I'm 100% onboard with the 'Lawrence of Arabia inspired Dune' theory but I think one of the cleverest things Herbert did with Dune is to introduce a 'visionary substance' (spice) into the otherwise austere Islamic-adjacent motif. He not only shrouded the spice in ritual and religion (which isn't THAT suprising considering many human societies used visionary substsances, and Herbert was a child of the 1960s psychedelic…
My memory of the book is faded and relying on the recent movie. Why is the rebellion in your opinion Islam like. Dethroned prince, lost prince, rebellion against colonization, empire mining a colony are very much a common trope
Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
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Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#192I'm 100% onboard with the 'Lawrence of Arabia inspired Dune' theory but I think one of the cleverest things Herbert did with Dune is to introduce a 'visionary substance' (spice) into the otherwise austere Islamic-adjacent motif. He not only shrouded the spice in ritual and religion (which isn't THAT suprising considering many human societies used visionary substsances, and Herbert was a child of the 1960s psychedelic…
My memory of the book is faded and relying on the recent movie. Why is the rebellion in your opinion Islam like. Dethroned prince, lost prince, rebellion against colonization, empire mining a colony are very much a common trope
The rebellion is literally called 'jihad' in the book. A very religious desert people engaged in jihad.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's ironic is how people often point to plot points in many franchises (Star Wars, GoT, etc) as being derivative of Dune... Yet Dune itself is fairly derivative of other works
I had friends that raved about Dune. Think they actually read the book. Later saw the movie and kept thinking there would be a twist. Was largely disappointed but the mother starting a holy war was a bit intriguing.
Keep watching the movies, you will love the next one :-)
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#194> The 1962 film based on a romanticized version of Lawrence’s journey... rested on the idea of the ‘white savior,’ whose role was to lend a sympathetic ear to oppressed peoples and provide assistance to improve their lot in life. I really think this is the wrong interpretation of the end of that movie.
The movie makes if fairly clear that he is a political tool to help Britain win the war. And he receives the provided assistance to help win the war, not to improve their lives.
Its only Lawrence himself who romanticizes his own journy and hopes preserve some form of democratic nationalism. Only to be then synically stabed in the back literally everybody, the tribal leaders, the english politicans and of course the arab rules.
My favoirte part of the movie is when the english leader and the arab rules both agree that its good that he is finally gone. This is the origin of the modern battle inside of the middle east between islamic populism (muslim brotherhood) and ruling dynasties (Saud).
The movie made this very clear and expicite, and Lawrence himself knew that this was his role, even when he tried to do the best he can for the people he liked within these constraints.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#195With recent events I’ve been thinking about Dune lately. Once you start to compare what happens in dune to what is happening now, it's rather unpleasant. Prescience allows for the complete domination of humanity, but to some degree we already working on pre-prescience. Privatized intelligence companies have grown as part of our corporate surveillance state. These companies, like palantir, act as “truthsayers,” divini…
> We are dangerously close to uncheckable totalitarian rule. I'm not sure we need to look to the future for that. North Korea has really shown that modern weapons and 80s era intelligence and propaganda methods, applied brutally enough, are enough to keep ~20 million people under extreme poverty and deep obedience for 80+ years now, with no signs of stopping (at least not from internal pressures) any time soon.
Most political scientis have always understood that regimes fail when the ruling classes are devided. You don't need 80s era anything to make it work. And you don't need to be as Brutal as North Korea is.
Its very rare that people overthrwo the government, and even then, its mostly because most of the ruling classes don't try to stop it.
That's the difference between Soviet and the Peoples Republic. In one, the army came out and stopped people, in the others it didn't.
The other alternative is replacement by of forign actor of some kind. Either military, or by influencing the local elites.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the answer is the hereditary nature of the North Korean system. That is what is different in North Korea compared to those other countries. It leads to a country that is essentially a slave society. The owner is the Kim family. The other top people are overseers. The population are slaves. Propaganda and censorship of the outside world maintain the system. This was true of the other Communist countries also…
> Communist Thew way you are using this word is wrong. It might be cosmetic communism, but it's clearly a totalitarian state. You called the population slaves, which is very much not workers owning the means of production. Communism is an end state, but no government gets there because once a force is strong enough to forcibly redistribute resources to people not powerful enough to take those resources themselves, th…
> into totalitarianism in almost the same way democracy collapses into oligarchy
And yet we have democracies that are 100s of years old and are still far more democracies then oligarchies.
