In the first part of this commentary on the space epic Dune, I wrote how the first book of Dune series was greatly inspired by the history of rise of Islam and 20th century oil-politics centered on Arabian lands. In this part, I am going to talk about an even grander theme, the overall main theme of the Dune series of books written by Frank Herbert and how that theme also has great relevance for our current era.
Herbert named the theme as the golden path. According to the vision of the golden path, if whole human civilization ever become part of one system, if every part of humanity ever becomes accessible by a centralized power, then humanity will become highly vulnerable to stagnation and then extinction. Humanity’s hope to survival and continuation lies in scattering beyond the reach of any one power. Safety and certainty of living in a completely known world is not safety at all, humanity thrives in seeking the unknown, going beyond the horizon. In the Dune universe, humanity has settled all over our galaxy but the whole galaxy is part of one empire and all part of the galaxy is easily and quickly accessible because of ‘spice’, the miracle substance only found in the planet Arakis.
The golden path of Dune is setting up such an absolute tyrannically controlling empire so that humanity will be compelled to break free and scatter all over the universe and beyond the reach of any one power. This is the vision that the first protagonist of Dune series, Paul Atreides foresaw but failed to accomplish, but eas eventually realized by his son, the god-emperor of Dune.
Frank Herbert wrote the Dune books in the 1960s and 70s, when the whole earth was under the shadow of a Dr Strangelove situation, extinction of humanity from a mistaken nuclear holocaust very likely. Today fear of nuclear extinction has receded a little bit but planetary catastrophes of climate change, epidemic and other existential fears have all time high. Existential dread is multiplied because humanity feel too much constricted in our one earth where there is no place of refuge left.
During the couple of millions of years history of hominids and humans, the Earth was always large enough to escape, to find refuge. Many species, subspecies, local communities, tribes, cities, whole civilizations became extinct, but humanity was always sufficiently scattered all over the world to continue. The Aryan migration three thousand years ago displaced many ethnic groups, but many survived by retreating in furthest corner of Europe and Asia. The Mongol advances few centuries ago similarly displaced many population groups, but they survived by going away beyond the reaches of Mongols.
Europe was beset with continuous religious wars in 16th and 17th centuries but many small, heretical groups founded new colonies in the new world of Americas and continued. That they displaced indigenous people there, is another story. Persecuted Ashkenazi Jews from Europe emigrated in droves to the Americas in 19th and early 20th centuries. After the Nazis wiped them out physically in Europe and the Communists repressed their culture and religion, Ashkenazi culture and people continued in the new world. It’s not a mystery why Muslims chose the event of Hijrah as the starting of Islamic calendar, the year when prophet Muhammad escaped persecution in Mecca to begin a new community in Medina.
In the 19th century humanity completed exploring and knowing every part of the world, in 20th century all parts of the world became accessible within a day thanks to ‘spice’ of modern era, petroleum, and in 21st century every person became accessible thanks to the internet. There is no shelter or refuge left in this earth. The reaches of cultural messages, surveillance states, drones cover every inch and every person.
It seems that much of the public pathologies of this age is due to diversity of humanity feeling constricted in one community with no exit option. Every other ideology is afraid that capitalistic individualism will overwhelm them, and its corrosive effects will melt away every ideal and traditions. The white ethnonationalists are afraid that the brown and black masses will soon engulf them into oblivion. China is afraid that if it doesn’t become more powerful than America soon, it will become Americanized. Islamists are deathly afraid of losing their flocks to modernism. Hindu nationalists fear twin prongs of Islamist and Chinese triumph. Liberalism in turn is increasingly fearful that nationalistic, tribal, religious ideologies will extinguish the precarious and unnatural flame of enlightenment.
Contrary to what the zealots of each ideology think, the world will not be better place if everyone comes under the control of an ideology, be that liberalism, progressivism, socialism, Islam, Christianity, China, USA or anything. Humanity’s prosperity came from diversity, options to say no and exit when absolutely necessary. Humanity under a single system in a constricted world is going to be perilous. Even the Quran says that if Allah wanted, he could have made humanity united under one religion, but he didn’t because everyone is tested on their own diverse responsibilities (5:48).
Today it is becoming clear that prosperity of humanity’s future lies in space, not in the confinements of one earth. All the mega tech billionaires developing space exploration companies, are not just motivated by commercialization of space but are very big fans of science fictions. Building space colonies, mining asteroids and planets, colonizing Mars are not just sci-fi dreams but serious objectives being pursued in research and experiments. China has announced that it is exploring development of a mile-long space station whose objective will be “future use of space resources, exploration of the mysteries of the universe, and long-term living in orbit”.
One world is not enough. Humanity needs to scatter in space to preserve the diversity and exit options.