By STEVE WEST
Today, August 22, is Ray Bradbury’s birthday. I can’t think of a better time to revisit Bradbury’s most famous work,
Fahrenheit 451.
For me the most intriguing thing about
Fahrenheit 451 is that it’s what I’d call an adolescent dreamer’s story. By
that I mean the book is something that young teens read, and then latch onto
the perceived surface ideals. It feeds the notion that those in charge are
trying to tell you what to think, and if you’re not careful some time in the
near future state sponsored censorship will become the norm. It’s the same
mentality of those who erroneously think Catcher in the Rye is about a kid who
bucked the system. The irony in both cases is that we, the young teens reading
these stories, are the phonies.
Released in the early 50’s, when television
was first starting to become significant, 451 was oddly prescient and
pessimistic about what TV had to offer society. What I’ve never understood is
the way in which so many people claim to love the anti-censorship message of
the story, but fail to notice it’s we TV watchers who are the villains.
Society, by turning from the printed word towards television, brought about the
dystopian world of book burning firemen. Guy didn’t hide books to stick it to
the state; he hid them because they offered the power of knowledge.
The idea that television, or the internet for
that matter, will someday turn mankind into oblivious automatons is short
sighted. The kid walking down the street texting on his cell phone is not a
capricious youth; he’s just connected to his network of friends in a new way, a
way that is misunderstood by the elder generation. This is not a bad thing, it’s
just new. Those who brag that they don’t have a TV because they don’t see the
value in it, are not as impressive as they seem. There’s nothing to gain by
willfully ignoring an avenue for gaining knowledge based on unfounded bias.
The truth is that in today’s world, with
hundreds of cable channels and millions of websites, the themes of 451 are more
resonant than ever. The issue I have with the short novel is that it draws the
wrong conclusions. Modern media will not kill books; as is evidenced by the mega
success of series’ like Twilight and Harry Potter. Nor will it turn society
into a brain dead swarm, willing to do whatever they’re told. TV has nothing on
books when it comes to mindless entertainment. For every To Kill A Mockingbird
there are a hundred Twilights. There are more books that aren’t worth your time
than minutes of television used up on the Kardashians. Don’t laud the novel’s
superiority over other forms of entertainment without first realizing that the
pile of crap extends back a few hundred years.
Ideologically I just can’t get behind Fahrenheit 451 as an adult
who understands all that television has to offer. Tell me that the episode of
Firefly titled “Out of Gas” isn’t one of the best sci-fi stories told in the
last 20 years, and I’ll slap your face for insolence. Television, movies, and
the internet have not made mankind dumber or more disconnected. We’ve never
lived as a species in such a globally charged world as we do now; and it’s
because we took our nose out of the book and plugged in. Now if you’ll excuse
me I have to go re-read some Heinlein on my Kindle.
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/scifi/celebrating-ray-bradburys-birthday-revisit-fahrenheit-451.html
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