“Coloured people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Bum the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.”

The story Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is about a society that voluntarily and even eagerly abets its own destruction. 

When Montag, the main hero whose job is to burn books, tries to confront his wife and friends with thoughtful discussion, when he tries to turn off the TV programs and make them think, they become angry and confused, and Montag realizes that they are beyond help—they don’t want to think and understand. They prefer to live in a bubble. 

Book-burning began when people chose not to be challenged by thoughts they didn’t find comforting, thoughts that challenged their preconceptions.

We can see those bubbles everywhere around us today, and we all know people who only get their information from limited sources that largely confirm what they already think. Attempts to ban or censor books still get robust challenges and resistance, but on social media you can witness people’s hostile reactions to stories they don’t like, you can see how people create narrow “silos” of information to protect themselves from anything scary or unsettling, how people are often even proud of how little they read and how little they know beyond their own experience.

The seeds of Fahrenheit 451 are already here. That doesn’t mean it will come to pass, of course—but that’s why it’s a frightening book. It goes far beyond the gonzo concept of firemen burning books to destroy knowledge—it’s a succinct and frighteningly accurate analysis of precisely how our society could collapse without a single shot being fired, and a dark mirror of our modern age where unchallenging entertainment is available to us at all times, on devices we carry with us at all times, ready and waiting to drown out any input we don’t want to hear.

If you haven’t, it is always a perfect time to read this book, which is one of the most frightening things you could possibly say.

Adapted from:

Somers, Jeffrey. "Why Fahrenheit 451 Will Always Be Terrifying." ThoughtCo, Feb. 16, 2021, thoughtco.com/fahrenheit-451-relevant-today-4140565

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