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Frank Hebert Masterpost
Frank Herbert: We do nasty things to our leaders… we shoot them in the streets of Dallas, hang them on pieces of wood at Golgotha, we fondly say that in the United States we separate church and state, that’s an asinine statement. I am a political animal, and I really never left journalism. I’m writing about the current scene, the metaphors are there. I’m writing about the political ecology, the religious ecology, the social ecology, and the physical ecology of our world, and I think you do not separate any one part of this from the others, you don’t separate mind and body and understand the human being.
INTRO: In this exclusive Walden tapes special edition we’re proud to present author Frank Herbert and filmmaker David Lynch discussing the making of Dune the motion picture. Following some insights into the filmmaking process and challenges faced by writer-director David Lynch, Walden tapes spoke directly to Frank Herbert about beliefs, values, and his writing join us now for a truly unique experience with two magnificent artists of our time: listen, learn, and enjoy.
Interviewer John: WaldenBooks is proud to have the opportunity to speak with author Frank Herbert and director David Lynch. David Lynch is not only the director of DUNE the motion picture but also the author of the screenplay, and right beside me is Frank Herbert he authored the book, and of course all of the subsequent books, which have become so immensely popular. The first question that I wanted to ask was of a filmmaker did you feel threatened by the fact that so many readers had had no doubt seeing DUNE so many times before they’ll have the opportunity to come into the theater and see your DUNE
David Lynch: What was the question? No you gotta be either stupid or crazy you know to do something like this and I live in fear 24 hours a day.
INT: So you’re definitely cognizant of the stature.
DL: Yes but I say
FH: Why don’t you ask me the question because I’ve seen the film.
DL: no
somebody has to do it right and someone had to do it right and I was I the the day I finished reading the book I met with Dino in his office and I was so high from finishing the book so and so thrilled with you know what I read I signed on and I didn’t really know it was going to be three and a half of this type of you know a year, but I’ll let Frank you know tell you what he thinks.
Int: Dino de Laurentis came to you or brought you to DUNE the project before you were even really-
DL: I’d never read, I’d never even heard the word DUNE.
FH: He thought it was June.
DL: I thought he said June.
Int: I do want to ask Frank the question about film, what he thinks of it, and that’s kind of a loaded question because Frank is a filmmaker himself, something I didn’t know until today, so you’re not working
with someone who’s not aware of the ….
FH: Documentaries, quite a different thing.
INT: You’re aware of the process
FH: Oh yeah.
DL: Of visual medium and you’re happy with the film.
FH: Well I get asked a specific question a lot of times if the settings, the scenes, that I saw in David’s film match my original imagination, the things that I projected my imagination, and I must tell you that some of them do, precisely, some of them don’t, and some of them are better, which is what you would expect of a artist such as David and Tony Masters and I’m delighted with that, I mean why not take it and improve on it visually as far as I’m concerned the film is a visual feast, I would love to have some of the scenes as stills to frame and have around me they’re beautiful.
INT: So you feel there was there was a synergy between the two of
you? the director, the the screenwriter and and and the actual creator of the concept.
FH: Synergy? mm-hmm the sum is more than the parts [chuckles]
INT: That’s right, there is something better came out of out of the two of you working together.
FH: I think so.
INT: What was, what was Frank’s participation, I’m asking David this question-
DL: Well I’m-
INT: in the process of the film?
DL: I signed on to do, you know, DUNE and so I always when I was working on the Elephant Man, I worked with you know
Christopher Devore and Erik Bergman and we tried to be true to the essence of, you know the Elephant Man, and in Dune I try to be true to the essence of Frank’s you know Book, and which is not an easy thing, because there’s so many different lines, so many different little things swimming about, it’s picking and choosing and condensing, and you know all sorts of things, but, so Frank’s contribution was you know the book and his support from day one all the way through to now and
he’s always available you know for you know questions and he’s read almost every you know draft that, I did seven drafts, and he’s you know allowed me to you know do my thing and and his book is packed full with you know these what I call seed ideas, there’s the big ideas, but there’s so many little seed ideas, and those he let me you know sprout and and run with, and that was the thrill for me because there are things in the movie that were sparked you know by Frank but they were allowed to you know to grow out and so and I think it’d be neat for people to who have read the book they will see, they’ll see a difference but but it’s true to the essence of Frank’s ideas.
