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I first started reading the Dune novels in my teens. The amazing works by Frank Herbert had the most profound effect of any work of fiction on my nascent, developing brain.

The stories are epic. The far-distant future universe he created is strange and wonderful. The characters are deep and tortured. Somehow, like Tolkien before him, Mr. Herbert masterfully weaves in profound commentary on political philosophy and current affairs of the 1960s, when the first novels were written.

Even a young teen like myself, who was easy to hop into the stories as I was about Paul Atreides’ age), could see the parallels between the Dune spice and Middle East oil and between the Atreides-Harkonnen age-old conflict and the US-USSR animosity.

Like all great fiction, the settings of the novel give Mr. Herbert free rein to comment on the frailty of the post-Cold War Order.

Here is but one of innumerable examples of the political wisdom of Mr. Herbert (from Children of Dune):

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.


One of the major events in the first Dune novel (and the brilliant adaptation – though a bit slow – by Denis Villeneuve in 2021) centers on the test of the gom jabbar. The main character – Paul Atreides (who we later learn is the product of a millennia-long breeding program to create a superhuman able to see the future) – is extremely powerful and thus dangerous; he must be tested. The test involves placing his hand into a machine which creates ever increasing amounts of pain. At the same time, a deadly poisoned needle – the gom jabbar – is placed at his neck. If he removes his hand to avoid the pain, he will be killed instantly by the poisoned needle.

The test determines if the subject is human. Most animals would naw their leg off to avoid the pain of a trap, and a human who can not control his deepest impulses would do the same. In order for Paul to prove he is human and capable of denying current pleasure or pain for future positives, he must submit to tremendous amounts of pain. This is what it means to be a well-adjusted human being in this world, and Paul Atreides (with his tremendous potential for power) must be shown to be such a thing, or he can not be allowed to continue in the world.

Here is Mr. Herbert once again, explaining the concept another way (from Dune):

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

How many politicians in today’s Washington would be able to pass a less lethal version of the gom jabbar test? How many of them would be willing to accept suffering and defeat in their political careers in order to protect vitally important tenets of our Republic for the future of the country?