For more than half a century science fiction writers have thrilled andchallenged readers with visions of the future and future worlds. Theseauthors offered an insight into what they expected man, society, and life One such author, Ray Bradbury, utilized this concept in his work,Fahrenheit 451, a futuristic look at a man and his role in society. Bradbury utilizes the luxuries of life in America today, in addition tovarious occupations and technological advances, to show what life could belike if the future takes a drastic turn for the worse. He turns man’s bestfriend, the dog, against man, changes the role of public servants and Aldous Huxley also uses the concept of society out of control in hisscience fiction novel Brave New World.
Written late in his career, BraveNew World also deals with man in a changed society. Huxley asks hisreaders to look at the role of science and literature in the future world,scared that it may be rendered useless and discarded. Unlike Bradbury,Huxley includes in his book a group of people unaffected by the changes insociety, a group that still has religious beliefs and marriage, things nolonger part of the changed society, to compare and contrast today’s culturewith his proposed futuristic culture. But one theme that both Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 use incommon is the theme of individual discovery by refusing to accept a passiveapproach to life, and refusing to conform. In addition, the refusal ofvarious methods of escape from reality is shown to be a path to discovery.
In Brave New World, the main characters of Bernard Marx and the “Savage”boy John both come to realize the faults with their own cultures. InFahrenheit 451 Guy Montag begins to discover that things could be better inhis society but, sue to some uncontrollable events, his discover happensmuch faster than it would have. He is forced out on his own, away fromsociety, to live with others like himself who think differently that the Marx, from the civilized culture, seriously questions the lack ofhistory that his society has. He also wonders as to the lack of books,banned because they were old and did not encourage the new culture.
Byvisiting a reservation, home of an “uncivilized” culture of savages, he isable to see first hand something of what life and society use to be like. Afterwards he returns and attempts to incorporate some of what he saw intohis work as an advertising agent. As a result with this contrast with theother culture, Marx discovers more about himself as well. He is able tosee more clearly the things that had always set him on edge: thepromiscuity, the domination of the government and the lifelessness in which John, often referred to as “the Savage” because he was able to leavethe reservation with Marx to go to London to live with him, also has a hardtime adjusting to the drastic changes.
The son of two members of themodern society but born and raised on the reservation, John learned fromhis mother the values and the customs of the “civilized” world while livingin a culture that had much different values and practices. Though hismother talked of the promiscuity that she had practiced before she was lefton the reservation (she was accidentally left there while on vacation, muchas Marx was) and did still practice it, John was raised, thanks to thepeople around him, with the belief that these actions were wrong. Seeinghis mother act in a manner that obviously reflected different valuesgreatly affected and hurt John, especially when he returned with Marx toLondon. John loved his mother, but he, a hybrid of the two cultures, was These concepts, human reaction to changes in their culture andquestioning of these changes, are evident throughout the book. Huxley’scharacters either conform to society’s demands for uniformity or rebel andbegin a process of discovery; there are no people in the middle. By doingso, Huxley makes his own views of man and society evident.
He shows thatthose who conform to the “brave new world” become less human, but those whoactively question the new values of society discover truth about thesociety, about themselves, and about people in general. An example of thisis Huxley’s views of drugs as an escape. The conforming members of societyused widely a drug called soma, which induces hallucinations and escapesfrom the conscious world for two to eight hour periods. Those very few whodidn’t, John included, mainly did not because they thought the drug eitherunclean or an easy escape, one not needed in a society aiming at makinglife very simple. By refusing to “go along” in this escape from reality,John is ultimately able to break from society and define his own destiny.
In Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag, the main character, is able to seethrough the government and the official policies of his society. He doesso by gradually beginning to question certain aspect of society which mostsimply accept as fact. Montag’s job as a fireman serves as a setting toshow how many people passively accept the absurdity of their society. Instead of rushing to put out fires, as firemen today do, Montag rushes tostart fires, burning the books and homes of people reported to have books. This was considered by most people to be a respectable profession. But ondifferent occasions Montag took a book out of burning homes and would fromtime to time read them.
