The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?


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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Serkanner »

Naïve mind wrote:However, the notion that the BG felt no responsibility for humanity's survival is clearly rubbish.
I assume this is directed to my post.

Where have you found evidence that the Bene Gesserit, from before Leto's reign, were aware of the danger of the extinction of mankind? They weren't. Because of this it isn't possible to really feel the responsibilty to avoid a hypothetical extinction. You mix up a more common awareness of the possibilty of the extinction of mankind ( which we all feel ) and the very real danger Leto noticed. It is that REAL possibility the Bene Gesserit COULD NOT feel responsible for.

Clearly rubbish? I think not.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naïve mind »

Serkanner wrote:You mix up a more common awareness of the possibilty of the extinction of mankind ( which we all feel ) and the very real danger Leto noticed. It is that REAL possibility the Bene Gesserit COULD NOT feel responsible for.
I think we're talking at cross purposes here. I was only ever talking about a generic sense of responsibility for the survival of mankind. Something which Leto's golden path also cemented. Arafel (which, I think, has been established to be the Ixians accidentally creating a prescient machine intelligence wifh murderous intent, or perhaps a decent sense of self-preservation that would amount to the same thing in a universe where humans hate machine intelligence with a religious fervor) was an immediate threat to human survival, likely to happen in the first two thousand years After Paul.

I agree that the Bene Gesserit didn't forsee that, and wouldn't have prevented it--perhaps even hastened its coming by freely breeding prescience into the population.

But The Scattering also ensured that mankind would survive other, more diffuse threats. Plagues, dictators, wars waged with planet-busting weapons, the collapse of the Spacing Guild, and the re-emergence of Disco music. And in that sense, the Bene Gesserit certainly lost the privilege of being the only grown-ups in a universe of madmen looking out for their own short-term interests, the few able and willing to think of the long term.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Sardaukar Capt »

I think the BG were so narrowly focused on achieving power from the shadows that it was almost like they couldn't see the forest for the trees when they got Paul. They didn't want to sit on the throne themselves. I believe their entire goal with the KH program was a line of Emperors with allegiance to the BG Sisterhood. I thought I read in GEoD (but I can't find the passage now) about how that was the BG plan for the KH. They feared the corrupting influence of the throne for themselves but sought to control the person sitting on it. Something along those lines.

As far as after the original trilogy and with the Sisterhood in Heretics & Chapterhouse, don't have a firm opinion there for their goal for the known universe. I still need to re-read those again. I try to re-read all Frank's Dune novels every 3 or 4 yrs.

So interesting Arafel was brought up in the previous post. I've realized one thing McDune did for me was put me more in tune to the subtext in Frank's novels for inconsistencies with the McDune garbage. But the more important benefit by putting me more in tune with the subtext is I'm getting an even richer experience out of his books than before and it was damn great before. Having finished a fresh re-reading of GEoD, there is this entire subtext of Leto II attempting to in effect loosen the fear of machines in general. That automation doesn't equal AI. That the Ixian's weren't even capable of making that anymore going by the closing scene in GEoD. That using machines (not thinking machines but machines) in general were important for humanity to survive in the Golden Path. Humans had moved so far beyond AI that they had nothing to fear from mere machines. Wonderful stuff that makes McDune all the more banal, hackneyed, and juvenile.
The name Atreides was also consciously chosen. It is the family name of Agamemnon. Says Herbert, "I wanted a sense of monumental aristocracy, but with tragedy hanging over them--and in our culture, Agamemnon personifies that."
Frank Herbert by Tim O'Reilly
http://tim.oreilly.com/herbert/

Ghanima said. "We Atreides go back to Agamemnon..."
Distracted, Irulan asked: "Who's Agamemnon?"

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

WTF? A BG forgets the Titans?! :)
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naïve mind »

Sardaukar Capt wrote:I think the BG were so narrowly focused on achieving power from the shadows that it was almost like they couldn't see the forest for the trees when they got Paul. They didn't want to sit on the throne themselves. I believe their entire goal with the KH program was a line of Emperors with allegiance to the BG Sisterhood. I thought I read in GEoD (but I can't find the passage now) about how that was the BG plan for the KH. They feared the corrupting influence of the throne for themselves but sought to control the person sitting on it. Something along those lines.
To be honest, I don't see that.

