The Objective Truth: Dune by Frank Herbert
The Dune series by Frank Herbert is a brilliant exposé of human nature. Herbert intricately interweaves politics and organized religion in his plot, revealing their delicate balance and how a disequilibration between the two can lead to social chaos, and ultimately a hedonistic bureaucracy. With philosophical and existential wonderings layered within Herbert’s writing, the saga reflects humanity’s most fundamental, innate quest: our pursuit of meaning in an indifferent universe. Throughout the fourth book in the series, God Emperor of Dune, Herbert warns the reader of the genesis of absolutes, positing that absolutes are fabricated by the human mind to derive meaning from existence.
The God Emperor, more intimately known by readers as Leto Atreides II, is a prescient, near-immortal merge of human and sandworm; an ostensible tyrant who leads humanity’s intergalactic network of civilization. While the average civilian thinks of the God Emperor with either deep hatred or undying worship, Herbert reveals Leto’s true nature as an enigmatic, covert hero, whose singular objective is to secure humanity upon the “Golden Path,” by whatever means necessary. In Leto’s words, “[The Golden Path] is the survival of humankind, nothing more or less.” (13, Herbert). Through this, the reader is forced to consider: do intentions justify means? During his nearly 4,000-year reign, the God Emperor observes humanity and remarks on his reflections in the Stolen Journals, a collection of ridulian crystal sheets (only several molecules thick) — an advanced method of documentation that operates with a device to record Leto’s thoughts at will. Leto deliberately hid the journals containing his valuable insights to be uncovered and scrutinized by future generations. Leto often examined the concept of the Absolute in the Stolen Journals, reflecting:
“In all of my universe I have seen no law of nature, unchanging and inexorable. This universe presents only changing relationships which are sometimes seen as laws by short-lived awareness. These fleshly sensoria which we call self are ephemera withering in the blaze of infinity, fleetingly aware of temporary conditions which confine our activities and change as our activities change. If you must label the absolute, use its proper name: Temporary. — The Stolen Journals.”
(Herbert, 456).
Leto contends that absolutes are fallacies fabricated by the human mind. Humanity’s futile attempts to use internal subjective perceptions to define the objective nature of reality results in the creation of absolutes. We assign fragmented, biased laws to the limited iota of the Cosmos we observe, in hopes of bringing order to chaos. In our naive, anthropocentric framework of thought, we ordain our existence a false centrality. In Heretics of Dune, the fifth book in the series, Herbert alludes to this, writing,
“There was a man who sat each day looking out through a narrow vertical opening where a single board had been removed from a tall wooden fence. Each day a wild ass of the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow opening — first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail. One day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him: “It is obvious! The nose causes the tail!””
(Herbert, 414).
This passage demonstrates humanity’s ignorance in attempting to detect an absolute truth, to discover and label meaning. Reaching this understanding — the objective truth is an unattainable construct — is profoundly humbling, yet one may take it as an opportunity for growth. By recognizing how humanity often reverts to the safety of absolutist belief structures to prescribe meaning, one may begin to overcome such limited, parochial thinking. Once liberated from the necessity to feel special we may embrace the absurdity of our being. This realization enables one to appreciate the miracle in our existence.
