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DISCUSSION[Discussion] Ray Bradbury called out this SJW bullshit 65 years ago. My thoughts on a book about book-burning. (self.KotakuInAction)

Alsic が 投稿

Longtime lurker, first time poster here. I decided to reread a favorite book of mine, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and I think it's at least a bit relevant to this whole censorship posing as political correctness bullshit.

At first I only thought about it as a dystopian world in the idiocracy vein/ government censorship. Then I read Captain Beatty's monologue and thought it was the rapid regression of cognitive ability and the anti-intellectual policies that stem from that led to the mass book burnings.

Well for this reading I had the luck of buying an edition with a coda from the author himself. (The 50th anniversary edition just in case anyone was wondering)

A few excerpts from the first few pages of the coda. I'm sorry if it's too long, I just don't want to be accused of cutting up pieces and distorting.

About two years ago, a letter arrived from a solemn young Vassar lady telling me how much she enjoyed reading my experiment in space mythology The Martian Chronicles But, she added, wouldn't it be a good idea, this late in time, to rewrite the book inserting more women's characters and roles?

And the coup de grace

A final test for old Job II here: I sent a play, Leviathan 99, off to a university theater a month ago. My play is based on the "Moby Dick" mythology, dedicated to Melville, and concerns a rocket crew and a blind space captain who venture forth to encounter a Great White Comet and destroy the destroyer. My drama premieres as an opera in Paris this autumn.

But, for now, the university wrote back that they hardly dared do my play -- it had no women in it! And the ERA ladies on campus would descend with ballbats if the drama department even tried!

 

It seems to me from the rest of the coda (it's a good read, try to read it full if you can) that the late great Bradbury was irritated by several groups of people demanding to edit his works to suit their agenda.

 

I'm not trying to write a book report here. It just seems so uncanny and a bit sad that something written down over a half a century ago has this much relevance. The author blames television for helping to incite these events. But in my opinion that pales in importance compared to the symptoms and cures for this phenomena.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

Is my analysis wrong? Do you think that television/ technology promoted one-way thinking? Was the topics discussed in Bradbury's novel anyway related to the problems discussed in this subreddit? Or Am I a pretentious idiot trying to link some irrelevant thing for karma?

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[–]NumberedDog 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Something I loved about Fahrenheit 451 was that when we find out how the world in the book got as bad as it did it turned out it wasn't from some massive government conspiracy it was the people who censored themselves first to protect their feelings and things just grew from there.

I WONDER WHY THAT FEELS RELEVANT TODAY?

[–]FrinkleMcDoo 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I remember reading that Ray Bradbury once tried to argue with a group of college students that Fahrenheit 451 was about social censorship and anti-intellectualism and not government censorship, and he walked out when they kept telling him that he was wrong about his own book.

Now I can see why. He realized that the people who denied the message of his book were also going to be the instigators of it.

[–]_-_Dan_-_ 3ポイント4ポイント  (3子コメント)

Yep, it's uncanny how the themes of (self-)censorship, people who "care" for other groups beyond any bounds of reason, and "I don't like it, change it." were topics decades ago. Perhaps it's a selective focus (you don't notice when it's missing in other books), but perhaps it shows an underlying need of some people. One that got totally out of control with social media.

As for Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, there's this scene with the three TV-like walls:

Well, wasn't there a wall between him and Mildred, when you came down to it? Literally not just one wall but, so far, three! And expensive, too! And the uncles, the aunts, the cousins, the nieces, the nephews, that lived in those walls, the gibbering pack of tree-apes that said nothing, nothing, nothing and said it loud, loud, loud.

which have a strange resemblance to Twitter-style social media (just posted the start of the paragraph) ... waow, scary resemblance to outrage porn.

But yup, the things we have today aren't new. What happened to Sir Tim Hunt has happened to other scientists in the past. Accusations of sexism aren't new. It's just more visible and faster. But as bad as social media can be in this regard, it also allows the other sides to be heard. The ones that are a bit more on the "feelings aren't facts or arguments" side.

And I hope that this is coming more and more.

[–]Alsic[S] 2ポイント3ポイント  (2子コメント)

Yeah, it's kind of scary that the optimistic outlook of the internet we had only twenty years ago devolved into this.

What is more shocking to me is not Mildred's attempt to block herself from the world by buying a fourth screen, but rather the scene where she is excited about a new type of television program where she reads a script during the program to "feel immersed" in the program. It's like that now. Just parroting given lines in a sad butchering and recreation of an actual conversation.

But as you said. Thankfully (for the meantime) all words can flow in both directions as long as someone is willing to listen. Technology might not be the problem but it has made the symptoms a lot more noticeable and hopefully more people would call out on the shit going on and try to fix it.

[–]_-_Dan_-_ 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yup, it's strange where the original idea of freedom on the Internet has gone.

I remember the old usenet newsgroups, things like alt.sex.stories.moderated and the like. Even then there were people for censorship, because "morals" and because they are "degrading to women". And even then there were men and women who said, "no, they're not".

It seems to be an eternal battle between those who want to "protect" and "care", even for adults, and those who want a free flow of information and a marketplace of ideas. And the interaction between both will always be "wobbly".

And yup, that part of "being involved" by just reading a line, not to think, just react at the right time ... brrrrrr. But also an apt foreshadowing of Twitter and the like.

[–]wowww_ [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

An idiot with a fancy tool, is still just an idiot, nonetheless.

[–]TheHat2 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Then I read Captain Beatty's monologue and thought it was the rapid regression of cognitive ability and the anti-intellectual policies that stem from that led to the mass book burnings.

Thank god you understood the whole point of that book. Seems like people are quicker to say it's about censorship than willful ignorance.

[–]IE_5 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Full text here: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/451/451.html

Orwell's preface to Animal Farm is also worth reading in that context: http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/english/efp_go

[–]Coin0perated [スコア非表示]  (0子コメント)

When I think about SJW activity mixed with having read Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 in school it makes me scared, legitimately worried that some disgusting mix of these two fictional cultures are what they want to create.

As though they picked up those books and instead of feeling horrified that a society like those could exist they felt the unbridled need to bring them about.

[–]mnemosyne-0000#BotYourShield 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

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I am Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. I remember so you don't have to.