When my father, the Padishah Emperor, heard of Duke Leto's death and the manner of it, he went into such a rage as we had never before seen. He blamed my mother and the compact forced on him to place a Bene Gesserit on the throne.
He blamed the Guild and the evil old Baron. He blamed everyone in sight, not excepting even me, for he said I was a witch like all the others. And when I sought to comfort him, saying it was done according to an older law of self-preservation to which even the most ancient rulers gave allegiance, he sneered at me and asked if I thought him a aweakling. I saw then that he had been aroused to this passion not by concern over the dead Duke but by what that death implied for all royalty. As I look back on it, I think there may have been some prescience in my father, too, for it is certain that his line and Muad'Dib's shared common ancestry.

-"In My Father's House," by the Princess Irulan
Looks like they didn't need a KH to pull a few strings at court. And if they wanted to be the force behind the throne, they could've installed a weakling, someone who could be controlled by a few words of Voice. They didn't breed the KH to be a weakling.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

Obviously Shaddam IV was an unwilling puppet of the BG and Guild.

Without being in a position of power, a KH would be useless. I don't think it was a coincidence that they anticipated their child being born to House Atreides and Harkonnen, the two most powerful and influential families besides the Corrinos. With the Harkonnen power and the Atreides influence, ascending to the throne would be a cakewalk for the KH.

I think their mistake was in assuming he would be loyal to the sisterhood once his ancestral memories were accessed.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naïve mind »

Freakzilla wrote:Obviously Shaddam IV was an unwilling puppet of the BG and Guild.

Without being in a position of power, a KH would be useless. I don't think it was a coincidence that they anticipated their child being born to House Atreides and Harkonnen, the two most powerful and influential families besides the Corrinos. With the Harkonnen power and the Atreides influence, ascending to the throne would be a cakewalk for the KH.
That explains why Paul needed to be born into nobility, not why the BG needed a KH. They had their puppet. They had Voice and imprinters and great manipulative abilities. Thufir Hawat, generally treated as one of the finest male minds in the Empire, is like wax in the hands of Jessica, and Jessica is obviously not the most high-ranking BG member. They had shaped the religions of the galaxy to their liking.

I don't dispute that the BG intended to place the KH into a position of power. The question still remains why they needed him there. What power would a KH Emperor give them that they didn't already have?

And creating a KH to obtain the throne is like funding the Manhattan project to settle a game of cards. Now, if you say they needed a KH Emperor to smash the Guild monopoly on space travel, or abolish the faufreluches, then we're getting somewhere. But by then we've moved beyond 'mere power grab'.
I think their mistake was in assuming he would be loyal to the sisterhood once his ancestral memories were accessed.
Emperor Feyd Jr would be BG trained from birth, and presumably imprinted as soon as possible. He'd have been a very different creature from Paul (and I don't believe Paul's loyalties were significantly shaken up by his OM experiences)
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Sardaukar Capt »

I finally remembered where I had seen that about the Bene Gesserit. Even FH says there is so much more to the BG at the end of that segment but what he said here clicked with me about how I felt about their general goals/motivations/machinations when I found this interview years after reading the novels.

Professor Willis E. McNelly interview with Frank Herbert and Beverly Herbert, in 1969
http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WM: Bene (Bené) Gesserit, you pronounce it?
FH: Bene (Benny) Gesserit, yes.
WM: Bene Gesserit. The...their whole mystique and so on is relatively unexplained. Why do they want the Kwisatz Haderach in the first place? You see, is relatively, at the time…
FH: The name of the game is power.
WM: Yes, and they want power. That…that explains it to a certain extent but…
FH: They want power in a specific way. You know, I’ve always been amazed by the statement or by the label of psychological warfare. There can be no such thing as psychological warfare…if you develop a psychological weapon sufficiently that it is destructive to any potential enemy, it will destroy you with the enemy…it’s a two-edged sword without a handle, and if you grab it hard enough to wield it, you’re going to…
WM: It’s self destructive.
FH: Yes.
WM: So we could have a variation of the Lord Acton notion: power corrupts both the user and the receiver of the power, both absolutely...
FH: Right. Acton saw it.
WM: How interesting. I hadn’t thought of the…who power corrupts…
FH: Now the Bene Gesserit see this. You see how they keep themselves in the background.

