Frank Herbert's Vision

"Dune" is the best selling science fiction book of all time and the series is the best selling science fiction series of all time. But more than an entertaining story, Frank Herbert created a world where he really thought about the future of humankind. That is what I like best about Dune.

"Beyond a critical point within a finite space, freedom diminishes as numbers increase. ...The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive." - Dune by Frank Herbert

The statement above indicates the kind of deep thought Frank Herbert put into all his work, especially the Dune series. I came across the following description of the themes of his work and I thought it was very accurate, so I am pasting the text and the link below.

Ideas and themes

Quotation

"I think science fiction does help, and it points in very interesting directions. It points in relativistic directions. It says that we have the imagination for these other opportunities, these other choices. We tend to tie ourselves down to limited choices. We say, "Well, the only answer is...." or, "If you would just. . . ." Whatever follows these two statements narrows the choices right there. It gets the vision right down close to the ground so that you don't see anything happening outside. Humans tend not to see over a long range. Now we are required, in these generations, to have a longer range view of what we inflict on the world around us. This is where, I think, science fiction is helping. I don't think that the mere writing of such a book as Brave New World or 1984 prevents those things which are portrayed in those books from happening. But I do think they alert us to that possibility and make that possibility less likely. They make us aware that we may be going in that direction."
Frank Herbert

There are a number of key themes in Herbert's work:

• A concern with Leadership. He especially explored the human tendency for human beings to follow charismatic leaders slavishly. He delved deeply into both the flaws and potentials of bureaucracy and government.
• Herbert was probably the first science fictioauthor totpopularizeee ideas about Ecology and Systems Thinking. He stressed the need for humans to think both systematically and long term.
• The relationship between religion, politics and power.
• Human survival and evolution: Herbert writes of the Fremen, the Sardaukar, and the Dosadi, who are molded by their terrible living conditions into dangerous super-races.
  Human possibilities and potential: Herbert offered Mentats, the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax as different visions of human possibilities.
• The nature of sanity and madness. Frank Herbert was interested in the work of Thomas Szasz and the anti-psychiatry movement. Often, Herbert questions, "What is sane?", and while there are clearly insanebehaviorss and psychopathies as evinced by characters, for example, Piter De Vries, it is often suggested that "normal" and "abnormal" are relative terms which humans are sometimes ill-equipped to apply to one another, especially on the basis of statistical regularity.
• The possible effects and consequences of consciousness altering chemicals, such as Spice in the Dune saga.
• How language shapes thought. More specifically, Frank Herbert was influenced by Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics.
• Sociobiology. How our instincts unconsciously influence ourbehaviorr and society.
  Learning, teaching and thinking.
• Frank Herbert carefully refrained from offering his readers firm answers to many of the questions he explored.

from the Wikipedia page on Frank Herbert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Herbert