The Predictions of Fahrenheit 451
In the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury describes a world in the future where Americans are addicted to electronic media for information and entertainment and the written word is no longer desired. Although this book was written in 1953, see how close his predictions were.
In the classic novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, he describes a world in the future where Americans are addicted to electronic media for information and entertainment and the written word is no longer desired. Books are a thing of the past in Bradbury’s setting. Although this book was published in 1953, Bradbury did not miss the mark by much.
Americans are beginning to evolve into the setting and characteristics found in the novel Fahrenheit 451. In the book, the main character, Montag, has a home that is described as having walls made up of large television screens. This is not far-fetched from what can be found now in most American family rooms. Our society enjoys large televisions with flat screens, which can be mounted right onto the wall. Above fireplaces where wedding photos or beautiful family portraits were once found, there are instead plasma television sets.
In the book Fahrenheit 451, a world is described where Americans cared less and less about the full news story and eventually desire just a headline. This is becoming more of the case in our society now. There is a popular news channel now called “Headline News” where a 30 second description of a story is normally splattered onto the screen before moving on to something else, as headlines run on the bottom of the screen with no real description. News headlines and blurbs are also available on the Internet on popular search engine sites such as Yahoo and Google where viewers can find a one-liner or video summarizing the event. Most people in this country do not receive their daily information from a newspaper, as they once did in the not so distant past. Now the majority of Americans receive their news through the Internet or television.
Electronic forms of entertainment, such as DVD players and video game systems, have also become a more well-liked past time than reading. Electronic entertainment has become so popular that many American households have memberships to clubs that will automatically send DVDs or video games in the mail to their homes. Many of the DVDs watched in the home are based on books that the viewers have never read. This just goes to show that Bradbury’s description of the future where man was addicted to electronic forms of entertainment and did not desire the written word was not far from today’s truth.
Liked it
nice piece, did you have it published again?
nice review
Very interesting article. I must admit your description of people just reading headlines caused a twinge. I tend to do that at the end of the day just to get caught up!
Great review, some things seem like they could eventuate don’t they?
A very nice piece of work, Josey. It is funny how some things really do seem to come about with time.
I just read headlines if I am in a hurry, especialy last week. I put the papers in recycle ben so I could catch up next week. Nice piece, Josey.
..it’s true, short attention spans,
electronic, 24 hour news cycles,
busy bees, trying to get everything
done, more and more isolation and
cell phone connections. My newspapers
kept piling up, until I cancelled my
subscription. It’s the 21st century
in motion, bullet trains and all.
Great article.
I like it.
A bit spooky. I can’t help but feel there is a plan somewhere to make us not think anymore. George Orwells book 1984 written in 1948 is also quite spooky as to how the predicitions became realised. Thanks Josey, I was not familiar with this book although do know the author( not personally of course!)
anyone else appreciate the irony of reading this online?
It has been years since I read the book, but I recall something about people wearing “seashells” in their ears through which they hear a constant stream of news or music. Earbuds, anyone?
In Fahrenheit 451 books are burned. It is a fireman’s job to burn them. 451F is the temperature at which paper catches light. In our society there are still many books and no one, yet, confiscates and burns them. And if you cannot afford to buy them you can always borrow them for free from your local public libary. Which will also have lots of newspapers and magazines as well as computers and CDs.
The difference between our world and Bradbury’s dystopia is that you are free to read books if you want to. You can even really annoy the loony right by reading banned books - like “Catcher in the Rye”
FAIL. You write:
“Above fireplaces where wedding photos or beautiful family portraits were once found, there are instead plasma television sets.”
This is not always the case, and this is a ridiculously obtuse observation. You make it sound as if technology is a bad thing. So we are leaning more towards a more electronic-media oriented lifestyle. Doesn’t that mean we’ll just be saving the environment because we are using less paper-based media? The industry is also helping by reusing parts that are made for said electronic devices.
Its not an addiction. Its progress, and it can’t be characterized by anything other than it being human.
This article implies that our electronic media is just as thoughtless as what we see in Fahrenheit 451 - a claim that is patently ridiculous. There are hundreds of TV shows and thousands of movies that provoke thought and emotion, in contrast to “the family” that we see on Montag’s TV-room. The idea that all forms of electronic entertainment are inherently worse than books is absurd.
