Fahrenheit 451 in Utopian and Dystopian Reading Group

Mar 02, 2013 Shawn rated it really liked it

The first Bradbury book I read, ‘Dandelion Wine,’ drove me nuts. Absolutely hated it. Maybe because back in those days I was the world’s most cynical fucker and hated happy-ending-stories. Who knows. But then I picked up ‘Fahrenheit 451’ and actually enjoyed Bradbury’s writing, or at least most of it because by the end of this short novel, Bradbury was back to his old long-winded-flowery-potpourri tricks. I guess wading through ten or fifteen pages of fluff is a small price to pay for the rest o description

The first Bradbury book I read, ‘Dandelion Wine,’ drove me nuts. Absolutely hated it. Maybe because back in those days I was the world’s most cynical fucker and hated happy-ending-stories. Who knows. But then I picked up ‘Fahrenheit 451’ and actually enjoyed Bradbury’s writing, or at least most of it because by the end of this short novel, Bradbury was back to his old long-winded-flowery-potpourri tricks. I guess wading through ten or fifteen pages of fluff is a small price to pay for the rest of the book, which I found fascinating.

‘451’ conjures images of the Inquisition: witches burning at the stake, public book burnings, superstition, mindless fanaticism, peasants, priests and burghers all colluding in the surveillance of the public. During the times of the Inquisition, oppression came from above and started from above. It was less about religious persecution than it was about elites acting to maintain power. Religion was a tool of repression and social control. I imagine that most folks during those times just wanted to keep their heads down and avoid trouble. They didn’t start the mess, but certainly many took advantage of it for personal gain or to avenge some distant wrong or simply from resentment. The point is, the Inquisition as a vehicle of oppression started at the top and was all about the elites.

Not so in ‘451.’

In ‘451’ it was the indolence of the Everyman that ushered in a period an infantilized and barbarized citizenry. As people discarded the joys of intellectual pursuits, such as reading books and admiring high art, the capitalist media responded to their wants. Don’t want to read Dostoyevski and Hawthorne? Find them a bit dense, a bit long-winded and difficult to understand? Fine. We’ll give you a summary with lots of nice pictures. Still too burdensome? Okay, here’s a notecard with a one-sentence sound-byte ‘summarizing’ the book. Still too much? How about comics? And why would anyone want to read about someone else’s suffering, anyway? Why would we want to read a bunch of philosophers who can’t seem to agree on anything? Soon, the unpopularity of books spread to all other art media, leaving people with only their televisions and advertising and other adrenaline-inducing pursuits. Deep thinking, sentiment, original thoughts, and empathy disappeared. Those few hopeless romantics who still believed in the power of a book to channel the collective wisdom of mankind over the course of millennia became pariahs. Fireman no longer put out the flames of a housefire (because houses were fireproofed!), but, rather, dutifully set to flames those homes wherein books were hidden.

People essentially engaged in a perpetual word against ‘The Word,’ and by extension, reason. No longer was it possible for people to think, know or judge. If the state became totalitarian, it was the fault of the people who abdicated their duty to be the government watchdog. Some of the American Forefathers worried that the average citizen was too lazy at worst and too uneducated at best to perform the critical thinking needed to sustain an enlightened democracy. Bradbury’s book seems to show that their fear wasn’t in vain. Once a citizenry has abdicated its responsibilities, the road to autocracy, dictatorship and totalitarianism is a short, easy one.

As long as people are given their ‘Bread and Circuses’ the state remains in control. Once they have literally lost their minds, social control becomes even easier. Everything becomes spectacle: meaningless, participatory television dialogs designed to elicit agreement through flattery; the gatherings around public book burnings; and the citizenry enlisted in manhunts. People are unhappy but they have no words, no wisdom, no mentors to articulate their unhappiness. Religious texts are lost, so there is no religion, no system of ethics or morals. Divorce is normal. Teenagers kill pedestrians with their cars. Rather than working through difficult psychological trauma, the afflicted embark upon speed thrills in their cars in the countryside, purposely running over rabbits and deer that run across the country roads. Children assault their parents, and parents merciless eat their children. Adults are filled with rage, but neither have an understanding of the wellspring of their rage, nor have an outlet for it, other than pills and more television. Even if self-help books were permitted, people without a critical capacity to learn wouldn’t understand them anyway. Love, empathy, compassion do not exist. The world is populated with self-loathing sociopaths.

For those us of who love books, this future is a nightmare. But I wonder, if we are not really far down the path that Bradbury imagines. Probably not. Too many people love knowledge for the sake of knowledge. I do think, though, that many self-avowed bibliophiles have become contemptuous towards the more difficult books to read, especially the older books. Maybe this isn’t a bias towards older books, but, rather, a disdain for the past. Maybe this disdain is really due to a lack of appreciation for the words and styles of times past. I suppose I can understand that. The ancient and not-so-ancient authors are an acquired taste in some ways. It takes patience and discipline to read them. To read them requires some knowledge of the past in order to understand the context in which those books were written, but it seems that more and more people have also developed an aversion for history, too, and this is incredibly. Ironically, more people are reading today than ever before in history.

In the United States, at least, publishers are shitting out more books than ever before. The downside is that the most banal books earn the largest readership, while some of the best books go ignored and unappreciated. Yeah, people are reading, but the books they’re reading are oftentimes garbage. I guess I’m not sure if I should be happy that people are reading ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ and ‘Twilight’ or if I should just start punching myself in the face out of frustration. Most of these books follow the same narrative structures and don’t even bother elaborating on new themes. For example, I read a lot of dystopia. Lately I can’t even keep up with all the new titles coming out. At first, I tried to read several of the new authors, but after reading them, I realized that they were shit. Good dystopic literature offers new ways of looking at the world, new insights. New predictions based on observations, maybe a warning, maybe some prescription. Not the new stuff. It’s merely descriptive, sensational, and based on shock and mindless horror. If ‘1984’ is like a Bach concerto, books like ‘World War Z’ and the ‘Wool’ series are like Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus. Same goes for all the crap vampire stories and garbage historical-romance novels. Too easy to digest and too much of a chance of mental diarrhea. No thanks. I’ll stick to Bach.
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