Erich Fromm once said, “The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots”. This quote is very appropriate for the novel, Fahrenheit 451, because it illustrates futuristic advances as hazardous to society. If in time technology goes so overboard that our civilization and society consists of artificial intelligence and artificial thought, out world may come to a gruesome collapse. Ray Bradbury demonstrates the effects if time and increased intelligence to be a danger to society.
In Fahrenheit 451, it seems that the conservatism and manipulative qualities of the government in the novel demonstrate a doom for the world in the future. By censoring every aspect of life, there seems to be no personality to the situations happening around the citizens. By trying to create an atmosphere of no hate, robotic behaviors, and perfectionism, the futuristic society seems as if a catastrophical collapse is near. Like the communist days in Russia in the early nineteen hundreds, the situations happening in Fahrenheit 451seem very similar, because the government is trying to keep people from knowing everything.
By keeping people from knowing too much, the futuristic government is avoiding clashes with different classes of people. They are keeping the people from racism, hate, and any insurrection towards each other. The definite censorship not only takes away from the people’s physical freedom, but also mental freedoms like thinking independently. That is why In author Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it is evident that the Government’s mass manipulation, the peoples decline of education by efforts of the government, and the ultimate censorship of every aspect of life, all are key factors of the inevitable collapse of civilization in the end
It was evident in the novel that every single character with exception to a few were manipulated by the government to be a certain way. Guy Montag, the main character in the story was a fireman who burned book because the government said that they were evil. Beatty, Guy Montag’s boss stated, “A long time ago, in the past, books were read by many people”…But then there was much controversy with different views on subjects and books began to contradict the meaning that they set forth to do (Page # 97). People began to get very upset and confused, so the firemen started to burn the books.
Guy Montag had the same views as everyone else until he met a girl named Clarisse. Clarisse was an open minded girl who did things that seemed out of the ordinary to the conservative society. She would walk outside, engage in different discussions with her parents, and she would share her feelings and emotions with other people. Clarisse opened Montags eyes to a better more interesting life.
It seemed as if she took the spell of Montag that the government had put on him. She took him away from watching television every day with his same old boring wife, and even got him to stop burning books, and instead reading them. The rest of society was different. They seemed to be oblivious to the fact that the government was telling them what to do, when to do it, and how long to do it for. The television that Meldrid, Montags wife watched, was just a repetitive cycle that the government engaged the citizens in so that they would do the same thing everyday and of course learn nothing.
The manipulation by the government led to the decline of education. By getting rid of all the books, the government in turn tried to make everyone equal and that made everyone become ignorant and naive to what was really going on. A selected few understood the meaning of books and didn’t want to see them gone. The government did not want to confront any problems in religion and moral and ethical values, so therefore books like the bible and other religious books contradicted each other. The decline of education in the people enabled the government to take control of almost everything which also had to do with the apocalypse.
After Guy Montag took the books, manipulated Mildred called the firemen to burn down the house and she left. In a society that we live in right now, there would be more emotional feelings involved in a relationship. In the future, it didn’t seem as if the husband and wife loved each other. This is because all of the factors that let the government lead society and not the people. In the future, it seems like there is more betrayal and you can’t trust anybody because everybody works for the government. “They don’t know better because they are ignorant” (Page # 79)
The last factor that led to the final dropping of the bombs and the end of the shallow, conservative society was all of the censorship. It the society that we live now, it is so that we censor many things for our kids so they don’t get bad images in their head. As our kids get older, we limit the amount of things that we censor, until finally there is almost no censorship and the truth is let out. In Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag tried to read books but because of the total censorship, he was not able to experience thought. Everything was too simple in the society that they lived. Nobody disagreed with anything because there was only one idea put forth on the table. For example, when the final chase to catch Montag was in effect, it seemed that everyone was against him.
There were no people that thought he had a right to read books, except the people who were “strange” to society. Everybody believed in one thing. The government seemed to make life too boring and manipulated every single person that what Montag did was bad. It is very surprising that in the end Montag was not captured because the government had everyone and everything on their side. Technology, 20 million people (viewers), and transportation. The only thing that was not censored in the end was the final collapse. Granger says, “Man’s advantage is his ability to recognize when he has made a mistake, so that eventually he will learn not to make that mistake anymore” (Page # 161).
So perhaps the bombing was a natural way of telling civilization to be themselves and not act on someone else’s views, whether they are good or bad. Society should be organized for the people and by the people so that there isn’t one person saying what to do and what not to do. In the case of Fahrenheit 451, the person or group that was telling everyone to be the same were the conservative cowards who were afraid to live in a place with disagreement and independent opinion.
Fahrenheit 451 puts speculation of the far future into perspective. It is very interesting how Ray Bradbury predicts the future to be like without books and with too much technology and power in the hands of one group. Bradbury predicts that the future will be filled with many conservatives who are very ignorant and are afraid to take any risk in their life.
I agree that this is possible, but the society would finally have to collapse. In author Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, it is evident that the Government’s mass manipulation, the peoples decline of education by efforts of the government, and the ultimate censorship of every aspect of life, all are key factors of the inevitable collapse of civilization in the end.
