe, this organization provided a certain balance for the universe as a
whole. However, Paul, in his incarnation as The Preacher, said in a letter to CHOAM,
“What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom
find real loyalties in commerce. . . .Men must want to do things out of their own
innermost drives. People, not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what
make great civilizations work. . . . If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them,
suppress their urge to greatness – they cannot work and their civilization collapses.
(Herbert, 1981,306)
“Law of small number”
Frank Furedi wrote that Weber advocated the “law of small number”, the belief that
public life is always dominated by small networks of people” (Furedi, 126). That certainly held
true in Dune, where the elite ruled and the majority of the populace had little or no choice but to
comply. Weber did not believe that the general populace could effectively lead or govern. He
did have a strong affinity for charismatic leaders. The Dune series certainly contained evidence
of charismatic leaders, beginning with Duke Leto I. The Duke was known as “Leto the Just”.
He was respected by the men who followed him. When he questioned one of his men as to
whether he regretted following him to Arrakis, the man responded “No, Sire. You couldn’t turn
and I could do nought but follow you.” (Herbert, 1965,86).
However, Leto could also be
ruthless, ordering Thufir, his Mentat assassin, to “forge certificates of allegiance” for over 250
Harkonnen loyalists whom the Atreides have eliminated, taking everything away from their
families and making it look legal. And, while Leto seems to love his people, he takes them,
including his beloved Jessica and son Paul, to a world that he knows in his heart is dangerous
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and will destroy any quality of life that they have, in order to further the cause of his family and
the Atreides name
Paul Atreides, later Maud’Dib, also became a charismatic leader. Some of Paul’s
charisma developed because of his personal characteristics while some of his charisma was
attributable to what he was – a trained warrior, a noble by birthright, the Kwisatz Haderach by
breeding and Bene Gesserit training. Paul’s son, Leto II, also becomes a charismatic leader with
a force of personality that overshadows his father and overwhelms the influence of his
grandmother, aunt and sister. Leto II transforms himself, literally as well as figuratively, into the
sandworm and, at the same time, a God whose tyrannical rule will last for centuries (Herbert,
1981).
Lady Jessica, while a Bene Gesserit whose order claims to serve others, certainly is
responsible for manipulating others and the Bene Gesserit order as a whole has one main purpose
– to manipulate the entire human race through their breeding program. Jessica does, however,
realize this and resents it.
In “The Prince on Arrakis: Frank Herbert’s Dialogue with Machiavelli”, Kevin Mulcahy
points out that Baron Harkonenn contrives a scheme which comes straight from Machiavelli’s
The Prince. Harkonenn will use any means necessary, no matter how evil or brutal, to secure the
planet Arrakis for his own personal profit. He is evil incarnate. However, Mulcahy sees the
importance to this portrayal not in contrast between the Atreides and the Harkonenns but in “the
disturbing similarity between the two” (Mulcahy, 25). Duke Leto, Paul, and Leto II all strive for
good but often fall back on evil and justification that the ends justify the means.
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Ideal-Types
Margaret Stout examined Weber’s approach of ideal-types relative to public
administration. In her article, “Revisiting the (Lost) Art of Ideal-Typing in Public
Administration”, Stout discusses Weber’s use of ideal-typing to formulate “four bases of
legitimate power” and his consequent resolution of those bases into “three types of authority:
rational, traditional, and charismatic” (Stout, 504). Table 1 below shows those three authority
types, the legitimacy power base associated with it, and an example of how it is evidenced in
Dune.
Table 1
Authority
Type
Rational
Power Base
Dune Example(s)
Legality & right to exercise authority
Traditional
Authority comes from belief in the way
things have been in the past
Charismatic
The character of the person in power –
heroism, or simply the ability to sway
others to your side through your words
and actions
Landstraad – As a type of League of
Nations, the Landstraad gave
legitimacy to the ruling houses
The Royal Houses – House Corrino,
House Atreides, even House
Harkonenn – all ruled by hereditary
succession
The House Atreides – Duke Leto I,
Paul, Leto II, Lady Jessica – all
exhibited charismatic leadership
Herbert demonstrates in Dune and the Dune sequels that the charismatic authority type
often prevails, at least over a period of time, because charismatic leaders are able to attract the
almost fanatical support of their followers. The problem, from my viewpoint, of charismatic
authority is that the support may only last until the next, more charismatic leader comes along.
