{"id":2221976,"date":"2024-04-16T04:23:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/our-nations-neopaganism-is-driving-the-success-of-dune-part-ii\/"},"modified":"2024-04-16T04:31:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T08:31:14","slug":"our-nations-neopaganism-is-driving-the-success-of-dune-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/our-nations-neopaganism-is-driving-the-success-of-dune-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Neopaganism Fuels &#8216;Dune: Part II&#8217; Success in Our Country"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Four-nations-neopaganism-is-driving-the-success-of-dune-part-ii%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2221976&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>&#8220;Dune: Part \u200cII&#8221; emerges as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/saturday-night-live-mocks-joe-bidens-pandemic-failures-stop-seeing-spider-man\/\" title=\"'Saturday Night Live' Mocks Joe Biden's Pandemic Failures: 'Stop Seeing Spider-Man!'\">box-office hit<\/a> a month after \u200bits release, blending stunning visuals with a contemplative \u2063tone uncommon\u200c in \u200cmainstream blockbusters. The movie&#8217;s success lies in its ability to resonate with audiences \u2064through\u200b a futuristic narrative that touches \u200bon contemporary issues. Drawing \u200bparallels to conservative religious themes, the film navigates a nuanced portrayal of faith and societal structures, contrasting with typical sci-fi norms.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"article-content\">\n<p>A month after it was released and became the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/disneys-jungle-cruise-latest-hollywood-blockbuster-to-bomb-in-china\/\" title=\"Disney's 'Jungle Cruise' Latest Hollywood Blockbuster to Bomb in China\">top-grossing movie<\/a> of the year, it\u2019s fair to declare \u201cDune: Part II\u201d a <a href=\"https:\/\/screenrant.com\/dune-2-box-office-worldwide-600-million\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/review-hitmans-bodyguard-wife-likely-to-be-a-hit-thanks-to-our-woke-age\/\" title=\"Review: \u2018Hitman\u2019s Bodyguard Wife\u2019 Likely To Be A Hit Thanks To Our Woke Age\">box-office success<\/a><\/a>. That said, it has to be one of the most unusual blockbusters to come out in a long time. The novels may be well-known, but they\u2019re not exactly tailor-made for popular consumption, nor does Denis Villeneuve\u2019s adaptation do much to make it more accessible. His movies are ponderous, slow, and extremely serious. The characters are less human beings with personalities and more Jungian archetypes fulfilling their predestined role in an indifferent cosmos.<\/p>\n<p>True, the movie is visually stunning, and the action sequences are superbly choreographed, but these scenes mainly serve to punctuate several long stretches of literal and metaphorical desert. This tends to make the experience of watching both \u201cDune\u201d movies a more meditative and reflective endeavor than an engaging or fun one.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2-long d-flex justify-content-center\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center; \" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-535803609\">\n<div id=\"div-gpt-ad-1379703300879-0\" class=\"mb-30\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-afe66e70a47470ad7bda1f08141b5d56 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-2\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-afe66e70a47470ad7bda1f08141b5d56\"><\/div>\n<p>So why is \u201cDune: Part II\u201d so popular? I believe it\u2019s because it presents a compelling vision of the distant future that touches on some unseen current realities. Something about it clearly resonates with audiences. Behind the endless sand, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/saddened-and-in-shock-denmarks-queen-strips-grandchildren-of-royal-titles\/\" title=\"\u2018Saddened And In Shock\u2019: Denmark\u2019s Queen Strips Grandchildren Of Royal Titles\">royal houses<\/a>, mineral extraction, bulbous spaceships, and colossal sandworms, the saga detailing the rise of Paul Atreides and the indigenous Freman speaks to today\u2019s audiences.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the movie critic Titus Techera <a href=\"https:\/\/lawliberty.org\/dunes-moral-unseriousness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">makes a good case<\/a> that \u201cDune: Part II\u201d essentially adopts a leftist narrative in which a liberal atheist man-child harnesses the power of colonized fundamentalists to overcome exploitative fascists and liberate the benighted natives, political scholar <a href=\"https:\/\/lawliberty.org\/human-dignity-and-the-politics-of-dune\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kody Cooper<\/a> comes nearer to the truth when he argues that \u201cDune\u201d appeals to viewers with a few key conservative religious themes: \u201cAnother comparison that comes to mind is more remarkable: how <em>conservative<\/em>, in many of the best senses of that term, the film is.\u201d He explains how the movie devotes attention to the dignity of life, the prominent role of faith in culture, and the danger of political messianism.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Religion Is Not Obsolete<\/h2>\n<p>Before considering the merits of Cooper\u2019s assertions, it\u2019s important to note just how exceptional it is that a work of science fiction includes any religious dimension at all. Most writers in the genre instinctively begin with the premise that all future science and technology render all religions obsolete. Accompanying this triumph of atheism is a centralized political order that takes the place of God. Whether it\u2019s a TV series like \u201cStar Trek\u201d or \u201cThe Expanse,\u201d or films such as \u201cBlade Runner\u201d or \u201cStarship Troopers,\u201d or even the classic novels <em>1984<\/em> and <em>Brave New World<\/em>, there\u2019s always some world government or megacorporation running an intricate social system enabled by technology.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, the world of \u201cDune\u201d is chock-full of religion, mysteries, rituals, traditions, and spirituality. And while an emperor seems to rule over humanity like some kind of god, actual governing rests with noble houses that are put in charge of various planets. In the view of <em>Dune<\/em> author Frank Herbert and Villeneuve, humanity will technologically progress to a point where people can travel through space and colonize inhospitable planets like Arakis but politically regress to a monarchical system resembling the Holy Roman Empire.