I just read this in Dune, thought it important: "Give as few orders as possible. Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject."
Here's another one: "When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual."
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I like the first- and remember it. It codifies the assumptions of ownership and engagement in the lives of those that "follow" you and helps to establish a creative process.
ReplyDeleteIs law understood as "what you have to do", and duty as "what you should do"? IF those are generally how we see them, then a religious system that reinforces those two ideas as "life" would certainly inhibit a free, creative expression of discovered self... WHO IS THIS GUY??
I am interested if you saw these two quotes as essentially the two sides of a single coin, or as one a description of the problem and the other a practical solution?
What was their significance to you?
That's funny...I think that's the best thing to say in response to Frank Herbert: "WHO IS THIS GUY??" And it should be in caps with at least 2 question marks =)
ReplyDeleteYou know, I didn't think of them as even being connected until you asked the question about the coin. As I was reading, the ideas just randomly felt meaningful and this is the only place I have to write down those sorts of moments for more than just myself.
I often wonder what it would have been like to see how he raised his children and how he treated his family and community in general. I wonder how deeply he experienced the paradoxes of authority. What was it like for him to understand what rewards for his children might be doing to them, and then go ahead and give the rewards anyway? What did he do when he thought deeply that he needed to give pretty specific direction to someone but also understood what he might be enabling in that person by giving that direction?
I think the significance is the illumination of the paradox. When we see those sorts of quotes, I'm pretty sure most of us think the extreme opposite SHOULD be found, articulated and followed. That, however, doesn't work any better than DISOBEYING the message of the quote, as i tried to illustrate in those previous examples I think about in relation to Frank Herbert's typical life experiences. I see what the quotes are getting at, and then I see how difficult it is to be wise. If it were up to me, I would never give orders if I was in command of a society or group, but I see the problems of such a decision, and I don't think many people would want to walk the only path I know to find solutions to those problems - another paradox.
The second quote is a little bit easier for me to deal with, but it is really about the same issue for me. If religion could be ripped out of the context of controlling people through emotional levers then it would never be a companion to the destruction he alludes to in the quote. But I see the motivation for why it has always been used as it has, and I wonder what society would be like now if religion had not been used like it has always been used. Would we be better off as a society if God had not been set up as the ultimate force that put the fear of damnation after death into us? After all, God is the paramount emotional lever. That makes me think of the beginning of wisdom. Who knows? Maybe everything is exactly how it should be, exactly how it has to be.