To me, the single most unnerving thing about F451 is that it does NOT disturb me as it might have back in the 50's. The technology, the ignorance, the prevalence of violence and misunderstanding - all these things are alive and well currently. The thought of burning books, of senseless murders, of a complete lack of care and peace...these things will drive us to our fall from grace. Imagine picking up F451 just after its publication. Imagine the look of horror on your face at the mere mentioning of such a shallow and misguided world. Now read a few of the more potent passages (oh, wait, they're ALL potent and meaningful), and shudder at the fact that Bradbury's haunting view of the future is upon us.

Good authors tell a story. Great authors make a point. Legendary authors do both, adding a dash of character development and a hint of that certain something, which, at the end of the novel, keeps you up at night, worrying, wondering and gawking at the literal and metaphorical interpretations of their words and thoughts. What we have in Ray Bradbury is priceless. What we've gained in literature and thought and meaning is unfathomable. He's told us what might happen, told us how it may come about, and even gave solutions to the problem. Now, the million dollar question: What, praytell, do we do with this knowledge? How can it be immediately and/or eventually applied to make life better?

Any thoughts?

Side note: Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" is, at its roots, similar to F451. I highly recommend it.

I recently went to an exhibit of the Pulitzer Prize photos. It was awesome. But one of the things I noticed (one of my relatives thought the exhibit was depressing for this reason) was the extent of the violence and inhumanity exhibited in many of the photographs. In one image that is seared into my mind, a man is hunched over, fully engulfed in flames, and another man is driving a machete into the man's scull as he burns. Where does this kind of violence, hatred and inhumanity come from?

Your point is well taken on violence.

What do we do about it? I think different people do different things. Bradbury (and other great authors )point out these things to us through their writings. Philosophers try to put together ideas on what constitutes a good life, sociologists try to understand how to create a society that promotes the good (as defined by the philosophers and theologians and psychologists) in given societies. Teachers try to touch lives of their students by opening them up to better possibilities and visions.

Each of us, though, can be an influence on the lives of others. We each have a small circle of influence. Jewel has a line in one of her songs that says, "In the end, only kindness matters". We should so live our lives that each person we touch is better off because we have touched their lives in a positive way. Too often, we are wrapped up in our own self-focus to see that there is pain, loneliness and fear that could be alleviated (at least in part) by very small efforts on our part. Do we make that effort? If not, do we contribute to the misery in the world?

I think too often, we won't take any action unless we see it as dramatic. But I think we can touch lives one-by-one; and that that touching matters. It makes the world better. The world is nothing but a collection of individuals. We each have opportunities to make the lives of other persons better.

Going back to F451, Don't Clarisse and Faber connect with Montag and make his life better? Neither of them were working a grand plan. Neither of them were presidents of the United Nations. They just touched lives close to them.

That's what I think we ought to do with our understanding of the world's pain and violence and loneliness and fear. We should touch it in small ways. Wherever we can.

Terrific respons, Mr. D. It should be mass-produced and dropped from airplanes.

The comments that have been left are frighteningly true, and hit the nail on the head. There are truly many things talked about in F451 that are very prevalent today: ignorance, laziness, complacency, hatred, violence, etc. And the same is true of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. For example, it astounds me how many young children talk about sexual encounters with other kids like they are trading bubble gum cards. It is all very scary.

The frightening thing is that all these conditions lead to the inability of man to truly feel. This absence of feeling leads to dispair, loneliness, ennui, and I think, untimately to feelings of suicide. That's why these supposed utopias are so harmful. In trying to help man, by taking away his choices, they actually take away what it means to be a man (person).

Has Mr. Dark read Anthony Burgess's work, "A Clockwork Orange"? Your statement sounds like an effective summary of the novel.

I completely agree with Mr. Dark. I have had (both brief and extended) stays in various mental health facilities over the past year and a half. The one thing I learned (apart from my belief that the brunt of psychological theory was created using a "mad lib" type system to contrive non-medication treatment and therapy methods) is that, in essence, our free will seperates us from other living things.

In my longest hospitalization of over 2 months, I met a man who had been in this particular long-term hospital since he was 17. He is now 45. He was a kind and caring person, a genuine friend to staff and patients alike, but he was "worthless" as far as society was concerned. He lacked the power to choose right or wrong, good or evil. His life consisted of strict routine, and he had not planned out his own daily agenda in nearly 30 years. He was quite animated and friendly, a good person all around, but, still sat in an uncomfortable chair all day, his only thoughts concerned with what was for dinner, or when the next van ride to 7-11 would be.

