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By Julie Uszpolewicz Frank Herbert dedicates his work “to the people whose labours go beyond ideas into the realm of ‘real materials’ — to the dry-land ecologists wherever they may be, in whatever time they work, this effort at prediction is dedicated in humility and admiration.” The creators of Dune: Part Two remain oblivious to this fact. A fact that, it seems to me, could not have been more relevant at a time when climate catastrophe looms over the horizon and which gets completely lost in this new adaptation. The moving story about the environmental revolution and an indigenous community’s ties to its land becomes nothing more than another tale about the pursuit of power. In this trade-off, the movie also deals strangely with two other central themes — women and religion. The perplexities start with Southern Arrakis and Liet Keynes. Unlike in the book, in the 2020 Dune, the planetary ecologist is a woman. However, in this case, it seems that gender inclusivity comes at the cost of Keynes’ revolutionary ideas. Liet Keynes has a vision of the Green Paradise on Arrakis — a dream of redemption and sustainable development he instils in the Fremen people much before they find Lisan al-Gaib in Paul Artreides. The partial realisation of his visionary goal is the real answer to why neither the Harkonnens nor the Imperial forces ever penetrated Southern Arrakis. Yet, in the movie, the region appears equally dry and impenetrable as the rest of the planet. Originally, for the Fremen, the ecological struggle was as important as the armed guerrilla warfare. When Stilgar ecstatically exclaims ‘Lisan al-Gaib’ every time Paul Atreides succeeds at doing something, the entire audience chuckles. The fanatical followers of Muad’Dib are mostly from Southern regions' conservative tribes, whose narrow-mindedness makes them blindly follow the Messiah. Villeneuve forgets when depicting the Fremen that Paul Atreides gains recognition among them because he shares their vision of an imminent, realisable ecological transformation of Arrakis. The Green Paradise, mentioned in the movie only once or twice, is not just an empty piece of Bene Gesserit propaganda — it is a very tangible revolutionary aim. Throughout the book, it remains unclear who of the Fremen followers views Muad’Dib to be a divine figure and who thinks he is a political leader. This is still a story about power, but Herbert wants us to focus on how we can recognise the danger of messianic prophecies only when we understand where they come from. The ease with which even such an esteemed tribal leader like Stilgar accepts the coming of the Lisan al-Gaib seems reductive towards the complexity of Fremen culture. Villeneuve’s adaptation flattens the story of the indigenous peoples and their land, remaking the story to centre solely on religious fanaticism. Interesting choice for our political climate, considering how visible is the resemblance of the Fremen to Tuareg and Berber cultures. But without the underpinning ecology, the nuances of the indigenous attachment to the land and their hopes of liberation are lost. In Appendix I to Dune, Frank Herbert provides the reader with a more detailed story on the background of the dream of Arrakis’ environmental emancipation. Talks of Green Paradise start on Dune with Liet Keynes’ father, who is also a planetary ecologist and recognises the potential for a new Arrakis. He wants to transform nature in order to serve human needs. Similarly to Paul, he is an outworlder, who promises the Fremen a better future. Similarly to Paul, he needs to prove himself in the armed struggle against the Harkonnens to be accepted in the sietch. And just like Paul he soon becomes treated like a prophetic figure. Liet and his father were aware that the change of the planetary ecological system would have taken take years. However, they were determined to pass on their knowledge of environmental emancipation to their children through education. When Paul arrives at the sietches, he notices that the ecological education classes, which all Fremen children take part in, remain uninterrupted unless there is a threat to life. The commitment to this environmental dream, deeply intertwined with the Fremen religion, underpins the entire organisation of the community.  It is not only due to the Bene Gesserit propaganda, then, but also due to this pre-existing fertile ground for ecological change that Muad’Dib is so quickly accepted as the Messiah. Both Liet and his father were imperial servants, which means they had been connected to the power structures important for Fremen’s survival. After Liet Keynes death, the community is in a need of a leader that has similar connections to the Empire and also shares their vision of environmental revolution. Paul Atreides swiftly fills that void. However, the transformation of Arrakis is a project that takes centuries. This is how Appendix I ends: “The course had been set by this time, the Ecological-Fremen were aimed along the way. Liet-Kynes had only to watch and nudge and spy upon the Harkonnens…until the day his planet was afflicted by a Hero.” The tale of fake Messianism then sounds even more sinister considered against this rich background of a long hoped-for environmental revolution. In many ways, this anti-hero story is aimed to caution us. However, in the movie, the most obvious criticism of the Messianic myth is not rooted in any of these complexities but instead relegated almost entirely to the plot line I found the most bizarre: the romance with Chani. In a way, this seems to be nothing more than a means to simplify the plot for the viewer. Paul Atreides’ internal struggle, reminiscent of the myth of Oedipus, torn between choosing his own path and realising his “terrible purpose” is externalised through this romantic subplot. Chani becomes the voice of Paul’s conscience, constantly reminding him of the consequences that his ascent to power could and will have. However, this moral role given to her character is an invention of Dennis Villeneuve and his producers. The result is that, like many other