Power, Politics, and Religion: Themes of Dune

Author Frank Herbert deliberately suppressed technology in the Dune series, which is unique for science fiction novels. His desire was for readers to focus on elements of humanity, not technology. The many themes of Dune include political, religious, social, economic, and environmental interactions.

Herbert uses the series to warn of potential faults in today’s society. As Duke Leto told Paul Atreides, “Knowing where the trap is – that’s the first step in evading it.”

The main themes were relatable when the series was written, are still now, and will continue to be in the future. This longevity is what transcends Dune into a masterpiece.

In his own words :

It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah.
It was to produce another view of a human-occupied planet as an energy machine.
It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and economics.
It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its pitfalls.
It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could happen through dependence on such a substance.
Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water itself, a substance whose supply diminishes each day.
It was to be an ecological novel, then, with many overtones, as well as a story about people and their human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor each of these levels at every stage in the book.

Foreword by Frank Herbert (April 1984)

Environmental Themes of Dune

A critical theme throughout the series is humanity’s reliance on spice. Spice is the most crucial resource in the Dune universe because it allows interstellar travel, among other benefits. To harvest the drug, one has to drop a mobile mining factory, which digs deep into the ground. In the series, Leto II realized this path would lead to extinction so he made a radical change to save humanity.

Today on Earth, our civilization also depends on resources we must dig deep into the ground to get (oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels). We know that burning fossil fuels has adverse effects on the environment, but we cannot stop using them all at once, or our civilization will crash (similar to spice).

In recent years, a transition to renewable resources and cleaner energy has begun, but fossil fuel use is still increasing. The complete transition to clean energy should take less time than Leto’s Golden Path in the series, but it will also save our species from extinction in the future. Both spice and fossil fuels are destructive, finite resources that can fast-forward advancement by centuries but, in the process, harm us.

Hebert also uses water on Arrakis as a metaphor for oil. Water is so extremely scarce on the planet that when people die, their body is taken to be stripped of their water. Herbert is trying to convey that we should not take our resources for granted and to prepare for the future because some are unsustainable over the long run.

Political Themes of Dune

Dune is set in a feudal society with many Houses vying for power. There are alliances between Houses, such as Corrino and Harkonnen, and rivalries between others, such as Atreides and Harkonnen. On Earth, many countries also seek political power with alliances, such as NATO, and have friction with others, such as the general US/Europe vs. China/Russia tension.

Next, each House rules differently. The Harkonnens are oppressive and exploitative tyrants, whereas the Atreides are portrayed as benevolent but just. Like in the novel, each country on Earth rules differently, such as the authoritarian political system of China and the representative democracy of the US.

The series also deals with politics within uni-powerful empires, such as the Atreides Empire. In the past, empires such as the Roman and Persian have become the most powerful by conquering other nations. However, once the acquired territory became too large, they could not control every uprising that started taking place, and so the empires crumbled.

Religious Themes of Dune

In the novel, Frank Herbert explores the dangers of faith being combined with politics, which allows an exploitation of religion for personal use. By placing themselves in religious authority, leaders give themselves the right to do whatever they desire because they seemingly have the support of God. Sometimes the general public even believes the person IS a god.

The prime example within the Dune series is Paul Atreides. Paul abuses an old native legend, portraying himself as the prophesied messiah. Paul can then do whatever he wants without contradiction, and his army ends up killing 61 billion people in the name of conquest.

This is similar to the missionary efforts in Colonial Africa, specifically the Belgian Congo. Europeans and societies around the world viewed indigenous Africans as barbaric and felt it was their moral obligation to “civilize” them. Under the premise of philanthropic work, the native Congo people were enslaved with increasing human rights abuses, including starving, murdering, and cutting off the limbs of thousands of natives. During Belgian interference in the Congo, half of the native population perished. For a book about the Congo atrocities, read The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

Another example of the dangers of the political-religious combination is the Catholic Church during the medieval period. At one point, the Church owned one-third of the land in Europe, exploiting the tenant serfs and instigating the crusades, a series of bloody military expeditions for almost 200 years.

Currently, human rights violations are a significant focus of protesting in Iran, where the Islamic religion and government are constitutionally linked.

Conclusion

Other themes explored throughout the series include economic (monopoly on resources), social (oppression and caste systems), and future exploration (AI and weapons technology).

There are many applications of the Dune themes to our real world in the past, present, and future beyond the examples included in this article.

We can take the warnings given by the Dune series and apply changes to ensure the tragedies in the series won’t happen to us in real life.

Check out more Dune posts!