TSFFWS - Dune and Intentional Social Change

[Ian Plätschisch]

I just realized I have both ingredients to join this club:
-Old Forrester (the oldest continuously sold bourbon)
-The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

[Sir Txec dal Nordselvă, UrB]

I'm a huge fan of whisky, in particular single malt Scotch. When I was in Scotland a few years back, I was introduced to several varieties, including my favorite, Dalmore 15 year.

Also, as I am actually a published SciFi writer in my own accord, I too believe I should join this group!

[xpb]

I just realized I have both ingredients to join this club:
-Old Forrester (the oldest continuously sold bourbon)
-The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein

TANSTAAFL!

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

i like all three adaptations of dune. lynch's for aesthetics and weirdness, sy-fy channel one for the "children of dune" part especially, but also for the dark anti-messianic part in "dune messiah". the very new one has lavishing production design, it is the most "word-for-word" story with some innovative scenes (atreides mounds), but also some modern visual clichés, which i am not much fond of.

on personal note, one benefit of being an older man from central europe post-commie country, e.g., i really never understood the ranting against dark skin dwarfs or elves in witcher adaptation, i was rather pissed by the stupid script ;) and as for the dune "white aristocrat saves dark-skinned population", i've never read it there. for me, it is a story about the future of mankind, the formation of golden path, i paid not much attention to paul's aristocratic origin and colonial connotations of his relations to fremen. the story has its setup, it is not black and white, the auctorial inspirations in the real world are clear, and human society is based on stereotypes whether we like it or not. i have difficulties reading SF literary, cos these are modern myths, of course with cultural stereotypes, innovated by the auctorial imagination, but still metaphors and stories. if we treat thoroughly literature through a modern social paradigm (not get confused, i am very much happy to see the progress in the removal of social discrimination of any kind currently going on), we will trash the majority of it, cos it always may/will contain stereotypes not acceptable today. as the saying goes, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

currently, i am watching imho under-rated star trek - enterprise. i like the hoshi character quite a lot and all the xenolinguistic stuff. as far as the modern STs, like discovery and picard, i very fine with both.

and for whisky, i am not much of a drinker, i have just two trophy bottles - glenfiddich 12 yrs, glenmorangie 18 yrs. and one bottle of grant's, which i possibly should not mention at all :)

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Also, as I am actually a published SciFi writer in my own accord, I too believe I should join this group!

what? where? or it never happened :)

i published 7 SF stories, ranging from 1994, the last in 2011. all in czech, except for one in german ;) 5 in three different magazines (ikarie, urania, imlandris), three of them in two anthologies (1+2). and won one local price :) for tolkien fanfiction stories.

wrote about 70 more, my reader club was enthusiastic but rather few in numbers. hard to say if cos i am not good enough or just too weird :) i quit writing around 2015, run out of juice.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

as for the dune "white aristocrat saves dark-skinned population", i've never read it there. for me, it is a story about the future of mankind, the formation of golden path, i paid not much attention to paul's aristocratic origin and colonial connotations of his relations to fremen. the story has its setup, it is not black and white, the auctorial inspirations in the real world are clear, and human society is based on stereotypes whether we like it or not. i have difficulties reading SF literary, cos these are modern myths, of course with cultural stereotypes, innovated by the auctorial imagination, but still metaphors and stories. if we treat thoroughly literature through a modern social paradigm (not get confused, i am very much happy to see the progress in the removal of social discrimination of any kind currently going on), we will trash the majority of it, cos it always may/will contain stereotypes not acceptable today. as the saying goes, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

No one's saying it should be thrown out, but there's a big middle ground between "never read this" and "there's nothing problematic here."  And man, there's a lot that's problematic.

I think it's really hard to dispute the white savior problem with Dune, even read in context.  Pale-skinned, aristocratic foreign Paul, who grew up in a rocky and cool climate, arrives at in underdeveloped desert area with one established "civilized" city and a vast desert region populated almost entirely by a dark-skinned indigenous people who are known for their physical prowess, survival skills, and deeply-felt strange customs.  He proceeds to take advantage of religious superstitions, deliberately planted by early colonizers, to assume power, and he brings the fantastic knowledge and skills of his culture to bear to organize the indigenous people into a "screaming jihad" for his own ends.  From first to last, it's the classic white savior story.  It's actually rather worse than some other famously problematic stories, like John Carter of Mars or Avatar, since it's so on-the-nose -- the Fremen are literally said to be the contemporary descendants of Muslims, while Paul's holy book is the Orange Catholic Bible.

