What Is The Political Concept In Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury: Author of Wonders “Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories” (Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, quoted in “Goodreads”). With over thirty novels and nearly six hundred short stories, Ray Bradbury, an overflowing font of creativity, has filled the lives of people around the world with wonder (Biography.com Editors). His books live in the hearts of many and have a monumental impact on the world. Ray Bradbury, an ingenious science-fiction author, has profoundly affected modern society by arguing political concepts through literature, motivating scientists with his short stories and novels, and inspiring writers in the
Daphne Patai, from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), observed Ray Bradbury’s argument against censorship and televisions, and how he passionately fought these concepts in his novel Fahrenheit 451. Censorship was an important political debate of his time period, and the argument that televisions reduce human contact and activity is a substantial ethical concept today. Almost every home in America now contains one television or more. His novel, taking place in a fictional world where books are burned so as not to offend anyone, made a direct argument against McCarthyism, blacklists, and totalitarian concepts. An interesting attribute that Patai took notice of that makes Fahrenheit 451 unique is that it also shows readers an authoritarian government is not necessary to create a dystopian world, that a democracy is just as susceptible to becoming corrupt. Ray Bradbury was one of the few who saw that even the United States of America, a center of freedom, had the potential to become a
Anti-intelligence concepts seem to pop up into society, every time the price of college tuition skyrockets without clear reason, or whenever citizens refuse to acknowledge the number of unemployed or in debt people in their country (Eskow). The unwillingness to accept or believe knowledge given is a dangerous political topic that is still present in this day and age. Ray Bradbury battled against it in his time period, and his books continue to fight against it today. In Fahrenheit 451, just as the city’s lack of acknowledgement of the nuclear war around them leads to their own destruction, the same could happen to the current society on slightly less violent terms. Unless Americans take notice of their surroundings, of the debt and turmoil around them, their country could fall into