Duke Leto, although he had been removed from power by assassination, not the rise in power of
his son, was quickly forgotten as the people swarmed to support a new, promised savior in the
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charismatic Paul. Paul, in turn, was quickly overshadowed when his son, Leto II, rose to power
and assumed an even more God-like persona both in his own mind and in the minds of his
followers.
Weber’s “Iron Cage” and Simon’s “Proverbs”
While Weber referred to democracy as an “iron cage” (Kalberg, 178), Herbert Simon
sees many of the same points as “proverbs” (Simon, 53). Kalberg quotes from Weber’s
“Parliament and Government in a Reconstructed Germany”:
The bureaucratic organization, with its specialization of trained skills,
its delineation of competencies, its rules and hierarchical relations of
obedience…is…in the process of erecting a cage of bondage which
persons – lacking all powers of resistance-will perhaps one day be
forced to inhabit” (Kalberg, 179).
Herbert’s Dune universe epitomized this structure. The feudal society, structured on rule by
hereditary succession and with entire planets and populations devoted to one specific highly
trained skill, was truly an “iron cage”, trapping all those who inhabited it. The only way out was
to overpower another ruling family as Paul did in the Jihad. However, this concept of the iron
cage clearly comes to the forefront in a later Dune sequel, God Emperor of Dune, when Leto II
completes his transformation into the sandworm with the Godhead displayed below in Figure 2
(Herbert, 1983).
This picture, courtesy of Rick Matheny, and downloaded from
http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Leto_Atreides_II/XD, portrays Leto II encased in the
constricting skin of the sandworm, a true “iron cage”, having abdicated his humanity
for the vision of saving his people from the corruption and decay of the downward
spiraling empire.
Figure 2
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Weber vs. Simon
In 1946, Herbert Simon approached public administration as a series of proverbs.
Interestingly, these proverbs, while stated differently, were obviously based on Weber’s
principles. Shown below in Figure 3 is a diagram of Weber’s six principles of public
administration while next to it is a table comparing Simon’s “proverbs” (Simon, 1946, 53-67).
with those principles. The only Weber principle that Simon did not address with his proverbs
was the principle of impersonality. It is also the only principle not as yet addressed in this paper.
Figure 3
Simon
Weber
Specialization
of the task
Hierarchy of
authority
Grouping for
efficiency
and control
Span of
control
Technical
Qualifications
Hierarchichal
Structure
Organization by
function
Accomplished by
Documentation
and
Rules/Regulations
Table 2
Woodrow Wilson
On November 1, 1886, Woodrow Wilson wrote an essay titled “The Study of
Administration” In that essay, in discussing past governments, he stated “Government went
about imperatively and compelled men, without thought of consulting their wishes. . . . No one
who possessed power was long at a loss how to use it. The great and only question was: Who
shall possess it?” (Wilson, 1886,2). This was also true of the Dune universe. Neither the
Padishah or any of the leaders of the ruling houses gave any thought to consulting those whom
they ruled. The Padishah ordered Duke Leto I to go to Arrakis. While Leto contemplated not
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obeying the Emperor, taking his family and escaping the fate he knew awaited him, he did not
act on his thoughts. The rule of the Emperor was strong. Thufir Hawat summed it up succinctly
when he was asked by Paul, why, knowing the risks, his father was still taking them to Arrakis.
Hawat said, “Because the Emperor ordered it.”(Herbert, 1965, 30).
