Dune was all about praising white supremacy?

in #dune5 years ago

The above is a good take-down (by a liberal African-American Sci Fi critic) of a somewhat prominent article claiming that Frank Herbert's Dune is meant to praise white supremacy and imperialism by exalting a "mighty whitey" character.

Here is the link to the article : https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/2019/02/08/dunes-paul-atreides-is-the-ultimate-mighty-whitey/

The article misses key aspects of the story such as:

  1. The point of Dune is to criticise Paul Atreides' "charismatic leadership" of the Fremen, not praise it. Frank Herbert himself said this is the major theme of the book. The story of "Dune" is a tragedy and a warning - not a how-to manual for how real-world political movements should operate. Admittedly, lots of readers don't get it. But it should be clear to anyone who reads it closely and focuses on the political message.

  2. It is in fact not at all clear that Paul is supposed to be white, while the Fremen are not. Yes, Paul is portrayed by white actors in the Dune movie and mini-series. But most of the Fremen are played by white actors, too (largely because white actors are easier to find in the US than those of other races!). As the video notes, the few textual clues we have, suggest that the Atreides are probably NOT white (even assuming that whiteness is a relevant category in the far-future Dune universe where there have been thousands of years of racial mixing between our time and theirs).

The whole controversy is a great example of how imposing your current ideological predilections on a book can easily lead you to fundamentally misunderstand what it is about.

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