elements in the adaptation, Chain’s character becomes flattened. As she becomes a fighter, she also becomes nothing more than an extension of Paul’s character arc. Even though she is outspoken about her scepticism of the legends of Muad’Dib, this lacks a sufficient amount of nuance to make her a truly tragic character. Zendaya’s debatable performance does not help. The final effect is a strange and trivial attempt at feminism, which, once again, makes little sense without the environmental issues in the background. In the novel, not only is Chani uncritical towards the myth of the Lisan-al Gaib, but she also becomes a Sayyadina, a Fremen priestess. When the time of war comes, she goes with other women and children to hide in Southern Arrakis. I understand the decision to make Chani a Feyakin fighter in the movie to be a feminist matter — it gives her more agency. However, this only appears to be so once the plot is already removed from Arrakis’ ecology. As a Sayyadina and the daughter of Liet Keynes, Chani already plays an important role in the source material. She supervises the water distribution (the significance of water scarcity was also heavily reduced in the movie) and tends to the Green Paradise during her time in the South. While Paul leads the political revolution, Chani guides the environmental one. This is why, I argue, Dune: Part Two ends up with a somewhat outdated half-hearted feminism. I thought that by 2024 we would have moved past the trivial claims that to achieve equality women should embody masculine characteristics. Chani’s role as a Sayyadina could have given her as much agency as her position as a soldier. On the one hand, Dennis Villeneuve's movies appear inclusive — there is a female planetary ecologist and female Fedaykin fighters. On the other hand, I am doubtful whether Dune: Part Two even passes the Bechdel test. Maybe women now appear in male-dominated positions, but as a result, they lose their original character depth. This is most visible with the depiction of Lady Jessica, who appears to be a power-hungry, cunning Bene Gesserit witch who strives to place her son on the Imperial throne no matter the cost. By contrast, in the novel she is the one who is the most aware of the terrible consequences of the messianic legends. Her prescient visions are often more revealing than Paul’s, for which she gains the respect of the Fremen people and their leaders. She also has a beautiful relationship with Chani, in whom she recognises herself as she, too, once was an Atreides concubine. There would have been no need to reinvent Dune to make it more progressive if only it had properly addressed the issues of environment and spirituality through which a lot of the female characters reveal their depth. The ecology of Dune is the story of the land and the people inhabiting it. It is impossible to separate one from the other. Therefore, it is interesting why the producers of the 2024 Dune: Part Two, at a time when we can see the climate crisis affecting almost every aspect of our lives, decided to focus exclusively on the power struggle. The scarcity of water on Arrakis, downplayed in the adaptation, was, initially, a metaphor for oil. However, almost sixty years later, the theme of water scarcity is more relevant than we would like it to be. The dreams and hopes of ecological redemption resonate with us more than Herbert could have imagined. Inspirational stories about finding answers to the climate crisis by returning to indigenous methods of land cultivation circulate the news every so often. Tuareg women, who catch dew drops in the Atlas Mountains (sounds familiar?) give us hope for the emancipation of desert climate in the Middle East. While, the war in Palestine reminds us how indigenous populations lose their homeland as a result of exploitation of resources and geopolitical decisions beyond their exploitation control. In so many ways Dune would have been a perfect story for our time — why did they forget the environment? In the essay “Dune Genesis,” Frank Herbert explains his motivations for writing Dune. Yes, his initial idea for a Messiah story was supposed to be a moralistic tale about scepticism towards power structures and cults of personality. However, as he became more interested in environmentalism, he became concerned that ecology would soon, too, fall victim to power-seeking “wanna-be-heroes," as he calls them. His essay is an invitation to consider those issues systematically, not to immediately believe or discredit fanatics and opportunists, but to ask ourselves “how did we get this way?” Herbert reminds us that fanaticism is not always religious and that we, all too often, become victims of secular Messianic promises of politicians who promise us a better future. Again, a theme that became even more relevant as populist parties gain popularity. Dune seeks to understand the human nature that makes us so vulnerable to believe in the Second Coming. It is a story of how emancipatory ideals eventually can become corrupt. “In the beginning I was just as ready as anyone to fall into step, to seek out the guilty and to punish the sinners, even to become a leader. Nothing, I felt, would give me more gratification than riding the steed of yellow journalism into crusade, doing the book that would right the old wrongs,” he writes. So, why does it feel like Dennis Villenueve’s production only manages to scratch the surface? What happened to Herbert’s complex moral tale? Writing this immediately after the screening, I do not yet have the answers. This is not an attempt to discredit the movie based on a trivial claim that “the book was better.” If anything I encourage you to engage with both and find out your thoughts for yourself. By no means, I am trying to suggest that the movie is not good — it is strikingly beautiful, for one, and very much impressive in many ways. However, I wonder at the discrepancies between the book and the movie. I refuse to be satisfied with the answer “because it is more marketable this way.” If Dune will own up to its hype of becoming a trilogy to define our generation, what does it say about our time?

by Werner Fitzgerald Smith The peculiar thing about the magnetic tape as a recording medium is more than just the inherent analogue warmth; its coveted compression and saturation. It also includes tapes' inevitable shortcoming as a physical medium – it will die. This death, just like that of a brain, is a consequence of being. When a tape is played again, and again, it slowly begins to disintegrate. However, it is the disintegration of the tape that lends itself to a feeling of nostalgia. A sentimental yearning for the parts of a memory that warbles and pitches up and down, ebbing and flowing; the fluttering of a loop playing in perpetuum.

by Damian O’Malley This piece is nostalgic to me for two reasons. Firstly, I wrote it thirty years ago when my daughter was born. I had the pretentious idea of creating a series of autobiographical sketches so that one day she could get to know her father better. Secondly (and logically), it is about an event even further in the past; an undergraduate tutorial with the philosopher Ian McHattie Crombie. We knew Professor Crombie then as an authority on Plato but found out later that he was also a conscientious objector during the Second World War. I had always thought that the subject of this most memorable “tute” was arbitrary, but in light of Crombie’s moral convictions, maybe not. ~ The Tutorial ~ I have a photograph of my matriculating year at Wadham. It is 1974, the first year of the experiment in which five Oxford men's colleges began to admit women. Wadham is one of the five. A dozen slightly out of focus women stare at the camera amongst fifty or so men. I am in the middle, a chubby figure with black plastic National Health spectacles, long hair flattened against my head, a brown Terylene suit, and a black Commoners gown. I look terrified. Most of my study time is divided between two libraries, The Bodleian and the Psychology Faculty library. In the former I read Hume, Berkeley, Locke, and J.S. Mill; in the latter I read Eysenck, Broadbent, and Skinner. The teaching system at Oxford pits student against student and, sometimes, student against teacher. It breeds intellectual bullies. Two of us sit there with the tutor, we have a topic, we have an argument; it's called dialectics. I feel a bit sorry for the Oxford philosophy dons, it is not their decade. The gods have died leaving behind just the apostles and the apologists. Philosophical thought is undergoing a paradigm shift; the philosophy of science, for so long thought indisputable, is beginning to be found inadequate. It's the same in popular music. The most successful bands of the mid-seventies are so-called super groups, like "'Yes" and "Emerson Lake and Palmer". They are technological and smooth and represent themselves as the pinnacle of pop, the end of musical evolution. They are also bland and soulless, and remote from the realities of the three-day week. Punk rock is born to rediscover the soul. Reductionist science and the experimental scientific method also lack soul. When I came to Oxford to study psychology, I hoped to be studying people. I find that I am mostly studying rats. I spend my days trying to understand complex cognitive phenomena in terms of stimulus and response. Biological determinism and the ideas of Dawkins, expressed in his book 'The Selfish Gene', are very modish and underlie my most memorable tutorial. The one in which, against all common sense, my philosophy tutor, Ian Crombie, tries to persuade us that there can be no such thing as altruism in human beings. The example he chooses is that of a man falling on a live enemy grenade in a trench during World War 1, thus sacrificing his own life but saving those of his comrades. His assertion is that this could never happen; such behaviour would have been selected against by evolution. He gives us a week to think about it. I volunteer to write the essay and lead the discussion. I start to read. "I could have looked for documentary evidence of people throwing themselves on grenades in trenches, but I decided that that was beside the point. Your thesis, Professor Crombie, is that altruism - at least the kind of altruism that leads to death - is not adaptive behaviour, and, if it ever existed, would have been selected against and eventually died out. I think there can be little doubt that there have been individual acts of heroism that have led to the death of the hero. One possible explanation is that such behaviour is so rare that evolutionary pressure has not been brought to bear. In other words, altruism is a trivial part of the biological history of mankind. The other possibility is that you are wrong, and that altruism is indeed adaptive behaviour." Can I just interrupt you for a second? Are you seriously suggesting that people, faced with a situation of extreme danger like a grenade falling into their trench, have chosen to preserve the lives of their fellow men, competitors if you like in the biological sense, rather than their own lives? "I doubt, sir, whether people really thought it through at the time, but I can think of a number of reasons why they might. Perhaps if you are going to die anyway it is better, in an evolutionary sense, to use your death to preserve the gene pool by preventing the death of others. More particularly, as I understand it, at the time of the First World War the idea of honour, serving the King, the glory of war and so on, were drummed into the population. Perhaps society, peer pressure, and so on, can overwhelm one's own survival instincts in certain circumstances." But I return to my main point. Even if you are right, and you may be, I would argue that evolution would select against such behaviour and that it would eventually die out so to speak. "Well, I guess that it has died out insofar as our own society is very different to Edwardian British society. I doubt that the men of my generation would volunteer to be cannon fodder in such numbers as they volunteered then. However, I can think of other contemporary situations in which people kill themselves because of societal pressure: Japanese Samurai committing Hari Kari; Buddhist monks self-immolating; and Indian widows throwing themselves onto funeral pyres. Well I admit that the Samurai are not contemporary, but the other two are." Are you sure that any of those cases can be classed as altruism? "Well look, even if they can't, I have a counter-thesis, an explanation of why altruism may be adaptive. It runs like this. Human children are unusual in the length of their gestation period relative to their body weight and the length of time it takes them to mature. Stable, monogamous, human families developed early on in evolutionary time, presumably as a good way of ensuring that children reached maturity and hence that their genes were preserved. If that is so, then I can imagine that the adults in such families would be prepared to fight to the death to protect their children. But that is illogical. If one or both of the parents dies then, by definition, the family is destroyed. "Yes, by definition, but in reality the children might survive and have a better chance of reaching maturity. But anyway, the second part of my argument is that society is a collection of families. In other words, human societies developed as one large family, starting as tribes and ending up with modern industrial societies that bear little relation to the original human family. Perhaps in that sense, altruism is simply a carryover of the ancient imperative to protect your children. I don't see... "Think of it this way, then. If, in ancient times, someone's parents were killed, perhaps there were circumstances in which it benefited the future of the tribe if another adult in the tribe was to take care of the orphans. The youth of the tribe were necessary to preserve the future of the tribe as well as the future of the genes of any one individual within the tribe. Unless food was extremely scarce it would not endanger your own genes to look after another's offspring. I maintain the view that over time individuals who were inclined to choose self-preservation instead of preservation of the tribe would eventually form the majority of the tribe and that such altruism would die out. "You're suggesting that evolutionary forces inevitably make mankind more and more selfish." I wouldn't necessarily make the statement in such a value laden way, but in effect, yes. "So you share Nietzsche’s view that mankind is turning into a race of slaves." At the mention of Nietzsche, the professor draws on his pipe a little harder. Nietsche's view that to be a man you must be prepared to die rather than submit to the will of others is plainly unscientific. We saw the terrible consequences of that kind of thinking in the German Nazi party. "But surely that supports my argument. The fact that men are prepared to die for a cause, for example to fight fascism shows that mankind can transcend their genes.” You are suggesting that because human beings fight wars, we are qualitatively different from other animals and free of normal evolutionary pressures. I can see how we might like to think that, but do you think it's true? "I don't know, I think it might be true. Isn't it obvious that we are qualitatively different from other kinds of animals?” When the grenade flies into the trench you have at most three seconds to decide what to do. You stare in fascination at the grey pineapple that will shortly expand faster than the speed of sound. The shrapnel will already be slicing through your legs, face, and into your stomach before you hear the explosion. Would I become a Nietzschean Übermensch in those three seconds, facing my death nobly, knowing that at last I am a man? Or would I panic and throw myself at the grenade hoping to eject it from the trench before it is too late? And would it be too late? And would my trench mates testify to my heroism? And would the army give my parents or my widow a medal? And would a philosopher later call it altruism? Who knows? When philosophy meets biology, the biology usually ends up smeared on the walls of the trench.