“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal…”
Ray Bradbury wrote these words nearly 60 years ago in his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, named appropriately for the temperature at which paper begins to burn. Bradbury died last week in Los Angeles.
While the author may be dead, his art lives on. Fahrenheit 451 is required reading for many grade school children, unless your school doesn’t believe in books. In which case, it would make no sense to read a book about the immorality of book burning.
Fahrenheit 451, for those of you who grew up in church compounds, is set in a distopic futuristic society, where firefighters no longer put out fires but start them instead.
Books have been banned, and when they are found, the fire department is called in to burn them – occasionally with the owner.
The protagonist is Guy Montag, a firefighter who likes to read and feels no connection with his wife, who spends her life in front of wall-sized televisions.
When Mrs. Montag overdoses on pills, a blue collar technician comes to the house and pumps the poison out and life back in.
But what is Fahrenheit 451 really about?
Censorship is a theme frequently mentioned, but that’s incorrect. In a 2007 interview with LA Weekly, Bradbury maintained that 451 is not about government censorship. Bradbury instead said 451 is about how television destroys the interest in reading literature.
Mrs. Montag wants Guy to pay for an additional wall-sized television to complete the room. She spends all day talking and interacting with soap opera-like characters on the different screens.
Counting Crows lyrics come to mind when trying to describe the technological orgy that is the first world.
“They left the television screaming that the radio’s on.”
I can watch the Kardashians, listen to Kanye, tweet and take a crap – simultaneously. A Mississippi Renaissance man. Bradbury had us pinned ­­- well, me at least.
So in honor of his life, put down the remote, pick up a book and have yourself a good, long think about the state of things.
Books are nothing more than ideas. We are all afraid of one day having a government that stifles creativity with censorship. We think it will be easy to spot, but the subtext is there, fondling our subconscious.
The only control we have over the TV is when to turn it off. Let us remember to know when that is.
Parker Cramer is a 21-year-old political science senior from Houston. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_pcramer.
 
____ Contact Parker Cramer at [email protected]