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> It is amazing that Frank Herbert would be exposed to this term, and make use of it. This sort of summarizes the article. The author is apparently unaware tha

> It is amazing that Frank Herbert would be exposed to this term, and make use of it. This sort of summarizes the article. The author is apparently unaware that Frank Herbert had wide and varied interests and did an enormous amount of research for the books.

throwawayjava 7y ago
I think this is true of non-writers in general. Writing good fiction is enormously difficult work and reading it is leisure. Creates some tension. Maybe the same reason we know have people poo-pooing the modern computer age -- moore's law for decades, the modern software stack, the internet, etc. -- as not amazing innovation. And down playing the role all of that has played in everything else humans now do from satellite systems to sequencing the genome. They think that because their interactions with computers are mostly mindless that modern computing must have been no great feat to build.
boomboomsubban 7y ago
Or they are completely aware that Herbert did vast amounts of research, and they are still impressed at some of the things he encountered.
- mytailorisrich 7y ago
  Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
  - boomboomsubban 7y ago
    >Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all. How familiar do you think most of Europe would be with tenth century Islamic theology? It's not mysterious, but it also isn't well known either.
    - mytailorisrich 7y ago
      The point is not that it is well-known by the public at large but that someone interested in the topic will find a huge body of work and knowledge on it because of the extensive contacts over time.
      - boomboomsubban 7y ago
        As you say, the contact has left a huge body of work. Combing through that knowledge is an extensive undertaking, and what methods you use will lead you to different places.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. An idea which is totally true... >I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all. And yet, the knowledge of it, for the vast majority (even if they have Ph.Ds on unrelated topics) is superficial at best. You'd be lucky if they know Avicenna, Omar Khayyam (funnily, both Persian muslims) or the Moors... (Well, in the US that's also true for all kinds of world cultures, with the exception of Japanese anime-related culture).

throwawayjava 7y ago

I think this is true of non-writers in general. Writing good fiction is enormously difficult work and reading it is leisure. Creates some tension. Maybe the same reason we know have people poo-pooing the modern computer age -- moore's law for decades, the modern software stack, the internet, etc. -- as not amazing innovation. And down playing the role all of that has played in everything else humans now do from satellite systems to sequencing the genome. They think that because their interactions with computers are mostly mindless that modern computing must have been no great feat to build.

boomboomsubban 7y ago

Or they are completely aware that Herbert did vast amounts of research, and they are still impressed at some of the things he encountered.

mytailorisrich 7y ago
Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago
  >Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all. How familiar do you think most of Europe would be with tenth century Islamic theology? It's not mysterious, but it also isn't well known either.
  - mytailorisrich 7y ago
    The point is not that it is well-known by the public at large but that someone interested in the topic will find a huge body of work and knowledge on it because of the extensive contacts over time.
    - boomboomsubban 7y ago
      As you say, the contact has left a huge body of work. Combing through that knowledge is an extensive undertaking, and what methods you use will lead you to different places.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Perhaps but to me this still implies the idea that the arab and muslim worlds are somehow mysterious in the West. An idea which is totally true... >I don't know how true that was in the USA but certainly Europe has had more than a thousand years of intimate contacts with the arab world, which is not mysterious at all. And yet, the knowledge of it, for the vast majority (even if they have Ph.Ds on unrelated topics) is superficial at best. You'd be lucky if they know Avicenna, Omar Khayyam (funnily, both Persian muslims) or the Moors... (Well, in the US that's also true for all kinds of world cultures, with the exception of Japanese anime-related culture).