FH: The film begins as the book begins and it ends, essentially as the end, as the book ends, and I hear my dialogue all the way through it, not not just my dialogue but there’s lots of other dialogue, but I had the funny sensation in watching the rough cut, not exactly too rough recently, of some of the cuts, the things that are not in there, of feeling that they’d happened just off stage or we go and beyond them but but they’d happened that we hadn’t really lost them there only there were only two scenes that, that I missed in the film but I know why they were cut, they were pets of mine, and and you shouldn’t have any pets when you’re doing a screen.
DL: no they were pets of mine too and I know which scenes they are
but you know those are the, you know those are the things that, that’s the trouble that’s, the film right now is 2 hours and 20 minutes and it rolls along gangbusters but certain scenes that Frank and I both you know liked, I think would have you know stopped the film.
INT: Was this merely a stroke of luck that two artists from two different mediums, and obviously two sensitive artists, didn’t really experience any substantial difficulty in rolling or contributing to the production of this film?
DL: On my part I consider it you know pretty lucky yeah.
[garbled]
INT: Did you expect the license the Frank gave you with?
DL: Well when I met Frank you know three and a half years ago you know when I first signed on and I didn’t know who or what I was going to be meeting, I’d seen his picture this you know bearded you know habits books right, yeah and so but it’s turned out to be like well Frank is an idea man and they’re the best kind of you know people in my book and, around, and ideas are, everybody you know feeds off them but very few people you know can catch them and they’re out there but they’re, they’re so elusive and you have to, you know you know, be kind of sneaky and and sneak up on them and to capture them, and Frank captures these you know fantastic ideas and I really, you know respect that.
INT: Frank you’re obviously satisfied with the result.
FH: Yes.
INT: You’ve said so many times.
FH: But a funny thing happened – Dino called me I didn’t know
David from Adam’s off ox and he called me and he said that he had hired David Lynch to do the, to direct the film of Dune, and this was after a couple of, well I think they would have been disastrous but David knows why, so I said ‘David who?’ and he said ‘David Lynch’, he said ‘The Elephant Man’ and I hadn’t seen Elephant Man so I went out and got a tape of it and played it on my video and I had this funny gutt sensation we had the guy who could do it. When you’re doing a film, you’re, from the written word, you’re translating into a different language, it’s as though you were translating from English to Swahili. The the visual language is a different language and there was such subtlety and such beauty in in the Elephant Man I’ve seen it now about eight times I think and I get something new out of it each time, something peripheral or something right in the mainstream, that was done visually as a visual metaphor. And I’ve never told David this, but this is true this, this is what happened to me, I-I had this gut sensation I think we got him the guy who can do it.
INT: I’m glad we’re having this talk. David did you as a filmmaker, I think by anyone’s estimation Dune was written very visually, I mean as a piece of literature, the visual description just visualization of it, it was very immediate, did that help you in your translation to the screen?
DL: Well like I said well if you I-I really in a way forget a lot of the book now because there have been so many drafts of the screenplay in between, but some things I really think in your mind you think that Frank you know described things but when you go searching, some things are described of course, but a lot of things are left to, you know your imagination, even in the book.
FH: and that was Gilbert I might add
DL: right yeah and you get a feeling and then your mind takes over from there and so when a lot of times we’ll go searching for descriptions of things,they weren’t there, or I realized that I was picturing something and I was you know falling in love with you know what I was picturing and so you know the, like I said, Frank allowed me that you know to go with, you know my interpretation and and you know how things look, and because of that you know I was able to, it was it was, my interpretation was one thing and then I started working with Tony and we went through two or three different steps into sort of the stratosphere of you know interpretation and we got clicking on four really nifty different worlds and the look of each one.
INT: So the motion picture is truly an entity in itself, well if you love the book you’ll love a motion picture even more because it’s, it’s, it takes on a new dimension.
DL: I can see how everyone who reads the book is going to interpret it and their interpretation is not mine but I have to you know it has to go through, through me as the director, it’s like you know I always say, like a filter and things pass through me and and it’s it’s not going to be other people’s interpretations. Some people like may love it and some people say it you know, it’s not what they pictured, they would be disappointed, you know that’s the way it is.
INT: Again the book being so visual some people, anyone who’s read it’s been there before.
DL: Exactly yeah
INT: What about the tools that you had to employ as a filmmaker, especially a modern filmmaking in this day and age what did you do? What did you have fun with?
