I’ve long been a fan of the Dune saga. From it’s commentary on power and religion to its personal vignettes on drive and cunning, the series stands as a precient allegory of our own world.
Greater than this, though, the power of Voice captivates me. Within the narrative, Voice is a command given through total control of tone and inflection that has a subconscious control over others. A talent garnered through monastic discipline, its use commands fear and respect in equal measure. It is a tool of manipulation, a weapon of the mind, and a means of control.
Over all the pointed societal and political commentary, this power interests me the most. Its use is inherently unethical. Everyone should always act towards their own goals, and convincing someone to do otherwise pushes them away from these. The common advertising technique of “helping people find their own best interest” is just as insidious and damaging as direct manipulation. Even in the best cases, such management creates passivivity and long-lasting damage, as your gentle pushes erode people’s will and shift their vision.
Dune addresses this. The sisterhood, a shadowy cabal and the only practitioners of Voice, rarely use it directly. To do so would involve a victim knowing they’d been manipulated. Instead, their plans progress by carefully positioning everyone’s best interests towards their common goal.
But none of this is why the Voice intrigues me. At its core, the Voice is the idea of a perfect arguement. The dream that if I can find the right words and say them in just the right way, I too can get an outcome. A smile, a helping hand, or a kind word.
This is a joke of an idea. People are complex beings of emotion and desire. Worst off, most people don’t even know themselves. They veil their desires and thoughts behind what’s currently socially acceptable. Such people can’t tell you why they did something, or give a completely unrelated reason. If they deceive themselves, then how can I ever know them? How can anyone ever know them?
I am such a person. There’s a lot of things I don’t know, and I’m too weak to stand up and pursue what’s right. It seems the ‘correct path’ is to just be yourself, and let others come and go as they please. Yet I find myself unable to do so.
The Voice remains a captivating dream to me. The reality is much more disappointing. The moment you care about how your actions impact others is the moment you lose yourself. You slip into the grey purgatory of self-doubt and approval-chasing, never believing in anything. I am this puppet, a husk that I’m desperately trying to stuff. Bit by bit, I fill myself with uphostry, grasping at anything that seems to fit. One day, I’ll take out the old, replace it with the new. But I can only do that once I know what I am.