WM: Yes, that’s true.
FH: They want a user of power they can control.
WM: I see…with safety to them.
FH: That’s right. It’s a safety device, you see, and I say this in several ways, not in this way, not in this blatant, you know, way, but implying it with all of its permutations, because there’s much more to this. We could go on for several hours discussing this aspect of it.
This statement in the quote above just reminds me of how much I LOVE his writing and why I can't stand McDune. They are polar opposite of FH in this way. "I say this in several ways, not in this way, not in this blatant, you know, way, but implying it with all of its permutations, because there’s much more to this"
The name Atreides was also consciously chosen. It is the family name of Agamemnon. Says Herbert, "I wanted a sense of monumental aristocracy, but with tragedy hanging over them--and in our culture, Agamemnon personifies that."
Frank Herbert by Tim O'Reilly
http://tim.oreilly.com/herbert/

Ghanima said. "We Atreides go back to Agamemnon..."
Distracted, Irulan asked: "Who's Agamemnon?"

Children of Dune by Frank Herbert

WTF? A BG forgets the Titans?! :)
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

Naïve mind wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:Obviously Shaddam IV was an unwilling puppet of the BG and Guild.

Without being in a position of power, a KH would be useless. I don't think it was a coincidence that they anticipated their child being born to House Atreides and Harkonnen, the two most powerful and influential families besides the Corrinos. With the Harkonnen power and the Atreides influence, ascending to the throne would be a cakewalk for the KH.
That explains why Paul needed to be born into nobility, not why the BG needed a KH. They had their puppet. They had Voice and imprinters and great manipulative abilities. Thufir Hawat, generally treated as one of the finest male minds in the Empire, is like wax in the hands of Jessica, and Jessica is obviously not the most high-ranking BG member. They had shaped the religions of the galaxy to their liking.

I don't dispute that the BG intended to place the KH into a position of power. The question still remains why they needed him there. What power would a KH Emperor give them that they didn't already have?

And creating a KH to obtain the throne is like funding the Manhattan project to settle a game of cards. Now, if you say they needed a KH Emperor to smash the Guild monopoly on space travel, or abolish the faufreluches, then we're getting somewhere. But by then we've moved beyond 'mere power grab'.
I think the BG knew that something bad was coming for humanity...

"I ask only what you see in the future with your superior abilities."
"I see in the future what I've seen in the past. You well know the pattern
of our affairs, Jessica. The race knows its own mortality and fears stagnation
of its heredity. It's in the bloodstream -- the urge to mingle genetic strains
without plan. The Imperium, the CHOAM Company, all the Great Houses, they are
but bits of flotsam in the path of the flood."


Maybe they hoped a KH Emperor could lesseen the effects or maybe prevent it. Who knows?
I think their mistake was in assuming he would be loyal to the sisterhood once his ancestral memories were accessed.
Emperor Feyd Jr would be BG trained from birth, and presumably imprinted as soon as possible. He'd have been a very different creature from Paul (and I don't believe Paul's loyalties were significantly shaken up by his OM experiences)
Really?

"How would you like to live billions upon billions of lives?" Paul asked.
"There's a fabric of legends for you! Think of all those experiences, the wisdom
they'd bring. But wisdom tempers love, doesn't it? And it puts a new shape on
hate. How can you tell what's ruthless unless you've plumbed the depths of both
cruelty and kindness? You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach."
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

Great find, Capt!
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naïve mind »

Freakzilla wrote:
Emperor Feyd Jr would be BG trained from birth, and presumably imprinted as soon as possible. He'd have been a very different creature from Paul (and I don't believe Paul's loyalties were significantly shaken up by his OM experiences)
Really?

