What did Frank Herbert mean when he said “humans do not have equal ability”, concerning equality?

Question

In the "Dune Genesis" essay originally published in the July 1980 issue of Omni Magazine* Frank Herbert wrote:

"I now believe that evolution, or deevolution[sic], never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability."

• Did he try to say that humans have not the ability to administer successfully these ideals?
• Was he trying to say that humans doing it have not equal ideals?
• Simply saying that some humans have not the ability to administer the ideals while others have it?
• Or, the worst meaning to me, "some humans don't deserve equality because their lack of ability"?

PS: I think people need to know Herbert's science fiction work to know his way of thinking, however you can't ask about the writers in Science Fiction SE.

(*) Herbert, Frank (July 1980). "Dune Genesis". Omni 2 (2): p. 72. ISSN 0149-8711.

Answer 1

I think that Frank Herbert's points were these:

1. Everyone is different, with different varying abilities. You might be good at math, I might not be. I might learn by doing, you might learn by reading.

2. When people try to force people to meet a one size fits all standard so that everyone will be equal, it ends up creating injustices. Example: I'm not good at math, so I have a lower standard to get an accounting job, but you get a penalty applying for the same job because you're good at math, to make you equal with me.

3. People should strive for equal opportunity and equal justice. Let us both do the best we can do to be as good at math as we can be, and let the whichever one of us who can do math the best get the accounting job. If both of us commit the same crime under the same circumstances, let us both be punished the same way, without respect to social class or other qualities that have nothing to do with the crime committed.

4. Flawed human beings implement efforts toward ideals, so things aren't going to be perfect, and we should try the best we can to implement the ideals of equal opportunity and equal justice as fairly as we can even though we're limited imperfect human beings.

5. Human beings don't have equal ability, so don't try to force things to turn out a certain way. Don't force someone who would rather be outside working in the forestry service to work in a so-called 'better' job because his group is 'underrepresented'. If I'm not good at math, don't pressure me to be a physicist which I may find to be a frustrating job that I'm not very good at. Let me do what I want to do and what I'm good at.

Answer 2

In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability."

Caveat: my answer's main point is pretty similar to @TheLeopard's excellent previous answer, just paraphrased to be more concise.

What Herbert refers to is the contrast of two political philosophical ideas: "Equality of outcome" and "Equality of opportunity"

Herbert then posits two reasons for his support of the latter over the former:

• Theoretical reason: this is a standard classical liberal/libertarian/conservative argument that, even with the best government efforts, outcomes will never be actually equal. There are many reasons for that, Herbert quotes one of the main ones, namely differences in ability.

  Absent an oppressive totalitarian government, some people will always end up better than others, due to innate ability - grit, willpower, intellect, looks, physical abilities, height, ability to hustle, charisma, even luck. The only way to ensure the equality of outcome is to try to enforce that outcome by brute force, as was done in Socialist states like USSR/China/Venezuela/Mao's China (invariably, wth disastrous results).

  A somewhat simplistic analogy is running - some people will run faster, some people will lose their endurance faster, and the only way to make sure everyone finishes at the same time is forcing faster runners to be delayed by force; or forcing faster runners to start later (again, by force, and denying them equal opportunity).

• Practical reason: Even if you ignore the theoretical reason and decide "no, no, I or someone else smart can figure out a perfect way to administer society that will ensure equal outcome without it becoming a Gulag state", they are ignoring the fact that this perfect society will be administered by humans. Who will end up screwing up this perfection, to either make themselves more equal, paraphrasing Orwell, or even through sheer human fallibility (stupidity, mistakes, lack of foresight, personal issues, interpersonal issues).

Answer 3

The bit concerning you seems to be

humans do not have equal ability.

That is manifestly true though.

Some people are strong, some are fast, some are smarter, some more intuitive. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses and some are strong in many areas, others are weak in many.

For example a special forces soldier has to be strong, fast, physically fit, well trained - they also need to be smart with it.

Your average Joe off the street is going to be both less physically fit and less mentally capable than your average special forces soldier.

Your average blacksmith is going to be stronger. Your average accountant better at math.

You could take up smithing and become stronger, or accounting and become better at math than you are now. But some people are just going to be naturally better than others at all of these things.

Trying to force everyone into the same mold as though all humans are interchangeable is just not going to work as well as finding what roles people are suited to.

...

That's a completely different question though from whether people should be compensated differently for their time based on what they do as opposed to paying all jobs the same no matter what skill or experience is needed.

How do you value a blacksmith, vs an accountant, vs a programmer, vs a CEO. Which has more skill and experience? Which works harder? Who should get paid better? That's the hard question.

Answer 4

It's not an interesting quote politically or otherwise, because it's obvious. SF writers of Herbert's generation were prone to issuing frank and chronic updates of their educational misadventures. Herbert meant that his earlier too literal reading of a certain Jeffersonian premise eventually led him to a somewhat less over-literal interpretation. (Herbert's latter interpretation is still too literal by half**...)