None of that is to say that we shouldn't read the book.  Hell, I love the Barsoom stories (not Avatar, though -- can't believe they're making five more).  Definitely an amazing story and an amazing read.  It's just something readers should know about and think about, rather than unconsciously absorbing the implicit message buried within the story.

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

as for the dune "white aristocrat saves dark-skinned population", i've never read it there. for me, it is a story about the future of mankind, the formation of golden path, i paid not much attention to paul's aristocratic origin and colonial connotations of his relations to fremen. the story has its setup, it is not black and white, the auctorial inspirations in the real world are clear, and human society is based on stereotypes whether we like it or not. i have difficulties reading SF literary, cos these are modern myths, of course with cultural stereotypes, innovated by the auctorial imagination, but still metaphors and stories. if we treat thoroughly literature through a modern social paradigm (not get confused, i am very much happy to see the progress in the removal of social discrimination of any kind currently going on), we will trash the majority of it, cos it always may/will contain stereotypes not acceptable today. as the saying goes, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

No one's saying it should be thrown out, but there's a big middle ground between "never read this" and "there's nothing problematic here."  And man, there's a lot that's problematic.

I think it's really hard to dispute the white savior problem with Dune, even read in context.  Pale-skinned, aristocratic foreign Paul, who grew up in a rocky and cool climate, arrives at in underdeveloped desert area with one established "civilized" city and a vast desert region populated almost entirely by a dark-skinned indigenous people who are known for their physical prowess, survival skills, and deeply-felt strange customs.  He proceeds to take advantage of religious superstitions, deliberately planted by early colonizers, to assume power, and he brings the fantastic knowledge and skills of his culture to bear to organize the indigenous people into a "screaming jihad" for his own ends.  From first to last, it's the classic white savior story.  It's actually rather worse than some other famously problematic stories, like John Carter of Mars or Avatar, since it's so on-the-nose -- the Fremen are literally said to be the contemporary descendants of Muslims, while Paul's holy book is the Orange Catholic Bible.

None of that is to say that we shouldn't read the book.  Hell, I love the Barsoom stories (not Avatar, though -- can't believe they're making five more).  Definitely an amazing story and an amazing read.  It's just something readers should know about and think about, rather than unconsciously absorbing the implicit message buried within the story.

thnx, this is quite interesting! you are offering interpretations i was not able to make (most probably due to cultural differences). i always thought about caladan/arrakis dichotomy primarily in an ecological sense - caladan is totally different environment/niche for life than arrakis, and paul has to adopt and understand the difference. now, i can see allusions to brits/arabs or americans/indians, but it definitely wasn't my first thought. also, the bene gesserit/missionaria protectiva were not colonisers, but unscrupulous manipulators with a plan, who spread panoplia propheticus to have an easier ground when needed anything accomplished on those worlds. paul used it to the same extent as he originally followed the kwisatz haderach path, the main interest of bene gesserit (although in a way the bene gesserit did not want it ;). it seems to me to be smth different from classical white saviour. he was willingly a revolutionary (mostly like those classical anarcho-terrorists, who planned to destroy the world to build it de novo), unwillingly he was a model for a messianic failure, the first step to the golden path.

weren't fremens zensunni, rather than muslim? and orange catholic bible is also a tricky name, as it was a very general blend of human religious thoughts from many curious religions, like mahayana christianity, zensunni catholicism, and buddislam :)

i am always trying to be very critical of myself not to overinterpret stories cos it is a trap one may fall easily into. so that might be the reason i see the dune story (the first book minimally) in a different way. all these connotations you are talking about simply never came to my mind earlier. for me dune is a philosophical (well, less of that in a story would be beneficial) polit-fiction, rooted in a growing sense of ecology; imho herbert was thinking about what is the way mankind should take to survive in an uttermost niche - the universe. and how it could happen.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Sure, all the details are more complicated than just "white guy saves the brown folks," but the overarching pattern is clear.

