“Although Ray Bradbury’s work is often referred to as science fiction, Fahrenheit has plenty to say about the world as it is, and not as it could be.”
Fahrenheit 451 though for many readers may seem like a far-fetched world, actually draws many parallels to our current world. There is an increased question of what should be censored and who should be the ones doing the censoring. Many firms such as Facebook and Twitter have grappled with this question and has often led to much backlash. In more restricted nations, in nations such as China, Hungary, Iran the world presented in Fahrenheit 451 is very similar. Authoritarian governments control what information is being presented to the public and are increasingly changing the education systems in their respective countries to fit with the government’s values. In the book, information is controlled through one central news channel and books are deemed illegal, lesser degrees of this censorship can be seen throughout the world and shows that Bradbury’s book is in some places a real, present dystopia.
My Discussion:
My comments on Group 4’s Discussion:
I liked Eeshan’s point on how with the rapid rise of technology and different forms of entertainment our attention span has certainly decreased a lot and this shows that our world is not so different from Bradbury’s book. However, at the same time, I liked how Shreya drew the connection that having a shorter attention span due to technology is not necessarily a bad thing. We are now able to make more connections, share more ideas and overall function more coherently as a society. I definitely agreed with Raniyah’s point about how with censorship it draws us dangerously close to becoming overly sensitive which draws the question of who should be the one to censor information? Finally, I do like how the discussion switched to the question of critical thinking. I felt that it was a great point that while some things may be censored it is important that people maintain critical thinking so they can make their own opinions.