From this, he begins to to question the values of Montag’s marriage also serves a setting to contrast passive acceptanceversus questioning of society’s values. His marriage is not the happy kindthat couples today experience but more like a coexistence. He and his wifelive together and he supports her, though he apparently neither loves her agreat deal or expects her to love him. This relationship and living arrangement, with its lack of love, isBradbury’s way of showing what life could be like if people not only stopcommunicating but stop thinking and choosing, thus loosing control overtheir lives. Montag and his wife continue to live together though peoplein that situation today would not hesitate to terminate such arelationship.
Montag’s wife apparently accepts this relationship becauseit is normal for the society in which she lives. (Wolfheim) Like Brave New World characters escaping from reality through the useof soma, Montag’s wife, and many other characters, escape through watchinga sophisticated form of television. This television system covers three ofthe walls of the Montag’s TV room (they can’t afford to buy the screen tocover the fourth wall), has a control unit that allows the watchers tointeract with the characters on the program and another unit that insertsMrs. Montag’s name into specific places, thus creating the image they thecharacters are actually conversing with them.
Montag’s wife, having only afew friends and ones she rarely sees, spends much of her day in this room,watching a program called “The Family”, a government sponsored program thatshows the viewers what life at home should be like. The problem with this is that Montag’s wife takes the program as asubstitute for reality. She is almost addicted to the program, much aspeople were with soma in Brave New World. Bradbury uses this televisionand it’s programs as a way of showing the escape he is worried people willlook for in the future. Without actively questioning society’s values, heis concerned that people will look for ways to idly spend their time.
But like Marx, Montag chooses not to take part in this addiction. Byabstaining, he can see the affects it’s use has on the people around him,much as Marx and more importantly John the Savage saw in their culture. Both authors try to show that with life made easier by strong governmentcontrol and a lack of personal involvement people will no longer spendtheir time thinking, questioning or developing their own ideas. Through these various diversions from normal behavior in society, Marx,John the Savage and Guy Montag are able to see the truths behind thesocieties they live in and are able to learn about themselves.
And thoughtheir discoveries meant that their lives would be changed forever, theauthors succeeded in showing that the key to humanity lies in thinking andquestioning. These men found themselves through their own discoveries,much as Bradbury and Huxley hope others will do. Censorship is a variety of things from yelling fire in a crowdedtheater to showing sexual intercourse on television. These thingsarent all either, there are millions of things we use or see every daythat are censored for a reason.
The reason can be many but the threemost important reasons are for an adult or childs wellbeing, for thedecency of our society and for privacy of each other. All of these things are censored because our lives are influenced by these reasonsin one way or another. This will tell you that with out censorship wewould live in a world so dirty and irresponsible so indecent andshameful that it could not exist. We pretty much ignore the growth inviolence and sexual abuse in our movies and on television. Have theygone away? According to researchers, by the time an average child leaves high school, heor she will have watched the happening of 18,000 murders on television.
Prime time saysthe National Coalition on Television Violence, is filled with degradingsexual material and incidents, where violence is strongly glamorized orused to excite. There have been 85 major studies of the effects ofsuch violence on children. Eighty-four of the eighty- five concludedthat it caused an increase in all manner of aggressive behavior, up toand including homicide. What happened to the one study that disagreed?Well, they were paid off by the National Broadcasting Company that justshows how guilty they are of producing violence from television. Another study shows that American children are having sexualintercourse at an average age of 16. If the television was notcensored as much as it is today these things would be much worse, ourchildren would be sexual active at very young ages and crime rateswould shoot upward.
A civilization does not rise in the strength ofits laws, however. It rises on the strength of its values. Whatvalues are we teaching by not having censorship in our society? No itsnot freedom of speech and its not freedom of the press. It is decency. What all civilized social orders, including our own, have consistentlyidentified as decent, civilized behavior.
The real threat to therepublic is not what might happen to rights, but what is happening to asociety grown dangerously out of touch with its own standards andvalues. At the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California a 17 year oldgirl was raped while more than 50 people watched, is that what ourvalues should be’social orders are established, governments areformed and laws are passed for one reason and one reason only, toprotect the people. Part of that task has to do with protecting peopleagainst themselves, against the degrading and the uncivilizedinfluences that corrupt life and are every bit harmful as a blow to the———————————————————–For more than half a century science fiction writers have thrilled andchallenged readers with visions of the future and future worlds. Theseauthors offered an insight into what they expected man, society, and life One such author, Ray Bradbury, utilized this concept in his work,Fahrenheit 451, a futuristic look at a man and his role in society.