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-ef94f1d85f793020c07c95f699cfdfc5 fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-6\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-ef94f1d85f793020c07c95f699cfdfc5\"><\/div>\n<p>Yet when one looks closer at the religious elements of \u201cDune,\u201d there is something off about all of it. Even if Techera is wrong to interpret the movie as some post-Christian liberal allegory, he\u2019s right to sense that the film and its source material are antithetical to what today\u2019s world understands as religion \u2014 that is, a spiritual discipline combined with a moral code. In \u201cDune,\u201d there is no actual morality or theology. Rather, there is a predestined divine order and unknowable mysteries. This is why the characters all seem to lack much internal conflict (at least in the movies), and why their beliefs have little to say about the existence of good or evil.<\/p>\n<p>The science and technology of \u201cDune\u201d are also of a piece with this unfamiliar religion. Paradoxically, advanced technology such as space travel and energy forcefields have resulted in humanity fighting with blades and traveling in monolithic ships that function like boats that float through space on their own accord. Even the extraction of the all-important resource spice feels more like a spiritual form of work, granting godlike power to human beings, not a complex process requiring technical know-how.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Reflecting Neopaganism<\/h2>\n<p>All things considered, it would be more accurate to say that the \u201cDune\u201d movies reflect a kind of neopaganism. Much like the mystery cults and animistic devotions of the pre-Christian West, the prophecies, rituals, visions, and the psychic magic of Paul, the Freman, and Bene Gesserit priestesses all come together to inform future humanity\u2019s worldview. And as with these ancient belief systems, divinity is synonymous with power, key mysteries are guarded by gnostic cults, and blind faith in political messiahs and golden ages abound.<\/p>\n<p>As much as the surprising success of \u201cDune: Part II\u201d says about the changing landscape of popular cinema, it says even more about the changing landscape of the West\u2019s religious faith. As John Daniel Davidson argues in his new book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark\/dp\/1684514444\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come<\/em><\/a>, America and the rest of the West have entered an era of neopaganism in which Christianity has been effectively replaced by a wide assortment of mystery cults, superstitions, and incoherent moral philosophies. As he puts it: <\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-842a79e6d42e9a21a24272e13859b95e fdrlst__b89e9-paragraph-10\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-842a79e6d42e9a21a24272e13859b95e\"><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p>America is becoming pagan. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean a sudden surge in people worshipping Zeus or Apollo (although modern forms of witchcraft <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/think\/opinion\/paganism-witchcraft-are-making-comeback-rcna54444\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">are on the rise<\/a>). Rather it means an embrace of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/elon-musks-neuralink-heralds-the-beginning-of-a-dystopian-post-human-future\/\" title=\"Neuralink by Elon Musk: A Start to a Dystopian Future\">fundamentally pagan worldview<\/a> that rejects both transcendent moral truth and objective reality, and insists instead that truth is relative and reality is what we will it to be.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While a story about royal houses fighting over a planet of sand to profit from the production of spice would strike past audiences as incredible to the point of being incomprehensible, it actually makes a good deal of sense for today\u2019s audiences. Today\u2019s oligarchs wield enormous power, today\u2019s cults based in abstractions and fuzzy reasoning are alive and well, and human agency these days seems largely predetermined by vast unknowable forces. Even those Enlightenment ideals that extolled scientific reasoning have fallen by the wayside, as science seems increasingly like magic to people today. \u201cDune: Part II\u201d is indeed a strange movie, but the world has become a strange place, and this is all leading to a strange new moment in today\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, reverting to paganism should bother everyone, believers and nonbelievers alike. It might make for interesting and evocative science fiction films, but as <a href=\"https:\/\/americanmind.org\/salvo\/a-night-at-the-canterbury\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the whole of human history proves<\/a>, it inevitably spells disaster for human flourishing in the real world.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b758387adb025a72ef3463700302e975 fdrlst__b89e9-after-post-content\" id=\"fdrlst__b89e9-b758387adb025a72ef3463700302e975\"><\/div>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\">    \t\t\t\t\t   \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One month post-release, &#8220;Dune: Part II&#8221; clinched the year\u2019s highest-grossing movie title, solidifying its box-office triumph. Despite its success, it stands out as an unconventional blockbuster. While the novels enjoy recognition, they present a departure from mainstream appeal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":551,"featured_media":2221977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dune-1-e1713199381655.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2221976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dune-1-e1713199381655.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/551"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2221976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2221976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2221977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2221976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2221976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2221976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}