Dune Bene Gesserit | A Feminist Manifesto Exposed
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water.” ― Bene Gesserit proverb
The publication of Frank Herbert’s Dune in 1965 reveals the partnership between the feminist Marxists and the technocratic corporations. Frank Herbert using the science fiction genre, exposes their plan for creating a new world order.
And what Dune clearly articulates is the feminists role in this new world order, and how deeply interwoven the feminists are in the corporate and political structure.
Hello, and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind blog and today I am going to discuss Dune the movie, and I will show how Dune is both a feminist manifesto and a Red Pill exposure of the feminine.
The 20th century led to mass production and overproduction, the supply of goods grew beyond consumer demand, and so technocrats turned to planned obsolescence and advertising to manipulate consumer spending. And by the 1950’s technological advancements in home chores also increased female leisure time and this also sore an increase in female readers,
This gave the technocrats the opportunity to test gender roles in the consumer market as a way to boost sales and increase consumer spending, especially in the United States and the science fiction genre was considered “an ideal arena for testing these ideas”.
Technocrats used feminist science fiction as a way to test how feminisms ideas of a new world order based on gender, could also position them as the dominant power.
Within the science fiction area women would be given a more dominant role in society when compared to their male counterparts, holding authority and successful dominance over the moral structure of society openly.
But the publication of Frank Herbert’s Dune in 1965 revealed the technocrats plan. Frank Herbert using the same science fiction genre, exposes the partnership between feminism and the technocrats and their plan for creating a new world order. Dune clearly articulates feminisms role in this new world order; as it exposes how the feminine is the possessor of true social power, and how deeply interwoven this feminine power is in religion and how it manipulates elite blood lines in its drive for status and power.
Dune reveals the correct place of men in the social structure as that of a blunt tool, a weapon that is used by the feminine to control and structure power, yet it also points out the fear that women have if they lost control of this male weapon.
In discussing the female characters of Dune, it is impossible not to first discuss the Bene Gesserit. Almost every female character of any importance in the book is a member of the Bene Gesserit, or likened to one if only she had the proper training. The Bene Gesserit is a mysterious organization open only to women, which trains its members in the powers of observation and subversive control.
In Dune the Bene Gesserit are feared as witches but also valued advisers, wives, concubines, or daughters of the most powerful men in the Universe. Tending to work behind the scenes rather than hold positions of leadership themselves, and their ultimate goals are allegedly for the greater good of the sisterhood, rather than for the good of humanity as a whole.
Although the Bene Gesserit are among the three most powerful factions in the empire (beside the Guild and the aristocracy), they are still dependent on the other factions within the human social structure. Their highest goal is to fulfill a prophecy by producing, through careful breeding and manipulation of bloodlines, a male Bene Gesserit known as the Kwisatz haderach.
In many ways this also parallels with the modern feminist goal of socially engineering the male into a man who is subservient to the female hive mind, a type of male female hybrid.
A male that will check first with another female before deciding on a social value, and the modern soy boy could well be the result of this social engineering. This is in contrast to the male that takes a more individualistic approach to society and its social values, where the male approach is to insist that each is judged according to the quality of their work and character.
Historically and even today women are portrayed as the victim, where men would compete for the most attractive women, as though they were commodities. Even when a film purports to offer strong female role models, they’re all too often defined as a victim that is suddenly granted some form of divine power without effort or moral fortitude.
But what Frank Herbert has done in Dune is to unmasked this facade and show that the true power is feminine through its manipulation of religion, social values and mate selection.
But what could be called Dunes greatest unmasking is that it has also shown the factions within human society, which is divided into seven factions. There is the Bene Gesserit faction or you could say are the more militant feminist, then you have the Aristocracy which by modern definitions would be a mixture of political families and the aristocracy, which is also a female power group, but is the softer side of femininity and achieves power through subtle manipulation of male rulers and their blood lines so as to maintain its wealth and power.