DL: Every technique known to filmmaking has been used on this picture,
and, except for stop-motion strangely enough, but every other kind of thing and so I’ve learned a tremendous amount of you know technical things. We built over, about 80 sets in what amounted to 16 sound stages down in Mexico we’ve traveled all over the world, Raphael and
I, Raphael the DiLaurentis’ producer, first looking for locations and finding, finally going to Mexico, I’ve seen actors you know for this picture all over the world and people in this film are from all over the world, the crew is from all over the world, at one point there were 1,700 people on the crew and that’s that’s a huge amount of people and sometimes I turn around and set it be 600 people, they’re not extras, you know, crew people or visitors, or camera crews, or whatever you know on a set so it’s been a strange experience and but a huge fantastic experience.
INT: What are some of the techniques..
FH: I want to add a little bit to this – a very strange thing happened
at the wrap party down in Mexico, at least a dozen of the actors and
actresses who are in it came up to me and said, individually, the more or less the same thing that they were sorry it was over they had such a good time.
INT: So it wasn’t necessarily a grueling experience that drove everyone insane?
DL: No we were, we were really together it was it was a great experience and we were in a foreign world we were in you know Mexico City, which is I still, I will always feel the perfect place to make Dune because Dune this is a foreign world and, four foreign worlds, and if I was making in Arizona it would be too normal you know Mexico City was just the right atmosphere and right mood to kind of let you’re, just it was to help your mind get out there you know into Dune.
FH: There was a certain kind of rapport between the producer and
director, we had our disagreements, but they were they weren’t major disagreements, they were shouting disagreement or anything like that, if
you could explain your your point people listen to it. The only time that I objected to something that was going to be done David and Rafaela and everybody else listened to me and they didn’t do the thing that I didn’t want done.
DL: I can’t remember what it was-
FH: We weren’t gonna kill off
DL: Oh yes that’s right, yes yes yes exactly yeah
DH: It was the only thing I ever objected to
INT: Did he kill them then?
FH: No yeah they did
DL: In the proper way
FH: In the proper way yeah so you’ll see an authentic scene that’s from the book, and very poignant.
INT: Who’s going to be killed?
FH: Let’s don’t tell him.
INT: So there are two more Dune projects, potential Dune projects already
DL: In the works I’ve started writing on the script on Dune two and it needs a lot more work and then I’ll show it to Frank and see what he thinks.
INT: It will be a tough audience then
FH: Tougher than hell [laughs]
INT: Now it’s it’s interesting that that Frank didn’t do the screenplays for Dune – why did that happen?
FH: Well I did a screenplay it was awful,
DL: I never read Frank’s script I don’t believe it was awful I
don’t know you know
FH: It was too long, it lacked the proper visual metaphors, I was
too close to the book to be able to see it as as a film, David didn’t have that problem, working on this film where David has taught me one great deal about taking the printed word, a screenplay, and making it into a film, now I feel competent to do a screenplay, I don’t know if I could do a screenplay one of my own books but, ah, well yes I can, I’m doing it.
INT: So you have definitely learned from each other in this experience a great deal?
FH: I would say yeah.
INT: and that would make the next two pictures I would think something you’d look forward to?
DL: Oh yeah I look forward to you know, I’m a little bit, what we all
are, we’re a little bit Duned out right now.
FH: Duned in we say
INT: Three and a half years you’ve been on this project
DL: That’s right, three and a half years.
INT: It’s a long time, but the results are, from what everyone says, well worth the effort, what and leads me to the last question I want to ask David as a filmmaker have you have you thought of how the public’s going to respond to this, in other words, as you’ve made the film have you had a place in your mind where you’ve been contemplating what the response will be, how people will react to what you’re doing?
DL: Well I’ve thought about a lot about the films that I’ve you know loved
and what it was, it wasn’t, it was a, an experience that I had while watching them that I couldn’t get anywhere else, I never got it anywhere else ever. and I would so gladly you know paying my $5.00 to you know to have that experience and it took me, the film’s that I loved, took me to another place, even if it was 20 years ago or present-day, but another place and gave me an experience and I think that’s what I that’s what I hope Dune will do and it’s four different you know worlds and and and it and a trip you know through them that you can’t experience anywhere else, ever.
INT: Thank you very much David for sharing your thoughts and some
background on the film and with Waldenbooks
DL: Thanks a million
INT: Frank Herbert, every question that could have ever been asked of you has probably been asked
FH: Ask me a newer.