Also, what’s wrong with getting news from TV or on the internet? If anything, this is actually better for society - it saves trees. Full articles, not just headlines, are readily available on the internet, and your reference to Headline News is nothing more than a convenient cherry-pick, as news networks typically broadcast full stories the majority of the time. The fact that shorter articles and headlines are available is irrelevant - unlike Fahrenheit 451, we can choose to see the full story.
I’d advise you to do a little research before writing an article such as this - book sales are only increasing, especially if one considers used books. I’m not saying that movies and TV can ever replace classic literature, but the idea that print is better than electronic media just because it’s print is asinine.
Josey,
The next time you try to elicit attention by critiqueing someone elses work, try reading, and more importantly, understanding it first.
There is a huge difference between the written word “no longer being desired”, and books being banned by the government under penalty of death.
Your essay loses its credibility right in the title.
What complete twaddle.
Where is the rest of this essay?
Maybe I’m just being too analog, here, but your title promises that you will discuss “The Predictions of Fahrenheit 451″.
Since that book is absolutely packed from cover to cover with literally thousands of predictions made by a world class futurist, I assumed that this meant you’d talk about more than two simple, screamingly obvious parallels and…oh, I don’t know…actually do some research and put some real thought into the successes and failures of Bradbury’s vision.
This sort of asinine, too-brief, over-simplistic, hippie-dippie, anti-technology screed might work in a High School book report (actually…not even there, if you have an English teacher worth half a damn) but you should probably present more than 2% of an actual essay if you’re going to try to write online.
You get an F, young lady.
Ray Bradbury made it very clear that the medium did not matter so much as the message. It is not about electronics supplanting thw written words, but of empty, mind-dulling entertainment supplanting though. A movie can be just as fulfilling as a book, but it must have a story to tell and an idea to share. Your statement is a gross oversimplification that I would expect from someone seeking a B in grade 10.
I read this and shiver at how frighteningly accurate you are with this. Pretty scary how sci-fi writers can call it sometimes.
This essay was a response to the following prompt:
Fahrenheit 451 portrays a world where people are so fascinated with or addicted to entertainment and information provided through an electronic medium, that they no longer desire the written word. To what extent has this prophecy come true?
I guess I should have included this so people would understand why I wrote what I did. I personally have no problem with technology. I am sorry if you disagree with my essay, but I have not read any positive suggestions here on how to make the essay better. I would love to read other entries.
Great review.
It is so sad that you are right on target…sad for so many that have never even read F451…sadder still for those that never will because you have to actually put time and effort into it…and in our “McDonaldland Society” instant lunch is the overwhelming rule…hence your ‘Headline News’ which is really not news at all…just quick fries and a burger…not a real meal.
How fascinating. Thanks for writing. I now have the title of my next read.
What is the point of this short article? Are you saying next anyone who reads will be killed?
You’re all missing the point.
It made you think about it. Thats all that matters.
Keep negative thoughts to yourself, all they cause are more and that dosent help anyone. As long as it makes you THINK its accomplished something. No matter how boring, lack luster or simple you may find it.
I would like to read a longer article, with more of his predictions and whether or not they might have come true or how they might be avoided. I would find that interesting.
Would you consider it?
I think even more of an amazing prediction from Fahrenheit 451, is the seashells she wore to bed, the similarities between those and today’s ipod headphones, you can barely go anywhere, especially places like classrooms from bored students, or teens stuck sitting there is astonishing.
There is no reason to fear TV, it’s just a medium for art. There is no reason the content on it can’t be every bit as intellectually stimulating as what’s in a brilliant book. Now most of it is not, but most books marketed towards the general populace are not particularly thought provoking either.
While you are right in TV being a medium for art…it is much more then that. Most Americans watch an average of 3 to 4 hours of television per day. Not only does it not promote physical activity…it does not promote stimulous for the part of the brain responsible for reasoning. Television is not an interactive media and feeds us information on a rather routine basis. Whether that information is fiction or nonfiction…our brains, on some level process it as truths that we accept. Do it on a regular basis and it is easy to control a nation with fear even in the face of facts that reason would tell us do not make sense. While a little bit of TV for entertainment is no reason to fear TV…letting it take over our free time as most of Americans have…is a reason for fearing it. When the ability to reason becomes something we use less and less…we become a nation that does not question and blindly follows (why do you think advertisers spend so much money on television ads?) we become a nation that goes to war when the facts are yelling “…something’s not right here! CAUTION! CAUTION!” So I beleive we have come to a point where we do need to be afraid…to be very afraid. We have come to a point where we need to take our lives back and take our country back and that is not going to happen with America being zombized by hours upon hours of Television.