But hey, look at it this way: he had 3 meals a day, a bed at night, and a television in between. He would never, ever have to lift a finger to support himself again. He had 24-hour access to (free) excellent healthcare, could borrow movies or books from the library (but never did), went on walks, van rides, could swim, play basketball, or lift weights in the gym...he had a free ride for the rest of his life. So why was this man the saddest human I had ever met? He would never get out of the institutional walls. He would never take a breath of truly free air. He would never sleep at night without having staff check in on him every half-hour. Stripped of choice, void of freedom, he was nothing.

I could have followed the same path; I even considered it. "Crazy!" I would cry, and who could dispute it? The door would slam shut and lock, and I would sit next to this man for many decades, talking about the pumpkin pie we had at dinner, or the karaoke activity coming up tonight.

Don't sacrifice your freedoms, people. You will, in the end, become as lifeless and hopeless as my friend from the mental hospital.

Be well and keep well!

I did read "A Clockwork Orange" and thought it was great. Did you read Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"? Another great book. It reflected some of the themes you talked about in your posting above. Some mental illnesses are chemical and chronic, but you can -- through fear and apathy -- create a life that reflects many of the characters in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest through refusing to attack your life with courage.

It reminds me a bit of Twain's quote: The person who will not read is not better off than the person who cannot read. (This is a paraphrase.)

Interesting views, but I have to disagree.

The point on violence, well, we've had violence for a hell of a long time, and in most cases, a lot more terrible and horrifying than is currently witnessed (The slaughter of Native Americans, the slavery of the African people, the genocide of Jewish and other 'undesirables' in Nazi germany, Stalin killing 6 million, ... I could go back further to the time of the Mongol dynasty, or the Spanish Inquisition)

I do not take such a bleak view of our present, or our future. I live in a world where people donate money all the time to 3rd world countries through charity organisations. A world where the Interent (sorry Mr.Bradbury) brings opinions and experiences from all around the world to my desk. A world where barriers are broken all the time in medicine, science, genetics, economics, diplomacy and sexual relations. The world is changing slowly, but it is changing for the better.

Farenheit 451 is and will remain one of the greatest books of all time. But it is not a prophecy of the world now, or the world of tomorrow in my opinon.

Point well taken.

I guess for me, there appears to be a sense of alienation int he modern world that seems to continue to grow. While violence has always accompanied man's existence (good point), many sociological factors seem to indicate a breakdown in the general respect for individual life. There is also a breakdown in the traditional family structure and in the sense of community that structure seemed to engender.

Also, I go back a bit further than you do for an assessment of modern times. I think the Civil War marked a real breaking point in the history of man, and I see increased alienation and the erosion of traditional assumptions about values and religion since that period. Additionally, coming out of the two world wars, comes the philosophy of existentialism, which seems to underlie much of our modern assumptions about life (whether we recognize it or not). And while there is much good in the philosophy (freedom, accountability, self-direction), there is also much that can create pain (forlorness, the finality of physical death, alienation, angst, etc.).

Additionally, while violence has always been with us, the Gatling (sp?) gun, used with some frequency in the Civil War, represented mass killing by a single person, rather than individual one-at-a-time, face-to-face killing. Again, coming out of the World Wars, we have chemical and biological weapons used and we also have the dawning of a bomb that can totally annihilate entire cities in seconds. Mass, indiscriminate killing is another one of the developments of modern society.

On the other hand, as you rightly point out, there has been much good: medicine, access to education, increased toleration and a recognition of the need for pluralism (not everywhere, by the way!), amazing communications technologies, means of growing food more efficiently, etc. There is much good, also. You're right to highlight it. I stand rebuked on one hand.

On the other hand, however, several postings did call for action to counter-act these "evils".

Also, in an interview Bradbury gave once, he said that he didn't write prophecies -- he wrote warnings (I am sloppily paraphrasing here -- sorry) so that we could be sure to control the direction our societies went. So, Farenheit 451, rather than being negative (and I never viewed it that way, anyway, because of the positive, hopeful ending), is a way for Bradbury to warn us to watch the directions we're taking in the decisions we make about the kind of society and culture we are developing.