Time for the Butlerian Jihad?

Wisdom from Arrakis

Have you read Frank Herbert’s masterpiece, the Dune saga? I loved it, all six books. It rivals Tolkien in its comprehensive creation of a colorful and detailed narrative universe. The books are set in a far-future time when humanity has expanded out into the wide universe, exploring and colonizing. It is so far into the future that no one knows anymore when or where humanity originated! But one thing they know for sure is that technology has gotten way out of hand and become the master rather than the servant, and that the reign of the machines must end. A man named Butler led a Luddite revolt against the machines, freeing the human race by smashing the mechanical overlords. But, in order not to revert to pre-technological primitivism, clever people found it possible to contrive non-technological alternatives.

How to get along without computers? Develop mutants with enhanced brain capacities (with the use of the Spice, an extraterrestrial substance developed from the bile of the giant sandworms discovered on the planet Arrakis (or “Dune”). The brain trust thus created was a group of “Mentats” capable of performing high-speed calculations rivalling the capacity of the old computers. Similarly, faster-than-light space travel, necessary to keep the galactic-scale Empire together, was now to be achieved by the technique of “folding space,” another mental power awakened by use of the Spice. The result, while amazingly workable, by no means produced a Utopia. Indeed, new sets of problems replaced the old. But at least humanity was freed from the unfeeling tyranny of the machines.

The Dune books illustrated both the dangers and the promise of human inventiveness. Our creations proved too much to handle but also prompted an advance in human abilities unsuspected until we had desperate need of them. Think of how “ordinary” men and women, in time of war, discover inner strength and courage that would never otherwise have emerged in peace time.

All this comes up for me the more I hear of the latest advances of technology and its enhancements of life, and its use in creating a technological police state. It brings to mind an old anecdote about a Victorian-era street preacher. One day a guy in the crowd started heckling the evangelist: “Forget religion!” Pointing to a nearby street bum, he continued, “Socialism can put a new suit on that man!” The quick-witted preacher shot back: “Well, Christ can put a new man in that suit!” Touche! The problem we face in the advancing shadow of Artificial Intelligence and ever-vigilant means of universal surveillance is that it’s still the same man in the new suit!

How might we create a kind of “moral Mentat”? Could we perhaps employ gene-splicing technology to produce not just enhanced strength or beauty, but a superior moral will? This path might be even more dangerous! To create a group of “philosopher kings” as Plato recommended might obviate the dangers of “the rise of the machines” (on display in movies like The Terminator and The Matrix), but the flaws endemic to humanity would still lurk deep down, waiting to spring forth when opportunity presented itself. History has amply shown the danger of those who think themselves wise and feel entitled to ignore all criticism from those whom they deem lesser mortals. And if we think them so much wiser than us, we may not even be able to spot the lack of true wisdom in their decrees until it is too late! So what should we do?

I have often invoked the ancient, biblical myth of the Principalities and Powers, evil angelic beings who dominate this fallen world. They correspond to any collective entity created by humans but taking on a kind of autonomous “life” of their own. No effort of idealistic but, alas, puny humans can unseat them! This myth is right on target, a perfect parable to explain the processes of objectification and reification. Picture the beginning of some institution, religious, governmental, whatever. The founders were perfectly cognizant of the fact that the social compact of rules, laws, goals, etc., they had produced were their own pragmatic, ad hoc inventions, and thus subject to amendment. If needed, one can append a Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

But it is different for the first generation born after the new order has been established. It was there, fully in place and nailed down, by the time this new generation arrived on the scene. Thus the newcomers cannot help regarding the system as possessing the sanctity of objectified givenness, as if it were a fact of nature rather than of culture. The framers knew their creation was subsequent and subservient to them, mere human beings. But the inheritors of the system regard it as sacrosanct, superhuman, not to be tampered with except at great risk, lest lightning strike! That is called reification. It is also called the Frankenstein Monster. How to control it?

It immediately becomes virtually impossible for any individual to change things if he sees they have gone bad, corrupt, or oppressive. Why? Simply because the “old guard” have developed a group ethos or value system, say, of cheating, graft, discrimination, etc. They will scrutinize anyone who seeks admittance to their circle, to make sure the new recruit shares their values, and only those who do are admitted. If one rejects those values, he will not get the position. Only the like-minded will be accepted into the corporate elite. Anyone who later sees the errors of his, and his company’s, ways will be promptly eliminated (as in the movies Heaven Can Wait and Iron Man). In this fashion, the “personality” and the character of an institution remain constant generation after generation.

So, again, what’s to be done? I think it would help if our schools were to include a unit about the genius of our founders as well as the dangers of abusing the system they created. This approach would be critical but not anti-patriotic. Learning the lessons of our national (or religious, etc.) past so as not to repeat them, not judging (and hating) our heritage because, like the best of us, it sometimes fails, then needs forgiveness and correction. Teach them to remember what the word “utopia” means, i.e., both good place (eu-topia) and no place (ou-topia). Striving to eliminate all the problems of your society is a North Star you guide by, not a place you will ever actually reach. If you demand nothing short of Utopia, every actual society will gravely disappoint you. Antifa radicals, for example, want to burn down all social systems for not being perfect, and that is why they are left only with charred, smoking ruins. They have succeeded only in finding no-place when they meant to find the good place. The tragedy is that they can no longer tell the difference.