To take your example of the religions being syncretic, okay: the Zensunni are simultaneously representative of the Jews, Muslim tradition, and Zen Buddhists.  They don't really talk about it much, except to say that they were wanderers who fled from repeated pogroms and their religion came from Sunni Islam and Zen Buddhism.  But, I mean, come on... the brown-skinned desert nomads who are going to go on a religious jihad (it's even literally labeled a "jihad")?  It's very clearly a pastiche of Muslim stereotype.

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

As a Star Trek lover from way back (who knows way too much about it...lol) I have enjoyed it despite feeling it has pacing issues, and seeming not to know what to do with some very good starting ideas. For my money, Lower Decks has been to best of the current offering on new Trek shows, and I have high hopes for Strange New Worlds.

I am delighted to see the TSFFWS is back.

Relatedly, to celebrate, I had a Bulleit Bourbon while watching the latest episodes of Star Trek: Picard and Halo on Paramount Plus.

What do you think of 'Picard'?  Is it worth getting Paramount Plus just to watch that?

I think so. Paramount Plus is Star Trek Central.
I am enjoying the second season of Picard much more than the first. And I am actually enjoying Season 2 of Picard more than ST: Discovery. Of course, I grew up on TNG so I may be biased.

The 2nd season of Picard is very well done and it gives me all "the feels" from TNG when I was in High School.

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Sure, all the details are more complicated than just "white guy saves the brown folks," but the overarching pattern is clear.

To take your example of the religions being syncretic, okay: the Zensunni are simultaneously representative of the Jews, Muslim tradition, and Zen Buddhists.  They don't really talk about it much, except to say that they were wanderers who fled from repeated pogroms and their religion came from Sunni Islam and Zen Buddhism.  But, I mean, come on... the brown-skinned desert nomads who are going to go on a religious jihad (it's even literally labeled a "jihad")?  It's very clearly a pastiche of Muslim stereotype.

ok, yes, fremen were excited up to the level they waged the total war (jihad) in a name of their prophet, paul muad'dib. they were from the desert. they weren't brown-skinned, as herbert was not talking about the colour of skin at all (afaik and from what i found in commentaries). honestly, i did not see there a particular muslim stereotype, rather a religious fanaticism stereotype (jihading, crusading, pogroming...). all the arabic (and not necessarily muslim) connotations to fremen are stereotypical, as it is the closest to any desert civilisation ordinary westerners can imagine. but even using arabic, herbert used concepts from different religions, like in the case of shai-hulúd, grandfather of the desert, with hidden meaning "thing of immortality", high proly from some far eastern religion.

anyway, it is interesting to see/read different interpretations of such a complex story, which interpretations escaped my attention ;)

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

ok, yes, fremen were excited up to the level they waged the total war (jihad) in a name of their prophet, paul muad'dib. they were from the desert. they weren't brown-skinned, as herbert was not talking about the colour of skin at all (afaik and from what i found in commentaries). honestly, i did not see there a particular muslim stereotype, rather a religious fanaticism stereotype (jihading, crusading, pogroming...). all the arabic (and not necessarily muslim) connotations to fremen are stereotypical, as it is the closest to any desert civilisation ordinary westerners can imagine. but even using arabic, herbert used concepts from different religions, like in the case of shai-hulúd, grandfather of the desert, with hidden meaning "thing of immortality", high proly from some far eastern religion.

It is a sci-fi book, it's true, and so it's not literally a white Christian saving brown Muslims.  But we might not be able to come to an agreement if you can't imagine that the Arabic-speaking Quran-quoting desert-dwelling pseudo-Sunni jihadis were largely intended to represent our world's Muslims.  I mean, really everyone is mostly Muslim, but the Fremen are very obviously an allegory for a certain current stereotype.

Either way, I don't think that specifically is the problem.  It's probably good that an author isn't just doing another pseudo-Rome in the future, but instead representing the possible future of other cultures (like Firefly's Chinese).  It's just problematic when combined with the white/foreign/aristocratic savior narrative, and the recent film was significantly more problematic in the same way.