INT: [laughs] but I’m gonna, I’m gonna go back to beginning and maybe a little beyond to the real genesis of Dune and where it started for Frank Herbert the author, not necessarily where it began as a project as a book but where it began for you, for Frank Herbert.
FH: Well I’m a history buff and have been a history buff since I was quite young, and, while reading history I got the idea that we had not looked at the Messianic impulse in human society from a point of view that I knew could be developed – reporting that this person came on the scene and these people followed, and this is what happened it was a, a kind
of a journalistic approach to it. I didn’t mind the ‘you are there’ approach but what I wanted was something that showed the impact of a messiah, on history, as the creator of a power structure, because inevitably no matter how good the messiah, other people enter the scene, other people are attracted to the power structure. I think that the idea of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, is not on the mark – does not hit it. I think what happens is that power attracts the corruptible.
INT: That’s an interesting concept, in fact that’s almost the antithesis, the reverse of the process that’s commonly accepted.
FH: I think this is why great power centers such as the Kremlin, the Pentagon, Quai d’Orsay, Sandhurst, become essentially, cesspools really, because they get so many people there who want power for the sake of power, and, it’s my estimation of it that a high percentage of these people are certifiable, you get real nuts, this is why you get people for example going to Guyana and drinking kool-aid, because the errors of the leader are amplified by the number who follow without question – that was the beginning I wanted to do a messiah story that explored this.
INT: The way that you perceive power structures, at that time, and wanted to make a statement about it, is this, you mentioned just a moment ago, that a messiah can create or develop a power structure.
FH: It occurs around the Messiah.
INT: That’s what I guess my question is – does the Messiah walk in, sometimes even inadvertently, to a culture or society who has already built a power structure?
FH: Every Messiah I’ve studied, every Messiah I’ve studied in history, was a reformer, and for good reason. Jesus wanted to reform the Rabbinate, he had a belief that it had become corrupted, the rabbinical movement had become corrupted, the same is true of Mohammed, he was a reformer, Zoroaster was a reformer, each of these individuals obviously was charismatic. Charismatic leaders are dangerous because people don’t question them, they see the obvious thing that the charismatic leader is saying that ‘this needs reforming’ so they fall into line behind the charismatic leader, and as I say even if the charismatic leader is absolutely right and perfect in all of his judgments, eventually you’ve got a power structure which it accumulates like filings accumulating in a magnet, yeah all around the polarized places in this power structure.
INT: So the power structure does evolve as a result of the messiah’s activities?
FH: That’s right, but not just the messiah’s activities, it evolves because of the way people respond to a charismatic leader, so it’s part of the forms of our societies you see.
INT: In the case of Jesus you mentioned a moment ago weren’t the Hebrews waiting for a messiah long before?
FH: Oh yes the Messianic ah… myth was there in their history yes.
INT: We see this in the bible of course he never really ah exemplified the Messiah as-.
FH: Of course there’s some question whether he said he
was the Messiah. The Buddha was a reformer, see, and and Jesus was a reformer, each, in each instance you have an individual on the scene, a charismatic leader, who sees something that needs fixing… the repair job necessary.
INT: Something that’s obvious to everyone.
FH: yes and a lot of people say ‘yes you’re absolutely right Mr. charismatic leader’ and then they will follow you.
INT: There’s a broad truth [FH: yes] to everything that’s said so it’s easy to follow.
FH: And then you get a movement going.
INT: This is sequential these things happen…
FH: But they don’t happen just because of the charismatic leader, they happen because the society picks up on it.
INT: But the society had created a need or a void for the charismatic leader before that individual arrives?
FH: Something, something had occurred in the society that the
charismatic leader latches onto.
INT: The stage is set [FH: yeah] prior.. to the Messiah’s arrival? [FH: that’s right] do societies truly create the messiahs from within?
FH: Oh I think so, I think that the, that we kind of create a vortex into which the Messiah is sucked. People ask me if I’m starting a cult, and I, really I avoid that like the plague. I don’t want to be a cult leader. I’m not your guru, you be your own guru.
INT: Is that why you shaved your beard?
FH: That’s, this is the new Frank Herbert.
We do nasty things to our leaders… we shoot them in the streets of Dallas, hang them on pieces of wood at Golgotha, the whole.. structural form, out of which charismatic leaders evolve – that’s the thing that I was addressing.
INT: But the process starts and you were referring a moment ago to
what happens next [FH: yeah] the leader evolves, the leader emerges. and then things begin to happen.
