Is Fahrenheit 451 a criticism of liberalism?

Cafe Society
1

I’ve been thinking about Fahrenheit 451 lately. The more I think about it, the more it seems like a criticism of liberalism. Consider:
[ul]
[li]The entire book was about the dangers of a completely selfish society. Conservatives often point out how social liberalism is based in selfishness.[/li][li]Montag bursts out at one of the characters for having abortions.[/li][li]Bradbury criticizes political correctness. I remember something him writing something like “Disclaimers like ‘the painters on tv do not represent real painters’ were required”[/li][/ul]

None of these things by themselves prove anything, but I’m kind of curious if anyone else saw it that way.

2

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that claim. I’ve heard the reverse, though - liberals claiming that (economic) conservatism is based in selfishness.

3

And Libertarianism practically makes a religion of it. :wink:

4

No. I don’t think the book conforms to any two-dimensional, partisan mold.

You can’t break it down into either “Liberalism bad/conservatism good” or vice-versa.

It’s not even about censorship – it’s about intellectual laziness. Really, the only time politics come up at all, it’s to demonstrate how gleefully uninformed everyone is about everything. They’re proud to vote, but (as Mrs. Montag’s friends demonstrate) they don’t have any political ideas at all, they base their opinions on how the candidate looks.

There are perpetual wars, and many people are conscripted and killed, but nobody talks about it, because the information is carefully controlled, and people prefer to think that people aren’t coming back because they met with accidents, or fell ill, or whatever. The wives are totally deferential to their husbands, and don’t worry that they’ve been drafted. “I’m not worried! I’ll let Bob do all the worrying!” Hardly a caricature of a “liberal” woman.

Montag’s journey is touched off by an encounter with an old out-of-work academic who couldn’t teach poetry anymore, since everything but the Technical schools had shut down due to lack of funding.

Really, there’s nothing in there at all about economic policy – and no political ideology can claim represent the ideal of intellectual pursuit over mental atrophy, which is what the book is fundamentally about. Both camps have specimens at both ends of the spectrum. If we want to stick to the United States, both William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky would be right at home with the Book People, and Ann Coulter and Michael Moore would make great firemen.

Anyway, I’m sure that conservatives can find attributes of Bradbury’s dystopian society that remind them of liberals, and certainly liberals can find attributes of it that remind them of conservatives – but it’s not an “us vs. them” book in any sense. It’s a lament (and a warning) about what happens to people when the capitalized Life Of The Mind is undervalued – when people are passive, interested only in meaningless TV shows, withdrawn from civic participation, indifferent to their government. Apathetic and disconnected. It’s not so much that they’re selfish – maybe self-indulgent. The thing is, they’re practically dead. If they are presented with anything beyond the utterly trivial and superficial, they find it distressing. A “Five Minute Romance” on the Wallscreen will hold their attention, but anything that engages the intellect or emotions is frightening. They use prescription tranquilizers to prevent them from thinking too deeply about their own personal situation.

Politics doesn’t enter into it.

5

Larry Mudd,

I’m definitely going to agree with your analysis. I never got the Us vs Them out of the book either.
Taking that book and overlaying upon our society right now (at least in the U.S.) I can see some striking similarities. The problems facing our nation are not due to too much liberalism or too much conservatism, it’s the general apathy of the population. I won’t digress into it, that’s another thread entirely.

6

[ Moderator hat on ]In Cafe Society, we do allow some element of “how does this reflect society today?”… after all, it would be difficult (read: preposterous) to try to keep such comparisons out of discussions. There’s a fine line, however, between the art-interprets-life comments and the political-agenda comments (Bush-bashing, liberal-bashing, whatever). The former are perfectly fine discussion topics for Cafe Society; the latter belong in Great Debates. And, agreed, the line between the two is often unclear and fuzzy. [ Moderator hat off ]

[ Mere poster hat on ] Great analysis, Larry!

7

reads Larry’s post

“light goes on”

OOOOOooooooh! :smack:

(And why do we try to teach this book to idealistic teenagers who still give a crap and think they can change the world? No wonder we all (well, us dumbasses, anyway) think its about Da Man Keepin’ Us Down.)

