Bxdty

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.

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.

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 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.

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