FH: Remember that Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, were one book in my head, and Dune Messiah was a pivotal book, which turns over the whole picture, changes your view of history. This is why a lot of people have trouble with it you see, because I had created a charismatic leader, you would follow Paul for all of the right reasons, he was honest, trustworthy, loyal to his people, up to the point of giving his life for them if they wanted him.
INT: And the response to him?
FH: The response to him was to follow him slavishly, to not question him.
I think for example that John Kennedy was the most dangerous president we’ve had in recent years, not because I think the man was evil, I think he was a great guy I would have enjoyed drinking with him and have him playing cards with him, but because people did not question him.
INT: So you are obviously a proponent of questioning authority
FH: Oh absolutely.
INT: Do you consider yourself an iconoclast?
FH: Indeed.
INT: With, with the relationship between the messiah and the followers there’s a, again I want to go back to the process, it all begins well, and it all seems very good [FH: it’s sweetness and light] and then something happens, or something begins to evolve.
FH: The new structure evolves and people take it over, other people get into the act.
INT: So they drain power away from the messiah? [FH: of course] after they’ve…
FH: It is delegated.
INT: And how does that happen?
FH: It happens in this, out of a structural… force that is in the society I think one of the best examples we have of that in recent times that we can look at with a certain degree of historical clarity, is what happened in the Soviet Union. The.. October Revolution had real evils to address. The Czarist regime was one of the most evil regimes that this world has ever seen.
INT: The oppression was obvious?
FH: Yeah. Marx and the others came in and filled that, into that vortex, and took it over, now what has evolved out of that? They have evolved a bureaucratic aristocracy, which is almost a precise copy of the Czarist regime.
INT: And this might have, this might have contributed to the fall of media and Nikita Khrushchev he was the last.. singular.. identity… as a human being, that I recall, in the Soviet Union, since then, the Power has filtered down [FH: it’s diffused] run and diffused. So that is the process that will take place in any similar situation?
FH: I think so, I think I think, I don’t think it’s human nature, well human nature is an involved in it of course, but I think it is an essential part of the forms that people develop and call government.
INT: Which they create for themselves?
FH: Yeah it’s a kind of an evolutionary process I believe that has
come out of tribal forms, a feudatory is a tribe, so we have this marvelous historical example, it has happened in our lifetimes, in the Soviet Union, we have seen them reconstitute the Czarist regime. [INT: without an individual] yeah [INT: on which] all the bureaucracy is there, you see, even with some of the same names, same same titles I mean.
INT: So Paul, in Dune [FH: is caught in this kind of a vortex] now did Paul come to a society seeking that Messiah?
FH: he came to a society that was prepared to welcome a messiah.
INT: So his reception was was favorable [FH: oh yes] and he was launched not only on his own.. initiative, and ambition, if he had that [FH: necessities of his decision-making were obvious] and the Society lifted him, quite willingly, to where he ended up [FH: that’s correct].
Everything else that you created you were described once I know as a ‘world maker’ [FH: mm-hmm] ah, ah let me, let me rephrase that, maybe a ‘world dreamer.’ You obviously had to create this world of Dune, it began with Paul, it began with this messianic.. ah impulse, the study, the interest that you had as an individual, as a writer, and then the rest how did it grow.. outward from that?
FH: The first thing you have to do is to create the Messiah, the the charismatic leader, that people will follow for all of the correct reasons, they can justify everything they do to follow him, and you accept it, as a reader, then we have Dune Messiah which is the evolution of the power structure, and how devolution begins to set in, and you get the cynicism arising, and you get a turnover of things that were good in Dune, then now you get a different look at them, you look at them from a different angle [Int: does the perspective change?] you have prescience or yeah? The perspective does change, the angle of view changes, ah prescience which figures so prominently in Dune, and I’m talking to a society which believes that prediction is a great thing, but if I were to give you a an absolute prediction done, of everything that’s going to happen to you from this moment to the moment of your death, your whole life would be instant replay and an utter bore.
INT: And yet that’s your role.
FH: Yeah but that’s, and that’s the thing people think they want but what they really want is they want to know what U.S. steel is going to be on the big board next week, and ah, will she or won’t she, and give me a couple of winners in hialeah while you’re at it you see [laughs].
INT: But isn’t this tremendous response that you’ve received, from your writing, ah based upon that eagerness.. people wanting to know, people wanting a window to the future?
