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Does Struggle Make Us Human?

One of the questions science fiction poses is: “What makes us human and how can we tell who the humans really are?” In
Frank Herbert’s novel Dune the task of finding and breeding humans (as opposed to mere people or animals) falls to the
Bene Gesserit, an all-female order specializing in politics and genetics. One of the tests for humanity the Bene Gesserit
employ is the gom jabbar, an ordeal by pain where the only alternative is death. Thus the mark of a human is stoicism in the
face of adversity, and the ability to withstand hardship so as to take later, more considered action. As the Reverend Mother
says: “A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he might kill the trapper and remove a threat
to his kind” (20)

On the desert planet Arrakis, the Fremen struggle against the inhospitable environment. Even with a wealth of technology
facilitating survival in such harsh conditions, life on Arrakis is precarious, yet the Fremen look beyond mere survival and
plan to transform their entire planet, a scheme that would take generations of toil before it came to fruition. Through their
willingness to struggle for a greater good, the Fremen may be regarded as human. As Lorenzo DiTommaso puts it in this
essay “History and Historical Effect in Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’”: “Arrakis is the gom jabbar of the Fremen” (318).

Isaac Asimov, in his short story Profession imagines a world where all the challenge has been removed from learning, and
instead knowledge is instantly downloaded into people’s brains from educational tapes. At eight everyone learns to read in a
day, and a decade later everyone is given the vocational knowledge they require for a life-long career. This system is
efficient, but that comes at the cost of flexible, adaptive thinking — people, like computers, are unable to move beyond their
programming. Only a tiny secret elite are left free to learn the old-fashioned, slow, hard way. These few become scientists,
inventors and creators. If learning and adapting are part of being human, then what does that make the majority of people in
Profession?

For the citizens of the World State in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, life is remarkably easy. They have been freed from
want and disease, from difficult thoughts and strong emotions, in the name of creating a stable society. These measures have
been resoundingly successful, to the point where dissent is all but impossible. Everyone in Brave New World is happy, but,
even more than for the people of Profession, this has come at the expense of new ideas. Those happy, easy lives are shallow
and purposeless save for the pursuit of empty pleasures. It is not difficult to guess how Herbert’s Reverend Mother would
judge their humanity.

Asimov, Isaac. “Profession.” Astounding Science Fiction, July 1957.

DiTommaso, Lorenzo. “History and Historical Effect in Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’.” Science Fiction Studies, vol.19, no. 3,
Nov. 1992, pp 311-325

Herbert, Frank. Dune. 1965, New English Library, 1984.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World 1932, Vintage, 1994

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Reproductive Control in Science Fiction

The control of reproduction is a common theme in many of the Science Fiction staples. Brave New World, The Handmaid’s
Tale and Dune are prime examples — in each of these texts, reproduction becomes an important tool for the sexual control
or liberation of women. Reproduction is one thing that is beyond the complete control of men, and for this reason it
threatens the patriarchy and must be controlled. Even in the most progressive societies, women cannot escape the norms that
see women’s bodies as objects to be subjected to men. We see this in the continued existence of rape culture and body
shaming when women express their sexuality, in the fact that safe acess to abortion is still an issue and in the continued
discrimination against women in the work-force, because of the fact they may have children one day. The concept of
motherhood is an inescapable role for women, whether they want children or not. So when the state in The Handmaid’s Tale
takes the control of reproduction to the next extreme: forcing fertile women to have sex with male elites, and then
ostracising them from the society that depends on their continued prostitution, the parallels between current double-
standards and objectification of women seem obvious. Lydia Myrsiades notes how women are treated as “a commodity of
exchange… passed from house to house in a form of contract pregnancy that determines her role as a “good” mother, one
who gives up her child and subserves her gestational rights to the male genetic claim to property”.¹ Atwood reflects on a
society that sees women’s bodies as not their own, but objects for men to use, and to produce children for them.

But what if their role in bearing children did not define the treatment of women? Initially it seems like Huxley’s Brave New
World could provide a glimpse into this future. Women do not have to give birth at all under the “World State”. Instead,
reproduction is controlled almost exclusively by the state through artificial wombs, where babies are literally grown and
raised in a factory, and the word “mother” is considered a dirty slur. Are women better off? While we see no women in elite
roles, there is no reason to believe they would be prevented from having them. Both sexes seem to be raised in the exact
same conditions by the state, and we assume at least, that they have the same opportunities throughout their lives as their
male counterparts. And yet, women are still treated as objects to an extent. Bernard is enraged when he hears Henry Foster
talking about Lenina “as if she were a bit of meat”.² John the Savage, perhaps most closely representing the traditional view
of Huxley’s society because he is isolated from the World State, is repulsed by Lenina’s sexual advances and calls her a
“whore”, eventually killing her because she does not align with his unrealistic standards; a chilling parallel to the “honor
killings” that continue today. Huxley does not spend much time exploring women’s issues in his texts, but the premise is an
interesting one to think about. Would gender roles still exist in a society where the burden of reproduction no longer falls on
women’s shoulders? Where science replaces any biological concerns?

