3 ms·

It was set dressing for a syncretic far future. All of this stuff is in the appendix where it is not very much explored because it's meant to be evocative more

It was set dressing for a syncretic far future. All of this stuff is in the appendix where it is not very much explored because it's meant to be evocative more than illustrative.

mrexroad 3y ago
> it's meant to be evocative more than illustrative Agree, and those evocative references were one of things I loved when first reading the Dune series many years ago as well as watching the '84 film. I still remember being taken aback at the reference to "Emperor Hitler" and the fact that knowledge of him was (rightfully) lost with time, but also along with most other knowledge of our era.
throw4847285 3y ago
Exactly. For most scifi/fantasy writers, religion is window dressing. Very few care unless they are writing explicitly and very consciously about real world religions via a thinly veiled allegory. The ones that come to mind for me are Dan Simmons, Walter Miller, and Philip K Dick. If you remember the Priest's Tale from Hyperion or Mercerism in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, you know what I'm talking about.
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  To be fair, I don't think religion is window dressing in Dune, it's just the specifics of how society came to be so syncretic that they end up compiling the OC Bible doesn't need to be examined (other than the hazily-sketched out narrative about the Council of Ecumenical Translators in the appendix). Ditto how disparate religions like Zen Buddhism or Sunni Islam (or every single other existing religion) come to mix together. It's just assumed that's what happens because it's so far in the future. What's important is what these far future faiths, at least the ones that aren't throwaway references, do afterwards.
  - throw4847285 3y ago
    I guess rather than say religion is window dressing, I'd say Herbert wasn't particularly interested in coming up with a theology or rituals or anything like that. He's interested in religions as a medium for power. Which, to be frank, is how a lot of powerful people throughout history have treated religion. It's just that, when you don't have a sense of how everyday people relate to those kinds of structures, it feels a little fake to me.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      I would say that it's untrue insofar that he comes up with plenty of rituals and proverbs and prophecies. Theology definitely appears when it comes to the nature of the space messiah that the Fremen are waiting for. And we definitely see everyday people engaging in that throughout the book! But I do also grok what you're getting at- ultimately these trappings of religion are part of the medium of power, and covers up the base desires of humanity, even when it becomes transhuman through space spice-psychic magic. Herbert's elaborate spiritual systems then become manifestations of the culture under religion, but don't hold true moral or philosophical significance that religion is supposed to have, because the true moral reality in his setting is ultimately still about power. I don't know, I haven't read the sequels, this interpretation might be really off-base.
      - bigger_cheese 3y ago
        >Herbert's elaborate spiritual systems then become manifestations of the culture under religion, but don't hold true moral or philosophical significance that religion is supposed to have, because the true moral reality in his setting is ultimately still about power. In the later novels it introduces the concept of "Arafel" a word which comes from the Hebrew word for darkness. It represents the apocalypse (the end of humanity) and the idea is that through the golden path humanity is steered away from Arafel, so there is a thin veneer of a moral justification beyond power..
  - kragen 3y ago
    every religion is full of elements from previous religions zen buddhism can reasonably be thought of as a mix between daoism and buddhism pure land buddhism is basically christianity dressed in buddhist language modern hinduism is full of buddhist elements many central aspects of christian myth can be traced back to things like the resurrection of osiris many christian practices such as monogamy and christmas are obvious continuations of roman pagan religious practices, and of course 'easter' was a northern european fertility goddess (though she isn't the origin of the festival with her name; the corresponding holiday is called some version of 'pesach', 'passover', in non-norse languages) in many cases particular saints in syncretic catholicism in the new world can be identified with particular pre-conquest deities islam is largely judaism, but has clearly integrated a lot of non-jewish cultural elements and all of that is just in the last 2500 years! so it seems totally believable that in 26000 years things would be vastly more intertwingled
    - throw4847285 3y ago
      This is both extremely reductive and also totally false. Obviously religions influence other religions, but all your examples don't hold up to scrutiny. Islam is just Judaism? What? Christmas isn't pagan. That's a myth. Modern Christmas was invented by German Protestants and then spread to England where it was given a huge shot in the arm by Charles Dickens. You're wrong about Zen Buddhism. Syncretism exists, but Herbert is just so lazy. He mashes together two different religions with very little in common other than Orientalism (his greatest vice as a creator).
      - kragen 3y ago
        i agree that you can say things that are totally false that use some of the same words as the things that i said
rvense 3y ago
Yeah, and in some sense it actually is Orientalism - a vague exotic reference. And crucially it will have registered completely different for the original audience than it would today - most people in the 60's in western Europe and America had never seen a Muslim, and their knowledge of Islam and Middle Eastern culture could probably be summed up in less than a paragraph. Especially a word like jihad is infinitely more loaded than it was 50 years ago to western ears. (I'd actually wager most people who read it in the first decade or two learned that word from the book.) Personally I read Dune in my first year of university, when I was doing a course on the Middle East, so it all hits very different to me, and the Arabic in Dune is very important to my personal appreciation of it - but I can see how it's hard to introduce to a contemporary audience due to all the regrettable events of recent decades, so perhaps it makes sense. It seems impossible to make neutral references to Muslim/Arabic culture or history these days, everything becomes some grand political statement for or against Bin Laden or Salman Rushdie...