Wilson goes on to discuss the development of public opinion as the “first principle of
government” (Wilson, 5). While that may hold true for modern day democracies, it certainly did
not apply to Dune. Wilson makes two points that, I believe, are key to understanding why the
governments of the Dune series never make the progression to freedom and liberty for their
people. First, Wilson says,
The principles that rule within the man, or the constitution,
are the vital springs of liberty or servitude. Because independence and
subjection are without chains, are lightened by every easy-working device of
considerate, paternal government, they are not thereby transformed into
liberty. Liberty cannot live apart from constitutional principle; and no
administration, however perfect and liberal in its methods, can give men
more than a poor counterfeit of liberty if it rest upon illiberal principles of
government (Wilson, 1866).
More importantly, Wilson asserts that “The ideal for us is a civil service cultured and selfsufficient enough to act with sense and vigor, and yet so intimately connected with the popular
thought, by means of elections and constant public counsel, as to find arbitrariness of class spirit
quite out of the question” (Wilson). Herbert did not portray Wilson’s ideals in Dune. Instead,
he created empires ruled by men with a singular purpose – the control of power. Even under the
rule of House Atreides, in many ways the most benevolent of the rulers of this fictional universe,
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the constitutional principles that Wilson considered the bedrock of liberty were missing. There
was no basis for any form of democratic government.
Fifty years after Wilson’s insightful essay, Marshall Dimock revisited Wilson’s views on
public administration in an essay of his own for Political Science Quarterly. Dimock saw public
administration as dynamic rather than static. Based on the constitutional principles that Wilson
considered so critical, public administration should be an ongoing process of discovering not
only “what government can properly and successfully do” (Dimock, 1937,29) but also the most
efficient and cost effective manner of doing those things. Contrast this with Herbert’s
governments on Arrakis who often failed to consider or realized but ignored the high costs of
their actions, in terms of both the economy and human lives. Dimock does concede, however,
that bureaucracy will not be and cannot be expected to always be efficient. He states, “The
problem of administration is therefore to eradicate, if possible, those consequences of
bureaucracy which are undesirable” (Dimock, 1937, 39) and goes on to enumerate three
particular concerns: “inflexibility, disunity, unresponsiveness” (39). All three of these
characteristics were prevalent among the ruling class of the Dune universe.
A Modern Approach to Public Administration
While Hegel, Weber, Wilson and even Dimock wrote their treatises on public
administration many years ago, Polya Katsamunska, Ph.D. and associate professor at the Public
Administration and Regional Development of University of National & World Economy,
examined more modern approaches in 2012. He states, “The most important characteristic
shared by the earlier systems of administration is that they were ‘personal’, based on the loyalty
to a particular individual such as a king, a leader, a minister or a party, instead of being
‘impersonal’, based on legality and the loyalty to the organization and the state” (Katsamunska,
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2012, 76). The administrations portrayed in Dune and its sequels certainly fit this model.
Loyalty to the Padishah, the Dukes or Barons of the Noble Houses, the Reverend Mother of the
Bene Gesserit, the leaders of the Fremen tribes, and most importantly to Paul Maud’dib and
Leto II, the God Emperor was the theme that ran through the four novels from Dune to Dune
Messiah to Children of Dune and finally to God Emperor of Dune. Although the theme was
evident in Dune alone, following the story through all four of these books made it much clearer
to me.
In contrast to this model of administration, Katsamunska describes modern public
administration as more of a business orientation with an emphasis on “economy, efficiency and
effectiveness of government organizations” (78). He cites Al Gore’s “The Gore Report” for
“four key principles” for changing our government and administrative practices. These
principles included:
1. A results orientation with less accountability for rules and regulations and more
for outcomes.
2. Do more with less – a back to basics approach.
3. A customer orientation that puts customers as the focal point.
4. Employee empowerment so that employees are able to achieve these results.
The objective of governing based on these principles would be a more transparent and efficient
government that was responsive to the needs of its citizens. This model is certainly not evident
anywhere in Herbert’s Dune novels.
The Influences of Friedrich Nietzsche and the Role of Religion in the Herbert Novels
Although religion is not an element of universal administrative truths, personal religious
beliefs are the foundation for moral values and cannot help but influence judgments made by
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public administrators. Because of that, I have chosen to conclude this paper with a look at
religion in the Herbert series and that discussion would not be complete without an examination
of the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as I see it reflected in the novels.