We can certainly agree that it's a great book, at least :)

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

ok, yes, fremen were excited up to the level they waged the total war (jihad) in a name of their prophet, paul muad'dib. they were from the desert. they weren't brown-skinned, as herbert was not talking about the colour of skin at all (afaik and from what i found in commentaries). honestly, i did not see there a particular muslim stereotype, rather a religious fanaticism stereotype (jihading, crusading, pogroming...). all the arabic (and not necessarily muslim) connotations to fremen are stereotypical, as it is the closest to any desert civilisation ordinary westerners can imagine. but even using arabic, herbert used concepts from different religions, like in the case of shai-hulúd, grandfather of the desert, with hidden meaning "thing of immortality", high proly from some far eastern religion.

It is a sci-fi book, it's true, and so it's not literally a white Christian saving brown Muslims.  But we might not be able to come to an agreement if you can't imagine that the Arabic-speaking Quran-quoting desert-dwelling pseudo-Sunni jihadis were largely intended to represent our world's Muslims.  I mean, really everyone is mostly Muslim, but the Fremen are very obviously an allegory for a certain current stereotype.

Either way, I don't think that specifically is the problem.  It's probably good that an author isn't just doing another pseudo-Rome in the future, but instead representing the possible future of other cultures (like Firefly's Chinese).  It's just problematic when combined with the white/foreign/aristocratic savior narrative, and the recent film was significantly more problematic in the same way.

We can certainly agree that it's a great book, at least :)

definitely, we can very much agree that dune is a fascinating and interesting book/series. i've read the first book when i was 17 (1988), and i was totally consumed by it. it was a rare occasion of a big english written SF being translated and published during the commie regime. in that time, LOTR was only circulating as samizdat, and only very few english writing SF authors had their books published here (mostly bradbury and clarke).

btw, how do you like the following books (by frank h.)? i see a peak in god emperor of dune, the idea of the golden path is simply super cool. i have to admit, that books by the son are far worse imho. i was able to go through the first trilogy, prelude to dune, as they say today "not great, not terrible" (poor dyatlov, could have never thought to become a meme-maker for westerners), but i was so angry and frustrated reading the first book of butlerian jihad, that i resigned and do not have guts to continue.

and i see, we share also affection for firefly, which i like a lot (even the movie ;) ). the use of chinese language and cultural stereotypes in it was quite good and on spot.

so, cheers, or "na zdraví", as it is also a whisky society :)

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

btw, how do you like the following books (by frank h.)? i see a peak in god emperor of dune, the idea of the golden path is simply super cool. i have to admit, that books by the son are far worse imho. i was able to go through the first trilogy, prelude to dune, as they say today "not great, not terrible" (poor dyatlov, could have never thought to become a meme-maker for westerners), but i was so angry and frustrated reading the first book of butlerian jihad, that i resigned and do not have guts to continue.

The sequels are all pretty poor, with the son's books even worse.  I think that Dune used up most of Herbert's big ideas, and because it ended with a prescient messiah-figure coming into ultimate power, it's hard to realistically provide challenges.  Part of what makes Dune fun is that it has very clear conceptions of good and evil, and the good guys struggle against enormous odds but succeed because of their virtue and their skill.  In the sequels, they have to kind of invent new challenges for people who already are at the top, and it's a different sort of story that doesn't work as well.

The son's books are, frankly, just standard-issue scifi that doesn't have any of the depth of thought or consideration of the original.

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

i was so angry and frustrated reading the first book of butlerian jihad, that i resigned and do not have guts to continue.

and i see, we share also affection for firefly, which i like a lot (even the movie ;) ). the use of chinese language and cultural stereotypes in it was quite good and on spot.

This makes me sad, because I found the idea of the Butlerian Jihad really interesting and I wanted to read the book I just hadn't gotten to it yet.

And always good to meet more browncoats! I too love Firefly and Serenity.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

@Ruban2023 This is the Science Fiction Club area. If you participate in discussions here then you're a member. There's no real membership process just people interested in science fiction discussing science fiction.