While most people consider Fahrenheit 451 to be a book on the dangers of censorship and the destruction of knowledge, Bradbury himself identifies the ability of technology to replace reading and critical thinking as the dominant theme of the novel. http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/ Over fifty years after his book was published; do you think Bradbury was right? Has television and the Internet destroyed Americans' ability to read and think critically about ideas? Could we be heading toward a time when the authorities' burn books for our own good, and the population allows it to happen?
Reading the above link reveals that Bradbury truly wrote this book about the fear of television making the reading of novels obsolete. The true enemy in Fahrenheit 451 was not the government but the people. The mindless people who were so interested in instant gratification they believed books to be evil because they took too much time and focus to receive gratification. It seems that Bradbury may have been partially right. Novels are obviously less popular than condensed books like the Readers Digest have become more popular. Articles on the Web are obviously more read than novels so this lends to some truth in modern Media taking the place of a good book. In Fahrenheit 451 Montag's wife Mildred watches TV and interacts with her family on the TV walls which hang on three of the four walls of their living room, isn't this strangely close to the flat panel TV entertainment centers we have in our living rooms today. This lends its self to some truth in Bradbury's assumptions of what life would be like in our modern world. I think that Fahrenheit 451 is the exact polar opposite of the last book we read in this class "Everything Bad is good for you". In Steven Johnson's book he concludes that Modern pop culture, TV watching, games and the internet are making us smarter due to the increased reasoning skills involved in following these increasingly difficult story lines. In Fahrenheit 451 Montag is part of a society were instant gratification is a must and rational thinking is a bad thing. I think the truth actually lies some where in between these two extreme points of view. In response to Mr. Johnson book "Everything Bad is Good for You" I do believe that our world is becoming increasingly difficult due to our technology and being able to master this new technology must be improving certain aspects of our intelligence, on the flip side I don't believe we will discover some life saving cure for cancer by playing a realty based video game. In response to Mr. Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" we are as a society killing old practices like reading the daily newspaper. The large newspapers in cities around the country are in danger of going bankrupt. The internet news and information is killing the old practice of reading the morning news. On the flip side of that I don't believe that the reading of the classic novels is being killed by TV. As the article says movies and TV are promoting classic Novels as The Movie poster of Fahrenheit 451 reveals. I do not think we could ever be heading toward a time when books are being burned. Our society is ran be educated people. These people would never allow the burning of books. We as a society are more educated than we were in the 1950's when Fahrenheit 451 was written. With a society that sees a need for more education and a society that is more and more accepting of the differences in its people, I do not ever foresee our society burning books or accepting the practice of burning books. The world literacy society and organizations like this and the wealthy educated people who support societies like these will never allow public book burnings.
http://www.worldliteracyfoundation.org/
So my thought is society is changing with technology and we are increasing our intelligence with the evolution of this technology. We are however loosing some of the interest in classic literature works, but there will always be respect for these literary classics and there will never be a time when we burn books publicly.
Watch this video clip from Fahrenheit 451
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghTJCaq9bcI&feature=related
Watch this video clip which shows we need each other and books to become educated for a brighter future:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ii2qq34iB8
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