Contemporary Wisdom Reflected Back

Sunday, August 24th, 2014

In Dune, Tim O’Reilly notes, Frank Herbert puts contemporary wisdom in the mouths of his characters, so that the reader hears the insights of his own age reflected back at him out of the imagined future:

Kierkegaard’s “life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced” becomes a Bene Gesserit aphorism. Ecologist Paul B. Sears’s statement, “the highest function of science is to give us an understanding of consequences” is expressed by Kynes as a fundamental ecological principle; and his “respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality” is recalled as a lesson Paul had received from his father. Such statements are used without acknowledgment, reflecting the supposition that truly profound thoughts may, over time, lose their authors and become a part of the wisdom of the race. Such borrowings give the distant flights of science fiction a foundation on the solidity of contemporary fact. A feeling of familiarity is thus attached to situations that are overtly strange.

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