While no communist state ever came even remotly close and essentially were never not totalitarian.
> Communism becomes a scare word that means authoritarianism which taints marxist ideas
Because Marxist idea are bad. That communism and all ways to get their lead to mass slaughter SHOULD taint his ideas.
He even privately admited that millions of people will die for his vision but he was sure that somehow once on the other side you would defently live in a utopia. Of coure he himself never bothered to explain how this happened beyond some vauge (and completely historically inaccruate) mussings about history.
> By using the word communism to describe authoritarianism, you damage the ideas necessary to prevent democracy from the same fate.
No it doesn't. The idea of democracy does not depend on any way on the ideas of communism and socialism.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, self-awareness is necessary for these abilities. It's also a form of subtle awareness - that level of introspection and awareness of inner emotion and thought helps you comprehend other people. Like Van Gogh training himself on self-portraits, to then paint and see others. You need it, definitely! Well, at least it helps. I disagree with you on Trump, but I guess we can still be friends right?
No. That which you do to the least of my brothers, you have done unto me. No, but I'll teach you how to not be a loveless, narcissistic destroyer of happiness, like that purblind fool. That doesn't mean I don't love you, but I am commanded to love you less than the people whose oppression you countenance. Hitler was both self-aware and a hateful fuckhead. Self-awareness is worthless without a compassionate heart.
Peace be with you.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Communist Thew way you are using this word is wrong. It might be cosmetic communism, but it's clearly a totalitarian state. You called the population slaves, which is very much not workers owning the means of production. Communism is an end state, but no government gets there because once a force is strong enough to forcibly redistribute resources to people not powerful enough to take those resources themselves, th…
> into totalitarianism in almost the same way democracy collapses into oligarchy And yet we have democracies that are 100s of years old and are still far more democracies then oligarchies. While no communist state ever came even remotly close and essentially were never not totalitarian. > Communism becomes a scare word that means authoritarianism which taints marxist ideas Because Marxist idea are bad. That communism…
> Because Marxist idea are bad. That communism and all ways to get their lead to mass slaughter SHOULD taint his ideas.
I think the issue with Marx is he was an excellent analyst of the status quo. Then he got carried away by that into thinking he could also solve all the issues. He couldn't (also he wrote the manifesto while young and later regretted it), but that does not mean his analysis is all bad (it's not) and all solutions inspired by his ideas are wrong (they aren't).
> He even privately admited that millions of people will die for his vision
source?
> The idea of democracy does not depend on any way on the ideas of communism and socialism
I'm afraid it does. Or maybe at least the execution, if not the idea: There is currently no democracy on earth that is not at least a little bit socialist. And the same is true for nationalism.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. That which you do to the least of my brothers, you have done unto me. No, but I'll teach you how to not be a loveless, narcissistic destroyer of happiness, like that purblind fool. That doesn't mean I don't love you, but I am commanded to love you less than the people whose oppression you countenance. Hitler was both self-aware and a hateful fuckhead. Self-awareness is worthless without a compassionate heart.
Peace be with you.
The willfully ignorant have no peace to give.
Re: Lawrence of Arabia, Paul Atreides, and the roots of Frank Herbert's Dune (2021)
#200A comment mentions it, but Sabres of Paradise is another key component to understanding Dune as a referential text as it pertains to imperialism and religious fervor as an insurrectionist response.
Lol. More like Dune lifts wholesale from Sabres of Paradise, translating the stories about Imam Shamyl into space, only adding some bits of LSD inspired trippiness. If anything, Herbert toned down the historical accounts. On the other hand, Lesley Blanch went for the dramatic over the historical in Sabres. The story about the Sultan that drowned his son's mistress, for example, was from a Greek movie version.
Yeah, it can't be understated how much was lifted. Chakobsa, the Kindjal, etc. Shamyl even acts like Atreides with regards to how he uses "visions" to drive important political decisions.