In this chapter, Herbert adds a little dimension to the relationship between past, present, and future that he established in the previous two sections. In chapter 4, we see Paul practicing fencing and knife-fighting. In a future so technologically advanced, it seems a little odd that anyone would bother learning to defend themselves with a sword. For an example, look at Star Wars.
Luke Skywalker uses a light-saber to fight a number of
enemies, but guns work every bit as well for everyone else because swords aren’t
great distance weapons. Swords and
knives are made for the close intimate kinds of combat that happen within arm’s-length
of the people you’re trying to kill (or who are trying to kill you.) Guns are far less personal and take a lot
less effort to use effectively because someone with a gun can kill things much
further away. Presumably the reason fighting
with light-sabers is considered a sign of skill is because it’s a hell of lot
Back to “Dune” though, Herbert makes clear that fencing is
the primary form of self-defense because Paul is trained almost exclusively in
how to stab, thrust and parry. It seems
like an odd choice, except that Herbert also makes clear that fencing is
generally the only way to penetrate an opponent’s shields. The irony here is that technology has
progressed so far in the invention of shielding that the art of combat
regresses to forms even our culture considers somewhat primitive. Frank Herbert seems to portray progress as
going forward only by going backward, and relearning things less advanced
In some ways, it’s a little like what happened in the Dust
Bowl during the Great Depression.
Farmers using new automotive technology actually managed to strip the
soil of all the necessary nutrients that allowed crops to grow, turning fertile
farms into fields of dust (you know, like a desert.) In order to repair the damage, our whole
culture had to re-learn the farming concepts perfected in feudal times hundreds
of years earlier. Frank Herbert seems to
understand how technology that’s often meant to make things easier can end up
making other things harder. Paul has
shields now, which protects him from bullets, but it also makes it necessary
for him to learn a much more difficult form of self-defense and also know a
great deal about poisons as the Reverend Mother observed in chapter 1.
Also throughout chapter 5, Herbert begins to emphasize the
relationship of the future and the past.
Paul speaks with Dr. Yueh about a very old copy of the Orange Catholic
Bible, but Paul eventually feels that it is somehow related to the premonition
of his terrible purpose in the future.
Here we find Paul interacting with essentially an ancient artifact as an
omen of things to come. Herbert seems to
imply that even future progress somehow involves further regression into the
past. Even in Dr. Yueh’s seemingly
linear case of being motivated by his past toward a specific future, there is
still an element of time-reversal because Dr. Yueh’s future actions also affect
people from his past.
In addition to continuing to develop the impending doom
awaiting Paul and his family on Arrakis, Frank Herbert also stages the
progression of time in a way which can (like so many other complex ideas) be
summarized by lyrics from a Clash song:
Are you taking over
Or are you taking orders?
Are we going backward
Or are we going forward?