Bradbury utilizes the luxuries of life in America today, in addition tovarious occupations and technological advances, to show what life could belike if the future takes a drastic turn for the worse. He turns man’s bestfriend, the dog, against man, changes the role of public servants and Aldous Huxley also uses the concept of society out of control in hisscience fiction novel Brave New World. Written late in his career, BraveNew World also deals with man in a changed society. Huxley asks hisreaders to look at the role of science and literature in the future world,scared that it may be rendered useless and discarded. Unlike Bradbury,Huxley includes in his book a group of people unaffected by the changes insociety, a group that still has religious beliefs and marriage, things nolonger part of the changed society, to compare and contrast today’s culturewith his proposed futuristic culture.
But one theme that both Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 use incommon is the theme of individual discovery by refusing to accept a passiveapproach to life, and refusing to conform. In addition, the refusal ofvarious methods of escape from reality is shown to be a path to discovery. In Brave New World, the main characters of Bernard Marx and the “Savage”boy John both come to realize the faults with their own cultures. InFahrenheit 451 Guy Montag begins to discover that things could be better inhis society but, sue to some uncontrollable events, his discover happensmuch faster than it would have.
He is forced out on his own, away fromsociety, to live with others like himself who think differently that the Marx, from the civilized culture, seriously questions the lack ofhistory that his society has. He also wonders as to the lack of books,banned because they were old and did not encourage the new culture. Byvisiting a reservation, home of an “uncivilized” culture of savages, he isable to see first hand something of what life and society use to be like. Afterwards he returns and attempts to incorporate some of what he saw intohis work as an advertising agent.
As a result with this contrast with theother culture, Marx discovers more about himself as well. He is able tosee more clearly the things that had always set him on edge: thepromiscuity, the domination of the government and the lifelessness in which John, often referred to as “the Savage” because he was able to leavethe reservation with Marx to go to London to live with him, also has a hardtime adjusting to the drastic changes. The son of two members of themodern society but born and raised on the reservation, John learned fromhis mother the values and the customs of the “civilized” world while livingin a culture that had much different values and practices. Though hismother talked of the promiscuity that she had practiced before she was lefton the reservation (she was accidentally left there while on vacation, muchas Marx was) and did still practice it, John was raised, thanks to thepeople around him, with the belief that these actions were wrong. Seeinghis mother act in a manner that obviously reflected different valuesgreatly affected and hurt John, especially when he returned with Marx toLondon.
John loved his mother, but he, a hybrid of the two cultures, was These concepts, human reaction to changes in their culture andquestioning of these changes, are evident throughout the book. Huxley’scharacters either conform to society’s demands for uniformity or rebel andbegin a process of discovery; there are no people in the middle. By doingso, Huxley makes his own views of man and society evident. He shows thatthose who conform to the “brave new world” become less human, but those whoactively question the new values of society discover truth about thesociety, about themselves, and about people in general.
An example of thisis Huxley’s views of drugs as an escape. The conforming members of societyused widely a drug called soma, which induces hallucinations and escapesfrom the conscious world for two to eight hour periods. Those very few whodidn’t, John included, mainly did not because they thought the drug eitherunclean or an easy escape, one not needed in a society aiming at makinglife very simple. By refusing to “go along” in this escape from reality,John is ultimately able to break from society and define his own destiny.
In Fahrenheit 451 Guy Montag, the main character, is able to seethrough the government and the official policies of his society. He doesso by gradually beginning to question certain aspect of society which mostsimply accept as fact. Montag’s job as a fireman serves as a setting toshow how many people passively accept the absurdity of their society. Instead of rushing to put out fires, as firemen today do, Montag rushes tostart fires, burning the books and homes of people reported to have books. This was considered by most people to be a respectable profession.