"How would you like to live billions upon billions of lives?" Paul asked.
"There's a fabric of legends for you! Think of all those experiences, the wisdom
they'd bring. But wisdom tempers love, doesn't it? And it puts a new shape on
hate. How can you tell what's ruthless unless you've plumbed the depths of both
cruelty and kindness? You should fear me, Mother. I am the Kwisatz Haderach."
I was thinking about that passage when I wrote that statement, which is why I said that his loyalties didn't seem changed by the experience. He was still Atreides to the core, eager for power, loyal to his friends. He didn't look favourably upon the Bene Gesserit, but neither did he when Mohiam summoned him as a lad.

I think Odrade says about Murbella that "Once we [the Sisterhood] have them, they never truly leave us.", or something like that.

To be honest, I don't know for certain that Feyd Jr. would've remained loyal to the BG (especially if you consider who his parents were), I just think that the BG wouldn't be foolish enough to let him be raised by his parents, like Paul was.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

Naïve mind wrote:To be honest, I don't know for certain that Feyd Jr. would've remained loyal to the BG (especially if you consider who his parents were), I just think that the BG wouldn't be foolish enough to let him be raised by his parents, like Paul was.
I think my point was that no KH would be loyal to the BG. Since you brought up Odrade, she gave me the impression (as well as Rebecca) that once a woman access her female OM, they can't be anything other than BG. This is why it's difficult for them to break away. The KH on the other hand has twice as many OM with the male side included which would give them a more balanced(?), less pro BG point of view.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naïve mind »

Freakzilla wrote:
Naïve mind wrote:To be honest, I don't know for certain that Feyd Jr. would've remained loyal to the BG (especially if you consider who his parents were), I just think that the BG wouldn't be foolish enough to let him be raised by his parents, like Paul was.
I think my point was that no KH would be loyal to the BG. Since you brought up Odrade, she gave me the impression (as well as Rebecca) that once a woman access her female OM, they can't be anything other than BG. This is why it's difficult for them to break away. The KH on the other hand has twice as many OM with the male side included which would give them a more balanced(?), less pro BG point of view.
I understood their loyalty as being due to Bene Gesserit training, not OM. I had a longer post planned, but I think this difference in interpretation is sufficient to explain our differences.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Memory »

Hi

I am fairly certain that the purpose of the Bene Gesserit was the maturation of the human species. I think their goal with the KH was to create a series of (in FH words) social juggernauts in the forms of KHs (once one was created I imagine more would easily be made from the progenitor or his family).
A KH would an extremly powerful instrument for the BG in combining the powers of prescience, super-mentat prowess and other memory, with the BG in control but not visbly so they would escape the corrupting power of power.
This super-human would gain tremendous influence not matter his social standing because the missonaria protectiva had prepared humanity to worship such a savior (evidence; the fervent worship of the fremen influenced by MP). Social standing would surely help and fasten the process though.

The flaw was of course that they lost control.

Now it seems that the latter day BG thinks that this was a crude method of attaining their goal and now much prefer to guide the maturation of humankind by small and subtle nudges. Maybe through the missonaria protectiva, releasing talents such as heightened reflexes in to the general gene pool etc.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Memory »

Naïve mind wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
Naïve mind wrote:To be honest, I don't know for certain that Feyd Jr. would've remained loyal to the BG (especially if you consider who his parents were), I just think that the BG wouldn't be foolish enough to let him be raised by his parents, like Paul was.
I think my point was that no KH would be loyal to the BG. Since you brought up Odrade, she gave me the impression (as well as Rebecca) that once a woman access her female OM, they can't be anything other than BG. This is why it's difficult for them to break away. The KH on the other hand has twice as many OM with the male side included which would give them a more balanced(?), less pro BG point of view.
I understood their loyalty as being due to Bene Gesserit training, not OM. I had a longer post planned, but I think this difference in interpretation is sufficient to explain our differences.

