Fahrenheit Four Five One

Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury ISBN 0345342968

"451 - the temperature at which books burn"

Portrays a society where the fire department fights with fire against books.

Books are a society's memory. To create a "new and improved" society without the "baggage" of such things as accrued wisdom, tradition, experience -- in fact, all the things that elevate Humankind above the average ape -- all you have to do is expunge its memory. Burn the books.

However, in the town where I live, the local school district aims to do this more surgically: they're eliminating (or trying to) the teaching of US History prior to 1865 (that's everything up to, and including, the Civil War), and World History prior to the Renaissance period.

There are a variety of spurious justifications (there's too much history to teach it all, parts of history are unimportant, history should be more about "critical thinking" rather than the facts, why would we want to relive all those mistakes, and so on), which only make it clear that this is SocialEngineering at its finest.

I only wish this could be attributed to stupidity or ignorance. I'm afraid this time it's actual malice. -- GarryHamilton

What do you think is the purpose of this refinement of the curriculum?

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

: -- George Santayana, "Reason in Common Sense"
: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana

Is the movie close to the book in areas where it matter (e.g. moral)? Don't have money for books but movie is repeated on cable channel a lot. Worth my while? -- dl

Cancel your cable TV subscription and buy this book.

Better yet, cancel your cable TV subscription and borrow the book from the local library.

...and then burn it. ;->

There's a 1966 version of the movie, and a 1989 version. And apparently someone is currently filming another version, to be relased (perhaps) some time in 2005.

CategoryBook