Actually there are many more parallels to Fahrenheit 451 in the real world today than we like to give it credit for. While I would not say we have reached the ultimate endpoint of that story, we are very well on our way, and I would say about a halfway point as a society.
We may not have our wall to wall televisions yet, but our flat screen televisions and technology to deliver this media are ever expanding and getting thinner and cheaper and better by the year. Compared to the 1950s where the average household often didn’t even own a television, let alone huge ones and in multiples like we do today, yes we are definitely on that path as described in 1953 for a dystopian future.
Our attention spans are growing shorter, with things such as A.D.D and Adult A.D.D. becoming commonplace. We live in a society where we would rather watch the RSS ticker than read the Newspaper in whole. Where our knowledge is on demand and instant.
I am not against technology, personally. I actually love it, and all of the advances we make are great as a society. But that doesn’t change the fact we are becoming complacent and apathetic in the process of this advancement.
What Ray Bradbury was saying is that a story like Fahrenheit 451 would be the end result of this journey as a society if we weren’t careful and paying attention. Starting from 1953 and moving forward until 2008-09 we can see a steady progression of that future coming true.
What would it take to reach a point where books were burned, and reading them against the law under penalty of death? That depends on the government in control at the time, and how far they wish to declare marshal law. Ideas in times can and often are the ultimate enemy of the state, so all it would take to reach that point is a declaration of marshal law under the auspices of some terroristic threat before information is tightly controlled in all forms - for our own good.
That would not just go for books, but also any other form of media such as our precious Internet access. When you think about it, we really aren’t so far away from that end point after all, are we?
900 + channels of television, now slowly turning into Interactive Television. The murder mystery show Montag’s wife was “participating” in where the characters reached a point where they were scripted to stop and ask the viewer what she thought they should do, and all it was in reality was a scripted pause for the show where they all just stopped and stared at her so she could talk to the screen - and after a few moments they all just agreed with her, even though she didn’t really make up her mind…
You say a future like that is just silly?
Watch a few episodes of Dora The Explorer. At the end of *every* episode, Dora says “What was your favorite part of the adventure?” and then her and that monkey simply stare at you for about 30 seconds, before saying “Yeah, That was my favorite too!”
Every time I see that show, all I can think of is Fahrenheit 451. What better way to introduce that mindless drivel than to start young and get our kids used to it growing up so that it doesn’t seem so foreign as they turn into adults?
How about Diebold Voting machines consecutively messing up US election counts and having no way to verify it? Another example of having too short of an attention span on our part to care enough to do something about it.
Conditioning like that doesn’t happen overnight. It takes a long time to ease a population into those ideals and ways of thinking. I think we’re doing good so far since he wrote that in 1953 about 55 years ago.
Even in the 70s we were bold enough as a nation to begin impeachment proceedings against Nixon for Watergate. Now the president literally lies about another country having weapons of mass destruction and the ability to create nuclear weapons, then uses that lie to invade that country and kill their leader. And what do we do? Let him finish his term like nothing happened.
Watergate was simply about breaking in and stealing documents, and also illegally wiretapping and bugging the DNC. A far cry from taking the country to war under false pretenses and killing it’s leader. And yet the nation actually tried to impeach him, while today so much worse is happening and we sit back like nothing is wrong or we can’t stop it. Bush alone matched the illegal wiretapping of Nixon, and has also redefined torture to allow it, set up a concentration camp in Cuba, set our country to war by lying to congress, the citizens of this country, and also the world.
And yet he got elected for a second term?
Don’t tell me Fahrenheit 451 and the future it describes is some form of delusional entertainment of fiction. We are definitely heading in that direction daily. We just like to turn a blind eye and think it would never happen, or we’re not stupid enough to let it happen. “Not us!” you say.
Sure thing, tell that to Dora.