Yes, the BG indoctrination would be enough to make them loyal to the BG expect in extreme cases.
I think the spice agony and the awakening of other memory binds the RM to the BG in a more profund way, not just through the lives of past BG but through the realization that the goal of the sisterhood is the maturation and survival of humankind.
There is a passage in herectics or chapter house mentioning that any RM would sacrifice the sisterhood in an instant if it posed a threat to the survival of humankind. For a RM nothing is more important and since the sisterhood is a tool to achieve this, the sisterhood is the next important thing.

I think the KW and leto were disloyal because through their prescience saw a more immediate threat to humanity than the sisterhood knew, or only suspected.
Leto allowed the sisterhood to continue so he obviously saw a purpose for them.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by lotek »

I always had the nagging feeling Leto II kept the Sisterhood around for a laugh.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

lotek wrote:I always had the nagging feeling Leto II kept the Sisterhood around for a laugh.
Or just to torment them.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by lotek »

Freakzilla wrote:
lotek wrote:I always had the nagging feeling Leto II kept the Sisterhood around for a laugh.
Or just to torment them.
He probably found it funny to torment them ^^
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Captain_Cackwurst »

Why do the BG care for the "maturity of mankind"?

And what does it even mean? Seems like a very vague term and goal to me. A direct comparison of the evolution of mankind with the evolution of a single human doesn't quite work. Do they want to make humans make use of their version of 'common sense', kind of like the enlightenment-philosophers?

Also, what is (the bg definition of) 'mankind' worth of, if they are spread so much (apparently over several universes) that there isn't even a chance of eliminating them all (let alone 'educating' them)? Seems like a pretty impossible task to me.

I doubt i am correct about it, but for me the bg seem to act rather self-purposal (not in sense of enhancing their power, but in sense of keeping the bg alive solely to do so), keeping the "maturity" thing as a somewhat religious higher goal they can clamp on so they won't seem as materialistic.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

In the latter books they clearly state that survival of the sisterhood is their top priority. Yes, the universe is a big place but subverting the Honored Matres will help in that direction.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by georgiedenbro »

To be fair we don't really know the BG's exact plan for mankind as they saw it, although we can infer some things based on what Paul and then Leto II say about them. The thing we know most about the BG is their KH breeding program, and if anything this is the opposite of 'maturing mankind', insofar as creating one great power who can exert control over all others is just another kind of slavery. So perhaps by 'improving mankind' they meant improving his potential, even if only through one superior man at the expense of all others.

I agree with Freak that the goal of 'protecting mankind' was one the BG seemed to be shirking in the early books, with their 'maturing' project being a higher priority to them; too much focus on the past, not enough on the future.

To the question of "why would the BG care about maturing anyone or helping mankind", again the answer lies in the full awareness of genetic lineage that each RM has. A RM is not just "me", she is "everyone in history leading up to me, including me"; it's all contained in the genetic material. That will change your perspective! But if we're going to talk about how much the BG care about the rest of humanity, I do think it bears repeating that having a connection to the past is important but incomplete, and they were not set up to care fully about humanity like Paul and Leto II were, since they had the full picture.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

georgiedenbro wrote:To the question of "why would the BG care about maturing anyone or helping mankind", again the answer lies in the full awareness of genetic lineage that each RM has. A RM is not just "me", she is "everyone in history leading up to me, including me"; it's all contained in the genetic material. That will change your perspective! But if we're going to talk about how much the BG care about the rest of humanity, I do think it bears repeating that having a connection to the past is important but incomplete, and they were not set up to care fully about humanity like Paul and Leto II were, since they had the full picture.
Something Leto emphasizes in CoD and GEoD, even posthumously in HoD. It's only the past. It's valuable only as a guide to create new futures.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Captain_Cackwurst »

georgiedenbro wrote:That will change your perspective!

I see, but this is still too vague. How and why does it change perspective? It does seem like the RM are still individuals, unlike Leto. And even if they were collectives, what would they care for humanitys "maturity"?
I potentially could accept that the other memorys wouldn't want to "die" and therefore want the sisterhood to survive (although i doubt that many 10k years old memorys would care about being alive).


Freakzilla wrote:In the latter books they clearly state that survival of the sisterhood is their top priority.
Ye, but that would be self-purposal as long as they did not have any 'higher goal' they could look forward to. Not that i had a problem with it, it just seems so nihilistic and plain for the great hyper-philosophical sisterhood.

