Farenheit 451 question??

Question

please help me! so I need to write an essay about what ray bradbury was criticizing about society in Farenheit 451 and I need to find a current event that also deals with the same issue. Can you help?! I don't want you to tell me the answer, but maybe what he's criticizing about society? thank you!

Answer 1

The book deals with several issues. Both the ideas of censorship through book burning and the idea that television dumbs down society and promotes a society of people with short attention spans and promoting worthless information.

The idea of censorship could be compared to recent events in China where the government censored websites around Beijing, or incidents where they've prevented journalists from covering certain events, specifically protests.

The idea of TV promoting dumb people with short attention spans can be seen in the growth of youtube, tabloid journalism, the decline of the written newspaper, the increasing influence of opinion journalism like fox news, and hard news being reduced to factoids like cnn headlines. Comparing the journalism of Murrow, Rather, and Brokaw with that of Hannigan, Keith Olbermann, and Nancy Grace one can readily see the decline of the medium.

Answer 2

  If you want to compare it to current events issues, try comparing the theme of the book to the Fairness Doctrine legislation that is being promoted. In the book, the government strives to contain or limit the flow of knowledge and information, to the extreme of destroying literature, so that the citizens have only the government's word on what is what. It is comparable to the Orwell book 1984. In the case of the fairness doctrine, it can be argued that the legislation is designed to shut up certain people, specifically right wing radio talk show hosts. By insisting on "equal time" requirements, it in effect muzzles those shows. Worse, who decides what is equal time, and what is balanced? The government. Worse, there is talk of extending the doctrine to the internet.  As for what Bradbury is critisizng, it's the complacency of the society to what the government does. The book is even told from the viewpoint of a member of the society who only comes to question the rightness of what he does after years of participating in the destruction of all that knowledge. The majority of citizens, though, are quite happy to permit themselves to be led, without any effort to question the status quo.

Answer 3

He's criticizing political correctness and censorship. Look at any of the racial controversies surrounding the presidential election.