But ondifferent occasions Montag took a book out of burning homes and would fromtime to time read them. From this, he begins to to question the values of Montag’s marriage also serves a setting to contrast passive acceptanceversus questioning of society’s values. His marriage is not the happy kindthat couples today experience but more like a coexistence. He and his wifelive together and he supports her, though he apparently neither loves her agreat deal or expects her to love him. This relationship and living arrangement, with its lack of love, isBradbury’s way of showing what life could be like if people not only stopcommunicating but stop thinking and choosing, thus loosing control overtheir lives. Montag and his wife continue to live together though peoplein that situation today would not hesitate to terminate such arelationship.
Montag’s wife apparently accepts this relationship becauseit is normal for the society in which she lives. (Wolfheim) Like Brave New World characters escaping from reality through the useof soma, Montag’s wife, and many other characters, escape through watchinga sophisticated form of television. This television system covers three ofthe walls of the Montag’s TV room (they can’t afford to buy the screen tocover the fourth wall), has a control unit that allows the watchers tointeract with the characters on the program and another unit that insertsMrs. Montag’s name into specific places, thus creating the image they thecharacters are actually conversing with them. Montag’s wife, having only afew friends and ones she rarely sees, spends much of her day in this room,watching a program called “The Family”, a government sponsored program thatshows the viewers what life at home should be like. The problem with this is that Montag’s wife takes the program as asubstitute for reality.
She is almost addicted to the program, much aspeople were with soma in Brave New World. Bradbury uses this televisionand it’s programs as a way of showing the escape he is worried people willlook for in the future. Without actively questioning society’s values, heis concerned that people will look for ways to idly spend their time. But like Marx, Montag chooses not to take part in this addiction. Byabstaining, he can see the affects it’s use has on the people around him,much as Marx and more importantly John the Savage saw in their culture.
Both authors try to show that with life made easier by strong governmentcontrol and a lack of personal involvement people will no longer spendtheir time thinking, questioning or developing their own ideas. Through these various diversions from normal behavior in society, Marx,John the Savage and Guy Montag are able to see the truths behind thesocieties they live in and are able to learn about themselves. And thoughtheir discoveries meant that their lives would be changed forever, theauthors succeeded in showing that the key to humanity lies in thinking andquestioning. These men found themselves through their own discoveries,much as Bradbury and Huxley hope others will do.
Censorship is a variety of things from yelling fire in a crowdedtheater to showing sexual intercourse on television. These thingsarent all either, there are millions of things we use or see every daythat are censored for a reason. The reason can be many but the threemost important reasons are for an adult or childs wellbeing, for thedecency of our society and for privacy of each other. All of these things are censored because our lives are influenced by these reasonsin one way or another.
This will tell you that with out censorship wewould live in a world so dirty and irresponsible so indecent andshameful that it could not exist. We pretty much ignore the growth inviolence and sexual abuse in our movies and on television. Have theygone away? According to researchers, by the time an average child leaves high school, heor she will have watched the happening of 18,000 murders on television. Prime time saysthe National Coalition on Television Violence, is filled with degradingsexual material and incidents, where violence is strongly glamorized orused to excite. There have been 85 major studies of the effects ofsuch violence on children. Eighty-four of the eighty- five concludedthat it caused an increase in all manner of aggressive behavior, up toand including homicide.
What happened to the one study that disagreed?Well, they were paid off by the National Broadcasting Company that justshows how guilty they are of producing violence from television. Another study shows that American children are having sexualintercourse at an average age of 16. If the television was notcensored as much as it is today these things would be much worse, ourchildren would be sexual active at very young ages and crime rateswould shoot upward. A civilization does not rise in the strength ofits laws, however. It rises on the strength of its values.
Whatvalues are we teaching by not having censorship in our society? No itsnot freedom of speech and its not freedom of the press. It is decency. What all civilized social orders, including our own, have consistentlyidentified as decent, civilized behavior. The real threat to therepublic is not what might happen to rights, but what is happening to asociety grown dangerously out of touch with its own standards andvalues.
At the Irvine Meadows Amphitheater in California a 17 year oldgirl was raped while more than 50 people watched, is that what ourvalues should be’social orders are established, governments areformed and laws are passed for one reason and one reason only, toprotect the people. Part of that task has to do with protecting peopleagainst themselves, against the degrading and the uncivilizedinfluences that corrupt life and are every bit harmful as a blow to the———————————————————–Bibliography:
