Erewhon

"Why Is It Called the Butlerian Jihad?" asked a Youtube video recommendation. I didn't know, although I didn't exactly have a recollection of even seeing the term mentioned as such in the Dune books I had read so far either. The video explained where the name (most likely) came from but I thought I might check out the source myself as well.

Samuel Butler (1835 – 1902) was a Victorian era novelist known mostly for his satirical utopian novel Erewhon (an anagram of 'nowhere'). Its protagonist Higgs discovers the fictional country of Erewhon while working as a sheep farmer in a non-disclosed nation (New Zealand).

Higgs seemed like a self-insert, considering Butler himself lived in New Zealand for a time with the same profession -- the Finnish translation by Sirpa Meriläinen appeared to have been unusually well-funded and researched, coming with few pages worth of footnotes to provide additional details and information about Butler's life and what he was referring to at any given part.

After the discovery of Erewhon, the majority of the novel is spent describing the country that initially seems like a utopia but turns out to have problems. Butler discusses many contemporary topics of his time via the somewhat odd Erewhonian society, such as the work of Charles Darwin. I understood most of the things Butler was satirizing but I never quite got what was the deal with physical illnesses being punishable criminal acts while actual crimes were considered to be caused by a temporary condition that could be cured. What does that have to do with Victorian era England?

The reason Frank Herbert named the Great Revolt against thinking machines in his Dune universe after Butler, is most likely the three chapters in this novel titled The Book of Machines. At some point in their history, an Erewhonian came to the conclusion that too advanced machines would eventually lead to their doom. Machines were evolving too fast. They were requiring a constantly increasing amount of time and work to maintain. Other Erewhonians ultimately sided with the person, not wanting to end up as servants to a machine god. All too advanced appliances were then destroyed and outlawed.

I could easily see where Butler's thoughts were coming from then, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. I thought he was also being extremely foresighted, considering it was merely the 1800s: anything resembling an artificial intelligence still a faraway dream. We're much closer now though still off. And maybe it's better to stay that way.