Yes, we as a society are horribly conditioned, and slowly being conditioned generation to generation to be complete idiots with the attention spans of gnats. Adults of yesterday and today may not be totally the end result, but our kids and their kids will be if we continue to turn a blind eye.
I read all the comments everyone posted, everyone has a point, but its up to each individual to make sure that we don’t get isolated from eachother , there has to be an equilibrium. We need to teach our kids , that talking on the phone is better than text messaging , and socializing in person is better than chatting on line and so on… technology won’t stop evolving no matter what we think.
Josey, just because the prompt leads you in a certain direction doesn\’t mean you have to follow it. In any essay worth a damn you will at least discuss the premise/assumptions/etc. and either agree with them or disagree with them. In this specific case just because the prompt leads you to conclude that society no longer desires the \”written word\” and instead we are all addicted to electronic media doesn\’t mean you have to whole heartedly agree. In fact you can point out where you disagree with the prompt (for example, I don\’t agree that Bradbury was saying that technology was inherently bad but was discussing how it could be used in the future to breed complacency).
If anything its been the opposite, technology as helped develop complex interactions that were never possible before. If I didn\’t have the internet there was no way I could write this comment telling you how I disagree with what you wrote, you would only be able to share this piece with a few specific people (if you would have even wrote it if the internet didn\’t exist).
What about TV you say? A one way medium where you as a human being are only fed a single story…? Hmmmm, I know of another medium that is just like that, a one way interaction of story telling, I think its called the BOOK. But, just like with a TV, and a BOOK, I can choose what I want to hear or read. I can flip the channel and find something more stimulating on. Obviously alot of stuff on TV is crap, but alot of really popular books are CRAP as well, just like there is alot of CRAP on the internet, and any other medium of interaction.
BUT, with technology, I have many, many, MANY more choices because it allows so many more people to interact. The huge explosion in information means there is bound to be more thoughtful articles, shows, books, etc out there as its becomes easier and easier to create that content. The singular problem with this is information overload, how do we make it easier to get what we want from the huge amount of information out there. But thats another discussion entirely, the point is that we still, fundamentally, have the freedom to choose what we want to watch, when, and where; and as long as society encourages this then things are good, and the only thing technology does is make it EASIER to spread that information around.
Now whether society is doing that, thats the issue. I think nothing so far has fundamentally changed in the US to prohibit this, but we only have to look at the other side of the Globe to see where things aren\’t going so well (aka China). And that is what Fahrenheit 451 (or any dystopia book) is about, the creation of a nightmare society that has taken the great power of technology and used it to turn people into mindless drones that only have one voice, one idea, and no disagreements; in essence the death of innovation. But thats not something caused by technology, its something society chooses to do with technology (or allows to occur).
Final point (I\’m sorry this so long), just look at civilization before the Industrial Revolution, before modern technology broke barriers down, before the Enlightenment, etc. There was much more polarization of classes, hell there was NO middle class, society was based on a select few aristocrats and the overwhelming majority of people were dirt poor, trying to survive from day to day. This was before technology allowed us to BREAK those barriers, and it will continue to do so if used to its full potential (and it can do so for the more then 1 billion people who live in poverty every day, when the rich world finally realizes they simply can\’t afford it without significant help).
@#26 Allison
If nobody posted negative comments, then this would indeed be the F451/Equilibrium world. The key points of these stories is to forewarn of a society that stops thinking and critiquing, which also happens to be what the negative comments mention the essay as missing.
@William Burns
Very good points about questioning government. In the day, Americans would stand up, now we are just waiting for the next election.
I loved this movie. I hear that they are making a remake. I hope that they don’t ruin it like oceans 11.
Right, super accurate…because I also enjoy running down the homeless in my 200mph rocket car.
Nobody has yet mentioned that the final message Mr. Bradbury offers in his novel is one of hope. Montag escapes and is taken in by a society of other outcasts who memorize the novels that have been destroyed. Each person becomes a living novel. Oral traditions are reinvented. It’s a story of evolution and the cautionary threads about the power of technology to control can be overcome by human imagination a spirit.
We are living the Chinese curse of “interesting times.” I believe that the Internet is definitely a place where humans can establish and maintain themselves as individuals, while forming complex, wide-ranging communities that were impossible to imagine a few short years ago.