Then we have the Txian who are the technocrats which are business and efficiency focused thought their use of technology, the Tleilaxu is the medical establishment, the Imperial Sardaukar the industrial military complex, the Spacing Guild is the science faction which would include universities as their power base, and the Fremen which is often assumed to be the Islamic faction because Frank Herbert incorporated many Sufi traits but also Zen traits have been incorporated into the Fremen, so I would call this the spiritual faction.
The genius of Frank Herbert’s Dune is that he was able to identify all the main social factions of humanity and then coated them in both a medieval facade and a futuristic science fiction façade which allowed each faction to develop their full potential.
Paul Atreides the Blue Pilled protagonist, and his mother Lady Jessica who betrays the Bene Gesserit Matriarchy for the power of her aristocratic son Paul. Essentially swapping the overt power of feminism for the more subtle power of aristocracy. And in this we see a Red Pill truism come to the fore. Which says that it is the “nature of the female to give over authority to the greater power in the anticipation of controlling this greater power and thus attaining even greater status”, or what is more simply called hyper gamy.
In Dune there are no human rights. No ethics or morality in the modern sense. Instead you have serfdom, slavery, exploitation, torture, poisonings, assassinations, murders, wars. Men exist only to serve a higher power and die for it on the battlefield. And women exist only to be trapped in the matrix of a social power struggle and its eternal battle for dominance.
In Dune Frank Herbert manages to show the female character in its Red Pilled form more than what can be seen in the real-life darkness of the Blue Pilled subterfuge. In the world of Dune, women act as councilors and cardinals, acting from the shadows, directing their Blue Pilled proactive male partners in the direction they are needed although the female Bene Gesserit don’t shun from an actual fight, when necessary. The women of Dune are consistently some of the most important and powerful players throughout the series.
So, yes - the novel ‘Dune’ is very much both a feminist manifesto that clearly gives women a direction to the power they seek without the need for the deception of playing the victim card, and yet it also exposes female nature in all its subtlety and accurately giving society a Red Pilled look into the nature of the matriarchy.
Only one other work openly parallels the rise of Paul Atreides, and that is the works of Carlos Castaneda, where Don Juan tells Carlos that a sorcerer must learn both stalking and dreaming, does this sound like Paul Atreides when he broke his Blue Pilled conditioning by taking the water of life and becomes Paul Muad'Dib. In the works of Castaneda this is equivalent to the sorcerer challenging and defeating clarity, and even in this many have tried and are defeated. Just as in Dune many men have taken the water of life and died.
And you can hear more about this idea in the Post “Man of Knowledge | Matrix is a metaphor for Clarity and Power.
So that’s my critique of the novel ‘Dune, and I hope that this post will stimulate your own critical thoughts, and that this also encourages you to explore and learn about yourself and to continue your journey.
And if this critique interests you and you would like clarification, then please let me know in the comments about your understanding of Dune and how it reflects human society or not if that’s what you think.
And if you would also take a moment to sign up to the newsletter if you would like to be notified when I release new content, and if you would like to support my work then you can download the podcast version for a small supporters remuneration, or you can purchase meditation audios and books from the web site.
Here’s to you and your fulfilment and growth into every tomorrow to come.
Letter of Support
Hello my friends, the patronage of regular followers is greatly appreciated and is the true spirit of mutual self-love… So, if you find any value or joy in the content, please consider becoming a Supporting Patron by downloading Podcasts for a small supporter’s remuneration or by purchasing Meditation audios or books from the Books & Meditation Audios page or by clicking the Supporters Link, and this one simple act makes a huge difference.
👍 share and Stay safe.
Related posts:
Impeccability of Stalking Awareness | What Is Ego and Understanding the Over-Evolved Ego | Where Do Our Thoughts Come From | Zhuangz’s Butterfly Dream is a Red Pill Metaphor | What is Rational Thinking: Rational Side of Awareness | The Truth About Spiritual Enlightenment: Truths, Distortions, Fakes
References
// IMAGE S O U R C E: Image is used under the fair use and other exceptions to copyright law
Emilia Clarke from Game of Thrones | Image by: Medusawink.
Background by Roger Sexton from Pixabay
