Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Political Correctness, and Soft Totalitarianism

"... the “boob tube” also began tearing down culture, especially literate culture, from the first flourish of commercial programming in the years just after World War Two...

Bradbury, who began his career as a contributor to pulp-fiction monthlies and as writer of radio-scripts, understood early the intellectually impoverishing effect of television in comparison with literature and radio. Words-with-pictures added up to much less than the radiophonic formula of pictures-without-words, which, while not purely literate, yet required the exercise of imagination. Words on their own, even when printed on perishable pulp-stock, be it Planet Stories or Galaxy, stood higher on the intellectual ladder than radio-drama or a television serial. Words provoke imagination and foster independence from stock images..."

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From the desk of Thomas F. Bertonneau

on Sun, 2009-03-15 23:10

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Ray Bradbury (born 1923) foresaw with clairvoyance the socio-political phenomenon that goes by the name of political correctness.

His 1953 dystopia, Fahrenheit 451 attests Bradbury’s prognosticative perspicacity. Most readers know the general situation that Fahrenheit 451 depicts, one with a resemblance to other items in the category of dystopian fictions such as H. G. Wells’ The Holy Terror or George Orwell’s 1984.
Decades of cold war between hostile polities have assimilated the formerly classically liberal societies to the model of their totalitarian rivals until all societies exhibit the characteristics of an ideological dictatorship founded in strict repression of any dissent from the proverbial Party Line. The regime of Fahrenheit 451 manipulates the citizenry more subtly than the one in 1984, but with an equal brutality held in spring-loaded reserve. Almost everyone has employment; life for those who are not wage earners, such as the protagonist’s wife, consists in interminable sweetish diversion – like the daily interactive soap opera broadcasts, which audiences view on wall-screens that project a larger than life image into the drawing room...
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3825