But the most important aspects are, again, human imagination and spirit. That is certainly at the core of literature, which will continue to thrive, be it in the pages of a book, or in a blog, or in a forum like this one. As long as somebody is engaging in critical thinking and passing along ideas, feelings that offering others insights with which to agree or disagree, there is hope for all of us.
The main difference in Bradbury’s dystopian vision is that the government forbid the written word and severely punished those who possessed it. The corrupt government then pushed people into room sized interactive “televisions” that would allow you to immerse yourself in what was basically Orwellian soap-operas. Our culture isn’t prohibited from reading we have made the choice not to read ourselves.
To all the posters who keep saying that books are banned by law/by the government: read it again. The decision to burn books was made by society, not the government The state is barely even present in the book, as it’s busy fighting a war that will eventually destroy civilization. Society is keeping itself blissfully ignorant by watching sitcoms instead of reading and forming opinions.
wow he was so close we do watch videosthat are based on books….even if we don’t know it!
safe man good review definately on the write lines of what the world could become.
I appreciate everyone who has read my article and has left comments. Thank you and keep reading!
Great content Josey! I am new to the writing genre and your piece has helped me to redefine my methods and structure. Oh, by the way, excellent topic for this day and age. How right Mr. Brabury was about our society. Thanks again!
Bradbury’s novel is not about the literal burning of the books, but about the restriction of ideas and the spread of apathy. Because all the media that were described; video games, movies television,and the internet have caused an explosion of creative freedom and have become a newfound source of knowledge, our time is very different than the one predicted by Bradbury. It is not about the actual books, but the ideas behind them.
Arguing that getting news from the internet is not a case against the written word. People are still reading on the internet, even though they don’t have a piece of paper in front of them. I use the internet as my new source because it allows me to get more in depth into a topic than a newspaper can (I can readily find sources and alternate version of the same story).
It’s been a while, but I due remember when reading the book, that the media was also used to draw the attention of the citizenry away from an impending war. The complacence of the main stream media to spout government propaganda at the start of this war with out any in depth analysis, certainly reflects to a small degree what Bradbury was warning us about.
I told my students today in class that Bradbury must have been a time traveler to have gotten it all so right. He predicted it all–from from our demoralized youth out to just get through the day, hooked on drugs and sex, to our adults who go home to no one who matters to them, houses with no front porches from which to hail no next-door neighbors.
We live in the world Bradbury wrote. Technology is not evil, but our use of it is. Our disassociation from other humans and therefore humanity has led us to the war One (1990) and War Two,(Now) both of which Bradbruy saw us winning from his basement room under UCLA in 1950. He saw us plugged into seashells,(IPODS) talking to interactive TV walls we think of as family (Internet Chat rooms.) We love to watch death ( see his White Clown hacked to death on-screen) and even Christ has been resurrected to sell us things every Believer needs. 700 club anyone?
Bradbury’s novel IS about the burning of books. When books are gone, and we rely solely upon an internet screen to give us our news, entertainment and emotional connections, when only information exists that can be hacked into, listened to and recorded, then we have no privacy and we will never write another thing unread by the CIA, FBI and FRA (Sweden).
Bradbury said we need three things to live a fully realized life: Quality information, the Lesiure time to digest and understanbd it, and the right to act using our new information. Well, we have dubious quality of (ownedimbeddeddoctrinedsanitized)information, our lesiure time is spent in sports, sex, reality TV and drugged sleep. And our right to act? What? and miss my Soaps?
Susan, the English Teacher
I’m definitely going to read it!
Nice job. Good review of a classic!
Good day!
It is very informative and has a very good quality in it.
I like it…
http://www.Squidoo.com/MPI
mliragana.blogspot.com
Thank you very much for your time.
YEAH TOAST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
anybody notice how the mechanical hounds and Sony’s AIBO have too many similarities?
and also Honda’s ASIMO. the recognition softwares are a bit coincidental.
this book really makes you think.
the book is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
meagans a hoe
YEA TOAST man!!!!!!!!!!! i so agree!!!!!!!!
Rickie Weeks is beast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all, anyone who claims that plasma television sets controlling peoples lives is simply ‘progress’,you are in denial.
Secondly, if anyone recalls, there is NOT much of a difference between not wanting to read a book and the government banning it. Why? Because when there is no one who cares about books, there is no one who cares enough to resist a banning.
Great review.