C O L L E C T I O N S | |
DUNE CHRONICLES |
Leto II, the God Emperor |
I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter
night rising like great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be
resolute and make an art of government: I will balance my inherited past and
become a perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for
kindliness more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of
time for as long as humans exist. Leto's Vow After Harq al-Ada Children of Dune
A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the
human's way of life changed. Old values change, become linked to the
landscape with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working
knowledge of those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as
nature. It requires a measure of respect, for the internal power within
such natural systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and
respect, that is called "being primitive." The converse, of course, is
equally true: the primitive can become sophisticated, but not without
accepting dreadful psychological damage.
The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people,
persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing
process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory
they store more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind
hopes to call upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe.
But much that is stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which
we call "fate." Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships,
and thus may not be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing
environmental changes which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species
can forget! This is the special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene
Gesserits never suspected: the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget.
The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe,
taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally
aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without
involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its
burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism.
But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient,
reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe
of impermanence arouse rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how
do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient
visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be
greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events.
We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans
the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this
amusing. Knowledge,you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what
builds enclosing walls.
There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors
the dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely
people who have done certain things, and the memory of those things
illuminates my path.
One small bird has called thee
When I set out to lead humanity along my Golden Path I
promised a lesson their bones would remember. I know a
profound pattern humans deny with words even while their
actions affirm it. They say they seek security and quiet,
conditions they call peace. Even as they speak, they create
seeds of turmoil and violence.
You cannot know history unless you know how leaders move
with its currents. Every leader requires outsiders to
perpetuate his leadership. Examine my career: I was leader
and outsider. Do not assume I merely created a Church-State.
That was my function as leader and I followed historical
models. Barbaric arts of my time reveal me as outsider.
Favorite poetry: epics. Popular dramatic ideal: heroism.
Dancers: wildly abandoned. Stimulants to make people sense
what I took from them. What did I take? The right to choose
a role in history.
Time does not count itself. You have only to look at a
circle and this is apparent.
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