FH: Oh yes but you see it’s the future that is the, in question. The value of surprise gets thrown out the windows if you believe in absolute prescience.
INT: Now you’ve created a future, as we said you’re a world a ‘world maker’, a ‘world dreamer’, why did you create Dune? Why that planet? Why such an arid.. lifeless place?
FH: Well it’s a testing place for one thing, and all the great religions that we know about came out of the wilderness, so I created a kind of an amplified wilderness.
INT: How much of this then, of your work, of your writing, of all the writing, that you’ve done, the science fiction writing that you’ve done, how much of that is a reflection of you in your beliefs.. as you perceive this planet? and our social structures?
FH: Well I, I think we have to reform our social structures I really do, and ah I have, certain metaphors in the Dune books, that I deliberately chose.. to.. shake people’s view of the forms, for example the worms, the worms are the monster, the mindless monster, in the depths.. that
guides the pearl of great price, it is the the unconscious animal, it’s the black bull of the corrida.
INT: It limits your options of how to deal with it
FH: Yeah. It is the welling of violence that comes out of humankind.
INT: so in describing or creating your wilderness, then you’re exposing elements, again I go to the phrase human nature, elements of the human condition, I noticed that that it’s very humanoid, the future remains very humanoid
FH: Well I wrote people that you would identify with.
INT: And also that they respond, in many ways, in a very consistent fashion to what we experience now there’s a tremendous amount of conflict in your writing, many things are resolved.. by conflict, now is that, is that a prediction of the future? or is that then as you said the metaphor the reflection of the now?
FH: That’s the way I read history, if you read history isn’t that the way human beings have done since we began chiseling our words in stone?
INT: And as it has been and it will continue to be.
FH: Unless we change the forms. I don’t want to breed out, or condition out, of humankind, the competitiveness, because we’re in a universe which can throw surprises at us despite our predictions.. despite our best predictions.. and we have to be able to respond to this universe with all of our options open, we don’t close off any options, if we can respond non-violently, that of course is preferable, but if all that’s left to us is violence, then we dare not close off that option.
INT: you seem to be implying that we have the ability to change our legacy of the ages, that we can actually attempt, and perhaps succeed, at something that mankind has failed to accomplish since the beginning.. of mankind do you really have that much faith in any resiliency, in the elasticity of the human form?
FH: Yes I think we’re the best equipped survival animal that this
planet has ever produced. I don’t depend just on rationality, I depend on the need to survive, on the urge to survive, on the, on the desire to
survive as a species, this is behind a lot of what I write, it pleases me to think that 20,000 years in the future, 20 million years in the future, there will be human beings around enjoying life the way I enjoy life.
INT: The World Without War Council.
FH: Oh yes as a member of the Collegium of the World Without War Council I have bowed out of active participation, although not out of.. belief in that kind of work, I think that we can’t address this problem of war unless we address our own bureaucratic tendencies, our tendencies to create a, a structure, such as the World Without War Council, which then becomes much more interested in maintaining its own form, its own identity, the ongoing need for its services, rather than to create an organization, a form, which puts itself out of business.
INT: How does this dedication to peace manifest itself in your writing?
FH: Showing people some alternatives, showing them the consequences of violence… displaying alternative forms, showing them how the old patterns repeat themselves.
INT: You describe, well you have many Emperor’s, in your writing, now as a reflection of the 20th century for example.. What do you see as, as the preferable.. leadership, a style of leadership, an evolution of leadership?
FH: Well my only response politically is that I vote against anybody in office [laughs] I think that the, that we have the, we’ve had the examples of how to deal with political power, and that is to give it very briefly.
INT: Why is it that in your writing you that, when we, when there are a
thousand Emperor’s, or when leadership is broken down and [FH: I just say] bisected but that’s the you reference that I think as the dark ages?
FH: All I’m saying there John is that the aristocratic forms repeat themselves, aristocracy is a repetitive structure in our world, [INT: more of a bad thing doesn’t improve] that’s what I’m saying yes.
INT: You talk about religion, and you take the [FH: another power structure] very much so, you also talk about the inside and the outside, about creating the.. a need for your own leadership, [FH: right] how is that manifested in their own.. society?
FH: We see organizations develop, which work unconsciously, more for the most part, to maintain those conditions which require their services [INT: and it’s subconscious?] I think mostly unconscious yes, that all of these structures, these organizations, become much more.. career oriented, much more oriented on maintaining the need for their own services and their own ongoing participation in power.
