this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2025
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The speed of technological progress tends toward an exponential curve, and Frank Herbert understood and knew this, but wanted to write a serious medieval saga set in the distant future. The Butlerian Jihad was always a plot contrivance to explain why in the thousands of years of intergalactic civilization, human life is still recognizable to us, and still recognizable from their in-story ancestors.
But just because AI was treated as an enemy by fictional fascists, doesn't mean it was good. Fascists are enemies to other fascists. It's an ideology that is always seeking enemies, and will either invade outwards or purge inwards - but their enemies don't need to be 'good' or 'bad,' they only need to be 'other.'
It can both be true that a technocratic class using thinking machines would have dominated the human race, and the force that prevented their rule is a theofascist eugenic autocracy. The theme Herbert I think would have appreciated his readers noticing is that there is no real difference between a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under an inhuman technocratic class, and a crushing totalitarian dictatorship under a charismatic leader and a religious cult.