Interestingly, Dune shows a world in which reproduction is a tool for empowerment. The Bene Gesserit, a group exclusively
made up of women, are some of the most powerful players in Hubert’s feudal society, controlling politics through their
ability to dictate family lines. The Bene Gesserit can change the sex of their babies at will, and they are largely responsible

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for deciding who produces an heir and with whom, as they arrange many of the marriages of the political elites. This grants
them formidable status and power over the Lords in what is otherwise a patriarchal society. The “Reverend Mothers” earn a
kind of fear and respect bestowed on few others in the text.

Whether liberated or oppressed, the perceptions of women in each of these societies still seems to be dictated in large part by
their sex and reproductive capacities. Reproduction and biology remain an important part of our conceptions of gender, even
in modern societies where technological progress has replaced much of the need for our biological attributes. While science
still hasn’t replaced the natural process of giving birth, it doesn’t seem long before artificial wombs could be feasible —
already IVF and surrogate mothers paint a close picture of Huxley’s world. But what would such a world really look like? Is
natural reproduction a process we necessarily want to give up? If we want true progress we must stop defining women by
their biology and the constructed gender narratives surrounding it.

¹ Myrsiades, Linda. ‘CHAPTER ELEVEN: Law, Medicine, and the Sex Slave in Margaret Atwood’s “the Handmaid’s
Tale”.’ Counterpoints, 121 (1999): 220.

² Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (London: Vintage Books, 2007), 39.

The “floating awareness” in Frank Herbert’s Dune.

At the very beginning of Dune, Frank Herbert introduces the concept of Paul’s “floating awareness”: that is, the focusing of
conscious and unconscious thoughts into coherent, relevant structures. I was struck by the significance of this passage on
page three insofar as it encapsulates the relationship between scientific fact, creative thought, agency and the genre of
science fiction. Though short, the stream of consciousness that Paul relays to us highlights these themes in the wider genre
of science fiction.
We are introduced to the “floating awareness” as a meditative technique that Paul uses to overcome his fears and tensions;
he processes complex facts about human biology, “animal consciousness” and “bodily integrity”, essentially addressing
snippets of information relating to our primal instincts and rationality. However, by omitting the direct connections between
each fact or statement, Herbert forces us to make mental leaps between these concepts and link them together for ourselves.
We not only have to interpret and understand scientific concepts that are peculiar to Herbert’s universe, but also exercise our
imaginative power as humans by associating ourselves with Paul and his mental processes. This is the concept that lies at the
heart of science fiction: the establishment of scientific and technological ideas and processes that are not necessarily familiar,
and the construction of this environment so that we must exercise our imaginations in order to understand.
Herbert makes a further, more subtle point in this manner by focusing on human and animal biology. We are provoked to
consider not just scientific facts, but those regarding our physical makeup and our very existence. Paul embodies the
science-fiction reader (or writer) who contemplates what it means to be human, approaching notions of consciousness,
subjectivism and agency. At the heart of this passage is a question: what makes us different from the animals? And in the

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structure of the passage we find the answer: our capacity to connect these abstract concepts, to step outside our primal
instincts and even day-to-day rationality to discover a world of conscious and unconscious connections. The “floating
awareness” therefore embodies and encapsulates the fundamental concepts of science fiction on a multitude of metaphorical
and meta-textual levels.

References:

Herbert, Frank. Dune. 1965. London: Gollancz, 2007.

Frank Herbert’s Message to Society Regarding Water

Conservation
The novel Dune written by Frank Herbert sends a stark message to society about water conservation in our own planet.
Arrakis is an entirely fictional planet with a very complex environment, complex characters and social structure. The planet
of Arrakis is very obviously different to Earth. Arrakis and Earth however share the similarity of having water. Although the
Fremen that inhabit Arrakis treat this water as if it is gold although it does not hold monetary value. This treatment of the
water by the Fremen is somewhat alien compared to the way in which humans on Earth treat their water.

The Fremen have complex water conservation rituals. They conserve the water distilled from their dead and they view
someone crying tears as a profound tribute to the dead because the living so desperately needs water. In the novel, Dr. Kynes
says “All of man’s water ultimately, belongs to his people – to his tribe” (Herbert). This statement shows how much the
Fremen value their water as an actual ‘belonging’ not simply a renewable commodity that is endless. In our society on the
other hand waste water like it is never going to run out and pollute it with toxins and sewage.

The fact that Earth and Arrakis both have water but it is treated entirely differently by its inhabitants exaggerates the contrast
between the treatment of water between the two species/cultures. Most of Dune is fictional, but the water is not, it is
something that Herbert has adapted from Earth in his world building process. There is a sense that Herbert is alienating the
way that the Fremen treat their water because he alienates so much else in the novel. This sense of alienation and contrast
suggests that Herbert is trying to tell his readers that humans are so far off the concept of water conservation and they need
to consider it more seriously. It seems that Herbert wants humans to treat Earth and its water more respectively as do so the
Fremen to Arrakis and its water.

Reference

Herbert, Frank. Dune (1965). London: Gollancz, 2007.

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