INT: Is it a natural process for example that bureaucracy begets bureaucracy?
FH: I think it’s self-seeded, yes.
INT: And then how can that be broken? or can it be broken of its own will?
FH: I think you may break it by… bringing… the final judgment, the final determination, on who holds power back into the hands of what we would like to call the grassroots. I would like to see in the United States for example some real democracy. I would like to see review committees, with… enormous power, very short term tenure, maybe one year, small budgets, and never able to serve again on such a committee, only once in a lifetime. I would like to see such review committees called into action automatically given certain conditions, declaration of war for example, at a local level if a school board is going to spend say two hundred thousand dollars, automatically a review committee, called into being, and called at random, from the polls of the people who voted in the previous election… and given the power of life and death over what the school board wants to do. Will they, will they do it, will they always act perfectly? no they won’t, but if they only have tenure for a year then you can go at it again, then you will go at it having learned something from the actions of the previous review committee.
INT: Is this an extension of the existing set of checks and balances that recur
FH: It’s another check and balance that I would like to to reinstall to our democratic system.
INT: but much more localized
FH: Oh not only localized – I would like to have it at a local level, at the county level, at the state level, and at the federal level.
INT: In broad terms are you supportive of defusing a large centralized power source?
FH: Oh yes in broad terms I am. I think we need certain central powers, but I think we have to limit.. the tenure of whoever holds that power, and severely limit it and so it’s arbitrary, they can only.. for example I think that we ought to have… ah, one term senators.. and maybe to term congressman, and that we ought to have a one-term president, maybe give him six years, and that senators ought to be four years and one term, and congressmen maybe two terms two years.
INT: Wouldn’t that much activity, coming and going in the political office, create a volatile state of affairs for a society?
FH: I think that it would demand that the society keep its eye on what was happening, on what was happening and that’s what we don’t have now.
INT: In Dune, going back to the book, going back to how that is is reflected, in your writing, you have of course the tribal [FH: the Fremen] entity, the Fremen, responding.. as a tribe, responding primitively. [FH: but in quite sophisticated labour too] What effects would, would your suggestions have on a society? would it, it would obviously not tend to become more primitive and more basic in its decision making it would have to become much more enlightened I would think.
FH: We would have to be much more aware of what’s going on. I had a
senior bureaucrat in the school system in the state of Washington when I
expounded this idea to him he said ‘You think some damned housewife could understand the complexities of what the school board has to do?’ and my response immediately is yes you bet I think a housewife would understand them, she would understand these things out of necessity, I think if you throw the responsibility, the full responsibility, on to people they rise to the occasion.
INT: Back to Frank Herbert, as the writer, obviously very politically aware and tremendously sensitive.. to political and social issues, that was the basis then for Dune. [FH: remember] For all of Dune?
FH: Remember before writing Dune I was the speechwriter for a United States Senator with two offices in Washington DC I’ve been right on the inside of the apple, so I know what’s going on back there. I am a political animal, and I really never left journalism I’m writing about the current
scene the metaphors are there, I’m writing about the political ecology, the religious ecology, the social ecology, and the physical ecology of our world, and I think you do not separate any one part of this from the others, you don’t separate mind and body and understand the human being. And therefore you don’t separate any of these elements and understand what’s going on in our world. We fondly say that in the United States we separate church and state, that’s an asinine statement, there’s nothing more emotional than religion, nothing more emotionally demanding than religion, because it is the promise of survival. You can’t take that out of politics, you get heated emotions.. aroused. I am a political animal and that’s what I’m writing about, I’m writing about the economic ecology, the… the politics of all of these things… that influence our lives.
INT: The response that you get to your writing, the way people mirror your writing back to you, is it satisfactory?
FH: Oh yes, people are thinking and asking interesting questions because of what I write.
INT: You’re impacting then your readers the way you want to? [FH: oh yes] will you continue to? [FH: I hope so] and you have a new book in the spring called ‘Chapterhouse: Dune’ [FH: that’s right]. Where is that going to?
FH: It’s the sixth Dune book and it begins with a Bene Gesserit planet which is being converted into another Dune… and goes from there.
INT: thank you very much Frank Herbert for sharing your thoughts
on Dune, your writings, and sharing your thoughts on our world, with Waldenbooks, we wish you the best of luck with the motion picture ‘Dune’ soon to be released and look forward to ‘Chapterhouse: Dune’