It was set dressing for a syncretic far future. All of this stuff is in the appendix where it is not very much explored because it's meant to be evocative more than illustrative.

mrexroad 3y ago

> it's meant to be evocative more than illustrative Agree, and those evocative references were one of things I loved when first reading the Dune series many years ago as well as watching the '84 film. I still remember being taken aback at the reference to "Emperor Hitler" and the fact that knowledge of him was (rightfully) lost with time, but also along with most other knowledge of our era.

throw4847285 3y ago

Exactly. For most scifi/fantasy writers, religion is window dressing. Very few care unless they are writing explicitly and very consciously about real world religions via a thinly veiled allegory. The ones that come to mind for me are Dan Simmons, Walter Miller, and Philip K Dick. If you remember the Priest's Tale from Hyperion or Mercerism in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, you know what I'm talking about.

Apocryphon 3y ago
To be fair, I don't think religion is window dressing in Dune, it's just the specifics of how society came to be so syncretic that they end up compiling the OC Bible doesn't need to be examined (other than the hazily-sketched out narrative about the Council of Ecumenical Translators in the appendix). Ditto how disparate religions like Zen Buddhism or Sunni Islam (or every single other existing religion) come to mix together. It's just assumed that's what happens because it's so far in the future. What's important is what these far future faiths, at least the ones that aren't throwaway references, do afterwards.
- throw4847285 3y ago
  I guess rather than say religion is window dressing, I'd say Herbert wasn't particularly interested in coming up with a theology or rituals or anything like that. He's interested in religions as a medium for power. Which, to be frank, is how a lot of powerful people throughout history have treated religion. It's just that, when you don't have a sense of how everyday people relate to those kinds of structures, it feels a little fake to me.
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    I would say that it's untrue insofar that he comes up with plenty of rituals and proverbs and prophecies. Theology definitely appears when it comes to the nature of the space messiah that the Fremen are waiting for. And we definitely see everyday people engaging in that throughout the book! But I do also grok what you're getting at- ultimately these trappings of religion are part of the medium of power, and covers up the base desires of humanity, even when it becomes transhuman through space spice-psychic magic. Herbert's elaborate spiritual systems then become manifestations of the culture under religion, but don't hold true moral or philosophical significance that religion is supposed to have, because the true moral reality in his setting is ultimately still about power. I don't know, I haven't read the sequels, this interpretation might be really off-base.
    - bigger_cheese 3y ago
      >Herbert's elaborate spiritual systems then become manifestations of the culture under religion, but don't hold true moral or philosophical significance that religion is supposed to have, because the true moral reality in his setting is ultimately still about power. In the later novels it introduces the concept of "Arafel" a word which comes from the Hebrew word for darkness. It represents the apocalypse (the end of humanity) and the idea is that through the golden path humanity is steered away from Arafel, so there is a thin veneer of a moral justification beyond power..
- kragen 3y ago
  every religion is full of elements from previous religions zen buddhism can reasonably be thought of as a mix between daoism and buddhism pure land buddhism is basically christianity dressed in buddhist language modern hinduism is full of buddhist elements many central aspects of christian myth can be traced back to things like the resurrection of osiris many christian practices such as monogamy and christmas are obvious continuations of roman pagan religious practices, and of course 'easter' was a northern european fertility goddess (though she isn't the origin of the festival with her name; the corresponding holiday is called some version of 'pesach', 'passover', in non-norse languages) in many cases particular saints in syncretic catholicism in the new world can be identified with particular pre-conquest deities islam is largely judaism, but has clearly integrated a lot of non-jewish cultural elements and all of that is just in the last 2500 years! so it seems totally believable that in 26000 years things would be vastly more intertwingled
  - throw4847285 3y ago
    This is both extremely reductive and also totally false. Obviously religions influence other religions, but all your examples don't hold up to scrutiny. Islam is just Judaism? What? Christmas isn't pagan. That's a myth. Modern Christmas was invented by German Protestants and then spread to England where it was given a huge shot in the arm by Charles Dickens. You're wrong about Zen Buddhism. Syncretism exists, but Herbert is just so lazy. He mashes together two different religions with very little in common other than Orientalism (his greatest vice as a creator).
    - kragen 3y ago
      i agree that you can say things that are totally false that use some of the same words as the things that i said

rvense 3y ago

Yeah, and in some sense it actually is Orientalism - a vague exotic reference. And crucially it will have registered completely different for the original audience than it would today - most people in the 60's in western Europe and America had never seen a Muslim, and their knowledge of Islam and Middle Eastern culture could probably be summed up in less than a paragraph. Especially a word like jihad is infinitely more loaded than it was 50 years ago to western ears. (I'd actually wager most people who read it in the first decade or two learned that word from the book.) Personally I read Dune in my first year of university, when I was doing a course on the Middle East, so it all hits very different to me, and the Arabic in Dune is very important to my personal appreciation of it - but I can see how it's hard to introduce to a contemporary audience due to all the regrettable events of recent decades, so perhaps it makes sense. It seems impossible to make neutral references to Muslim/Arabic culture or history these days, everything becomes some grand political statement for or against Bin Laden or Salman Rushdie...