Did he try to say that humans have not the ability to administer successfully these ideals?

Humans in general possess an administrative ability, but not everyone in the general populace has equal nor sufficient ability to administrate well.

Was he trying to say that humans doing it have not equal ideals?

The quote doesn't go into that. But in Herbert's fiction, ability and benign ideals don't always coincide: the villainous Vlad Harkonnen was a man of great ability but base ideals. But Herbert's novels also attempt to show that having a "good guy" running things isn't enough either -- uncritical public hero-worship of ability and benign ideals can also lead to stagnation and misery.

Simply saying that some humans have not the ability to administer the ideals while others have it?

Yes, but also that it wasn't necessary or desirable or even possible to have "perfect" administration... or "perfect" ideals. A bad administrator pretends to be perfect, and failing that, abuses his power to hide any mistakes. A good administrator admits and shares mistakes so that others may themselves profit by avoiding that bad example, and perhaps provide counsel. Beyond the errors of administrators are the flaws in human ideals, which can become destructive when those flaws are fanatically denied, or enlightening when pondered and studied.

Or, the worst meaning to me, "some humans don't deserve equality because their lack of ability"?

No. Herbert was just saying that not everyone should administrate.

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**For a better and earlier exposition of human metrics, see Burn's Is There for Honest Poverty.

Answer 5

I found a statement by Steven Pinker to an Argentine newspaper that in my opinion can not be more consistent with the issues expressed by Herbert. In his last TED talk Pinker affirmed that "We will never have a perfect world, and it would be dangerous to seek one", about which he expanded:

We are not clones. There are biological and cultural variations and that is why there are always going to be mutual concessions between freedom and equality. If you treat people equally, they will end up being unequal. Some people are smarter than others, work more, take more risks or have more luck. The only way that people end up being equal in the result, is if you treat them in an unequal way. Freedom and equality have mutual concessions. You can not have much of both. Freedom also has concessions with human development. If you give people freedom, they can do stupid things like eating a lot, taking drugs, not exercising or dealing with unpleasant ways. If you force everyone to do what is best for them and everyone else, you would need a totalitarian Big Brother. There are concessions between the good things of life and human freedom. The people who would form the society that would try to be perfect are also human, with the flaws that accompany human nature. They would be tempted all the time to abuse their power and overestimate their knowledge. They might think that they know how to create a perfect society and we know that humans have a lot of confidence in their knowledge. They would be tempted to impose a vision on society that might not benefit everyone.

Inside that quote there is also sentences besides equality that can be close compared with other hot topics in Herbert books. "They would be tempted all the time to abuse their power" can be compared with:

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.” -F. Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

And "If you give people freedom, they can do stupid things" compared with:

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.” -F. Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

So, at least in these topics, I think his points of view seems very close.

Besides, I managed to found a 1981 interview at Mother Earth News, an ecology-oriented magazine, that think could be relevant to navigate his political thinking outside his books. There you could find his opinion about the welfare state:

I don't like governmental "helping"—or any kind of public charity system—because I learned early on that our society's institutions often weaken people's self-reliance and damage family bonds as well.

Or about leaders, in his views on Kennedy and Nixon:

There is definitely an implicit warning, in a lot of my work, against big government and especially against charismatic leaders. After all, such people—well-intentioned or not—are human beings who will make human mistakes. And what happens when someone is able to make mistakes for 200 million people? The errors get pretty damned BIG!

For that reason, I think that John Kennedy was one of the most dangerous presidents this country ever had. People didn't question him. And whenever citizens are willing to give unreined power to a charismatic leader, such as Kennedy, they tend to end up creating a kind of demigod—a leader who covers up mistakes instead of admitting them—and makes matters worse instead of better. Now Richard Nixon, on the other hand, did us all a favor.

Nixon taught us one hell of a lesson, and I thank him for it. He made us distrust government leaders. We didn't mistrust Kennedy the way we did Nixon, although we probably had just as good reason to do so. But Nixon's downfall was due to the fact that he wasn't charismatic. He had to be sold just like Wheaties, and people were disappointed when they opened the box.

I think it's vital that men and women learn to mistrust all forms of powerful, centralized authority. Big government tends to create an enormous delay between the signals that come from the people and the response of the leaders. [...] The bigger the government, the more slowly it reacts. So to me, the best government is one that's very responsive to the needs of its people. That is, the least, loosest, and most local government.

His dislike of centralized government and social aid makes me think that the equality he advocates is that of a social anarchism. He seems to be against affirmative action as a way to equalize people's equality of opportunity. But if after all this reading you find it difficult to classify his political ideas, don't feel bad. The interviewer Pat Stone himself stated:

Throughout this interview it's been all but impossible to pin you down to "neatly packaged" ideas. [...] I can imagine that many men and women who read your books or hear your ideas would prefer to be given a clear and uncomplicated plan they could respond to.

PS: I apologize to answer my own question, but I really needed to research about this, and used all the precious insights shared in the discussion to do it.