While Herbert reveals only snippets of “truths” from the Orange Catholic Bible, it is clear
from the beginning that this document is the basis for religious thought as well as for rules and
laws in Herbert’s Imperium. In a conversation with the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother at the
very beginning of Dune, Paul asks why the Bene Gesserit’s “test for humans” (Herbert,
1965,11). When the Reverend Mother responds, “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.” Paul responds with a quote from the Orange Catholic Bible, “’Thou
shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind.’” (11). While the Calvin and Hobbes
cartoon below makes light of this idea, the fear of machines that could think for men permeated
both the social and political structure of Dune, resulting in the development of the Mentats, the
Bene Gesserits, and the Spacing Guild and restricting the development of the Ixian society which
was responsible for the development of machines.
http://focusdeficit.tumblr.com/post/6133 1
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While the Orange Catholic Bible provides the frame of reference for much that occurs in
Dune, the religious fervor of the Bene Gesserits drives their quest for the breeding of the Kwisatz
Haderach, the male Bene Gesserit whose “organic mental powers would bridge space and time”
(Herbert, 1965, 506). They are willing to discard all normal convention and breed brother to
sister if that is what they need to do to achieve their end goal.
The Fremen are quickly willing to accept Paul as the Maud’dib, their savior and promised
one. I could not help but make a comparison between Paul of Arrakis and Apostle Paul of the
Christian religion. Paul the Apostle zealously persecuted followers of Jesus prior to his
conversion on the road to Damascus. He wandered in the desert for three years after his
conversion and returned to preach the message of Jesus as Son of God and as Savior of the
world. Paul of Arrakis, son of a man, was elevated to the role of Savior, but ended up
wandering in the desert of Arrakis, returning to civilization as The Preacher railing against the
political powers of his sister, Alia (Herbert, 1975).
Another comparison that can be drawn between the Herbert novels and Christianity lies
in the hierarchy of the religious figures as shown in Figure 4 below. While in Christianity, the
Supreme Being is God the Father, with Jesus the Son of God as his incarnation on Earth and
Joseph, the human father of Jesus, representative of mankind at the bottom of the structure,
Herbert appears to invert the positions of God the Father and Jesus the Son in the Dune series.
Duke Leto I, totally human with no aspirations to a God-like position, fathers Paul, who
reluctantly assumes the role of savior as Maud’dib and sacrifices himself for the good of his
people, as Jesus sacrificed himself for mankind. However, it is Leto II, son of Paul, who pays
the ultimate sacrifice, totally abandoning his humanity to become the sandtrout and the God
Emperor.
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Christianity
Religious Figures
of Dune Empire
God the Father
God Emperor (Leto
II, son of Paul)
Jesus, the Son of
God
Paul, the Maud'dib
and father of God
Emperor Leto II
Man (represented
by Joseph, father
of Jesus)
Man (represented
by Duke Leto I,
father of Paul)
Figure 4
So where does Nietzche fit in the picture? While the Bene Gesserit tested for humans
and saw humanity as the bridge between animals and the Kwisatz Haderach, Nietzsche saw
humanity as the bridge between animal and “overman” (Nietzsche). Herbert’s Dune series is an
epic about transition – in personal lives, in the life of the planet, in the transition from man to
God – and Nietzsche saw life as transition from man to animal to “overman”.
Conclusion
As public administrators, what can we learn from Herbert’s novels? In my opinion, we
can learn much about humanity. We can learn to be alert to our own inner striving and quest for
power – power that can as easily destroy as it can create. We can learn to value others as the
ruling classes of the Dune empire did not. Most importantly, we can learn to value our moral
structure and the importance of how we treat others as we make decisions that impact their lives.
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Calvin and Hobbes are deeply troubled by the sins of the Dune universe. Let us always be
moved by the evil and sins in our world and do our best as public administrators to mitigate those
evils.
http://i2.wp.com/www.thegeeklikes.com/wp
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