{"id":18973,"date":"2024-12-22T16:47:17","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T22:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=18973"},"modified":"2024-12-23T09:06:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T15:06:14","slug":"ray-bradbury-book-burning-dystopias-and-prognostication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2024\/12\/ray-bradbury-book-burning-dystopias-and-prognostication.html","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury, Book Burning, dystopias and prognostication"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"
By Raysonho @ Open Grid Scheduler \/ Grid Engine (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Who was Ray Bradbury?<\/h3>\n

According to Wikipedia<\/a>, he was born in 1920, spent most of his early childhood years in Waukegan Illinois, then moved to Los Angeles at the age of 14.\u00a0 He dreamed of being a writer from an early age, and began publishing science fiction in 1938, continuing to build his career during the wartime years because bad eyesight exempted him from the draft.\u00a0 In 1951, so, at the age of 31, he published The Fireman<\/em> as a short story, then was invited to extend its length to be publishable as a novel, which occurred in 1953 as Fahrenheit 451<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In recent years, this book has been claimed to be seen as prophetic, foreseeing the \u201ccensorship\u201d of books in the U.S., with endless caterwauling about \u201cBanned Books Week\u201d and the unfairness of schools removing from their collections such books as Let\u2019s Talk About It<\/em>, This Book is Gay<\/em>, and All Boys Aren\u2019t Blue<\/em>, the first two of which contain explicit instruction on such things as accessing porn and anonymous hook-ups, and the last of which features as a primary plot point the author of the memoir having identity-affirming gay sex (in explicit detail).\u00a0 Indeed, the fact that there exists a dystopian book that contains as its premise the burning of books is used as prima facie<\/em> evidence that any restriction on youth reading material is bad.<\/p>\n

As it happens, a couple of weeks ago, my son\u2019s school performed as a radio play an adaptation of the book, with a note in the program stating that the book is particularly relevant now because of the practice of parents challenging books.\u00a0 (Never mind that the rise in \u201cnumber of books challenged\u201d is a direct consequence of the increasing number of books directed at children or perceived by teachers\/librarians as appropriate for children which are sexually explicit . . . )\u00a0 And I pulled the book off the bookshelf for a quick reread.<\/p>\n

Why, in Bradbury\u2019s telling, did the United States of the future choose to burn books?\u00a0 It is not<\/em><\/strong> because of a desire to persecute sexual or ethnic minorities (the claim of modern-day \u201canti-book banning\u201d activists), or to protect a dictatorship from the opposition (the practice of real-life dictatorships).\u00a0 Instead, the firehouse captain Beatty tells fireman Montag (starting on page 51 of my \u201c60th-anniversary\u201d edition), that the history of book-burning followed a different trajectory.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t come from the Government down.\u00a0 There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to star with, no!\u00a0 Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God.\u00a0 Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why did that happen?\u00a0 The advent of mass media, beginning with photography, then movies, radio, and television, each providing more \u201ceyes and elbows and mouths\u201d and<\/p>\n

\u201cfilms and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of paste, pudding norm. . . . Books cut shorter.\u00a0 Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Beatty continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored.\u00a0 Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work.\u00a0 Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why, then, ban books?<\/p>\n

The advent of this popular culture and fun and simplification and entertainment meant that<\/p>\n

\u201cthe word \u2018intellectual,\u2019 of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.\u00a0 You always dread the unfamilar.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Because, Beatty says, the brightest children were \u201cbetter\u201d than the others, they must be tamped down, prevented from causing harm or even making others feel bad.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, in order to preserve \u201chappiness\u201d in society, minorities had to be prevented from being upset.<\/p>\n

\u201cColored people don\u2019t like Little Black Sambo<\/em>.\u00a0 Burn it.\u00a0 White people don\u2019t feel good about Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em>.\u00a0 Burn it. . . . Serenity, Montag.\u00a0 Peace, Montag.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what is the actual present-day analogy in the book?\u00a0 Not the practice of, or desire of parents to restrict books with explicit sex from high schools.\u00a0 Instead, it sounds a heck of a lot more like Bradbury is warning us of the impact of a country with its young adults addicted to Tik Tok and other videos, paired with the concern of policymakers and other \u201cexperts\u201d with weeding out materials that are \u201coffensive\u201d to minorities.\u00a0 And ironically pretty much at the same time as I got back from this performance there was a claim being circulated on Twitter that schools should discontinue teaching Shakespeare<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Of course, both interpretations \u2014 the \u201cFahrenheit 451<\/em> means we should stop even small-scale book bans because it is the path to total destruction of the written word\u201d version as well as \u201cFahrenheit 451<\/em> is a warning of the consequences of short-form videos replacing reading\u201d \u2014 rely on Bradbury being a prophet, having the ability to foresee the long-term impact of short-term trends and decisions.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s necessarily evidence that a 31-year-old science fiction & fantasy writer had this ability.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know what the long-term effect will be of the dramatic decline in the degree to which Americans, especially children and young adults, read<\/strong><\/em>, and the rise of TikTok and other videos for entertainment and as a news source.\u00a0 Teachers consider watching a Romeo & Juliet movie to constitute \u201cteaching Shakespeare,\u201d and likewise in other ways have shifted to \u201cteaching\u201d by means of assigning videos to watch.\u00a0 Reports are growing that even in the short time that ChatGPT has become available, students have become dependent on it.\u00a0 And so on. But the \u201csolution\u201d isn\u2019t found in a dystopian novel.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who was Ray Bradbury? According to Wikipedia, he was born in 1920, spent most of his early childhood years in Waukegan Illinois, then moved to Los Angeles at the age of 14.\u00a0 He dreamed of being a writer from an early age, and began publishing science fiction in 1938, continuing to build his career during […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":1386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1487,616,1522],"class_list":["post-18973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-banning","tag-dystopias","tag-ray-bradbury"],"yoast_head":"\nRay Bradbury, Book Burning, dystopias and prognostication<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Who was Ray Bradbury? 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