Frank Herbert's way of thinking is almost completely inside his books. Between the very few of his writes outside, there is an article resuming what his books are about and how he wrote these books.
Only one of the fans of his Science Fiction material could give context to a phrase in that article that I want to understand. Since the only users that can do that precisely are SF&F SE users, how do I do to avoid admins closing my question as off-topic?
Kind of an "if it's only about the real world, it's off-topic; if it's about how it's tied to Dune, it's murky" situation.
Disclaimer: I'm certainly not the most knowledgeable person about Dune in these parts, but I don't think that's a problem.
I don't understand why this question was closed, at least not as "off-topic". From what I get by reading the question and (admittedly skimming) article, this is a written piece:
And the question asks about the meaning of a sentence in the context of that Dune explanation. So far, I'm not seeing anything blatantly off-topic.
If I understand that right, this is basically asking "what does Dune tell us about Herbert's statement of humans not having equal ability", which I think falls under literary analysis. Per Is literary analysis on-topic?, this is on-topic as long as it can be answered without (too much) speculation. Typically these could fall under "too broad" or "primarily opinion-based", but certainly not off-topic.
Once again I only know the very big outlines of Dune (shoot me), but for the peasant I am, it seems big enough of an universe and "behind the scenes" info for the question at stake to be answered (in a way that fits SE's format).
It might put some people off that it's been cross-posted on Politics.SE, but I'd argue that a SFF answer backed with quotes etc wouldn't be redundant with the answers there - so far there's only one undetailed mention of a character, Vlad Harkonnen.
To put it in a nutshell, I think the question is fine as is and should be reopened (and voted as such). I may be missing something though, and as I'm unsure whether the uncertainty stems from my lack of Dune knowledge, my misunderstanding of one of our policies, or something else, I'm looking forward to clarifications.
Honestly, I might have been tempted to vote to reopen as simply being on-topic (for the reasons Jenayah mentioned in her answer) but since you've cross-posted this question on Politics:SE where it appears to be on-topic and well received, per the standing site-wide policy, you can't cross-post something unless it's already been poorly received and/or failed to receive an adequate response.
My vote is a hesitant "it should be allowed". Let me explain:
I was about to vote to close (again, it seems), because in order for a question to be on-topic here it's not enough for it to be about the thoughts of a scifi author; it must be about scifi, and this seemed to me to be about Frank Herbert's thoughts on evolution and equality. Much like Einstein's thoughts on songwriting wouldn't be accepted as valid Physics questions, Herbert's thoughts on evolution shouldn't be accepted in a site about scifi...
...except the quoted thought was specifically discussing the thoughts put into the creation of Dune, which is on-topic. So it should be allowed, but being careful that the focus is on how this influenced Dune, and not in whether Herbert's thoughts were correct or how they apply to the real world.
The danger of off-topicness is definitely there: already I see people commenting under the question on irrelevant (to scifi) matters, such as whether Herbert's thoughts are accurate or how they apply to policies from the history of the US ("separate but equal", etc).
sorry to reply my question but think is important to know that posting the question in Politics (as I was asked to) is emptying answers of crucial context.
You may notice that the discussion there lacks of understanding of certain Herbert's ideas about humans flaws, power attracting corruption, stangment in societies, and many more relevant topics covered in the books...
I could write "John Smith" instead of "Frank Herbert" and the question in Politics SE would has the same answers. That is a proof to me is misplaced there.
The interest there is discussing if Herbert was right or not, which has a lot of sense to a politic exchange, but that was not my question.