Just had a thought: In the Old Empire, they were the force that overthrew stagnation with their KH-program. After Paul, they start with their self-purposal goal of survival. From now on, they never are the acting force again, it's Leto and the HM that threaten them and overthrow status quo and the BG only react in order to survive. Seems they wait until the universe is stagnant again so they can figure out a new goal? meh, i doubt thats a good theory, but i wanted it to be written down.




Btw: i feel lonely in the reading group :'(
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Naib »

I don't see the BG as every having a goal for humanity. They were breeding to create a male BG. Male certainly, but still BG. Jessica threw that plan into disarray when she gave birth to Paul. Their only care for humanity was as breeding stock. Much like a farmer breeding cattle for higher milk/meat yield. The cattle don't matter, only the goal where they profit.

The only goal I ever saw for the BG was to remain BG.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by georgiedenbro »

Captain_Cackwurst wrote:
georgiedenbro wrote:That will change your perspective!
I see, but this is still too vague. How and why does it change perspective?
In my opinion this issue is one the FH's main theses of the Dune Chronicles, and it's a very good question to ask. My answer of "the genetic memories make you care" is, indeed, vague, because FH doesn't explicitly tell us why it makes them care. He seems to say it does (reiterated in CH:D quite clearly) but that's all. I think part of the puzzle to solve in reading the series is to determine for oneself where real caring for others comes from. FH makes it clear enough it doesn't come from 'superiority', from 'royalty', from logic, or from interdependence. But there is a such thing as caring and it does come from somewhere; it's the thing that made Jessica betray the sisterhood, what made Yueh betray the Atreides, and what made Paul preserve Chani despite the ravages of the Jihad. I think "why does one care about others" and "how does one start to care if one didn't before" are two of the most important issues in the series. There shouldn't be a simple answer to it, and although we can scan for technical reasons why the BG and KH's are different from others in their capacity to care, I think the real importance is for each reader to come to his own conclusions about what in life we might learn that would make us truly care about the rest of humanity.
Naib wrote:I don't see the BG as every having a goal for humanity. They were breeding to create a male BG. Male certainly, but still BG. Jessica threw that plan into disarray when she gave birth to Paul. Their only care for humanity was as breeding stock. Much like a farmer breeding cattle for higher milk/meat yield. The cattle don't matter, only the goal where they profit.

The only goal I ever saw for the BG was to remain BG.
Well, we have Leto II's statement which suggests the BG were on to something more important than merely breeding cattle for their own selfish purposes. He says that they knew the importance of the Golden Path and didn't take the responsibility to initiate it; to me this sounds more like they lost their path rather than that they never cared at all. I think "the end justifies the means" is all too common a rationalization, and for the BG their breeding program was a means to an end which eventually became an end unto itself with the original reason maybe lost in the shuffle. Then again we aren't ever told their inner plans and I wouldn't be surprised if there were factions within the order.
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Re: The Goal of the Bene Gesserit for the Known Universe?

Post by Freakzilla »

You must remember that I have at my internal demand every expertise known to our
history. This is the fund of energy I -draw upon when I address the mentality of
war. If you have not heard the moaning cries of the wounded and the dying, you
do not know about war. I have heard those cries in such numbers that they haunt
me. I have cried out myself in the aftermath of battle. I have suffered wounds
in every epoch-wounds from fist and club and rock, from shell-studded limb and
bronze sword, from the mace and the cannon, from arrows and lasguns and the
silent smothering of atomic dust, from biological invasions which blacken the
tongue and drown the lungs, from the swift gush of flame and the silent working
of slow poisons. . . and more I will not recount! I have seen and felt them all.
To those who dare ask why I behave as I do, I say: With my memories, I can do
nothing else.
I am not a coward and once I was human.
-The Stolen Journals

~GEoD

I know Leto wasn't BG but he was a product of their breeding program and the way I see it he was more BG than the BG.
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Paul of Dune was so bad it gave me a seizure that dislocated both of my shoulders and prolapsed my anus.
~Pink Snowman
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