I’ll have to read it again, 'cause Larry’s book sounds much more interesting to me!

8

Yeah, but incorrectly.

–Cliffy

9

Cute, but can we reserve the political swipes for Great Debates if someone wants to take this up there?

10

While I agree with your analysis in some respects, I disagree with others. Politics DOES enter into it and in a way that reflects very directly on the present landscape.

I always thought the story was more about how visual media might eventually become an instrument of repression, driving out written media which is much less controllable hence dangerously subversive. As you note, the Wallscreens hold their attention very nicely with their romances and the hot sexy bodies dancing about. So we have the story of a government seeking to control thought via total control of the electronic media (rather than, say, spinning to a well-tuned media machine) seeking to destroy the print media (instead of just ignoring it as inconsequential – perhaps a more devastating attack in its way.).

And more than that I cannot say without getting us in Great Debates territory.

11

And I’d add that there’s nothing that restricts this technique to any side of the political spectrum – both liberals and conservatives could use it to reinforce their views and control the opinions of the people of the land. The sons of the Earth. You know …

12

I am with Evil Captor in agreeing with Larry Mudd to a point. Fahrenheit 451 is not about the dangers of partisenship or one side of a debate (even only a two-sided debate) but is about the dangers of not having the debate at all. Even partisen swiping is an expression of different viewpoints, perhaps not with a goal of actual debate, but at the very least it is the expression of different or even opposing viewpoints.

In 451, this did not happen in the city, there was no challenge to common thought that did not go unpunished. I think Bradbury was saying that we should have all the various political groups fight it out, have at it, all working towards a common goal of peace, economic success and intellectual freedom. Even if it is dirty at times, it is still better than no challenge at all. Since that leads to stagnation and death, which is what the bomb dropping on the city at the end signifies.

13

Ignore that line, I don’t explain it in my post and it is superfluous.

14

I have always felt that much of F451 was about how tech was seperating people emotionally from each other. Everyday on the train as I see everyone with their iPod in their own little world I think of Montag’s wife and the bee in her ear.

15

I agree with this and to expound a little regarding what I took from the book, I think it’s not about the evils of partisanship or even of government. The government in the book did not go marching in jack-booted and take control of society by force. Absolute power was not taken. It was* given* , freely by the people. It was no force of will on the part of the people but it was, in fact, their lack of will which lent the power to those in higher eschelons. Through the apathy, fear, and overall inaction, the people gave up the right, and the power to think for themselves. They feared knowledge and not just the knowledge of others but also their own.

16

Religious conservatives do say things like that.

[QUOTE=Rufus Pfukke]
[ul][li]Montag bursts out at one of the characters for having abortions.[/ul][/li][/quote]

Just because Montag says it doesn’t mean Bradbury thinks it.

[quote]
[ul][li]Bradbury criticizes political correctness. I remember something him writing something like “Disclaimers like ‘the painters on tv do not represent real painters’ were required”[/ul][/li][/quote]

Attacking political correctness is something everybody does.

I think if you follow either unmediated liberalism or conservatism to their crazy extremes, you end up with a thought-controlled, dystopian mess. So it’s hard to take Fahrenheit 451 as a critique of liberalism or conservatism. The idea of all the non-technical schools being closed sounds more immediately like a conservative thing to me, but in the end it’s neither.

17

That is a very important point, The Chao Goes Mu. I think it is the fire chief (Montag?), when explaining how the Firemen really came to be, who said that it was the people who cried out for the burning of books. They gave it away their freedoms not only through lack of will initially, but in the end they gave it away willfully, even snitching on “close” friends.

18

Yes, the whole argument was that everything became “lowest common denominator” in order to appeal to the mass market.

That’s from immediately before the bit that I just quoted – the “minority pressure.” Note, however, the minorities named:

This kind of pressure is not liberal or conservative. It just is. When schools make concessions to affronted Baptists, for example, do you suppose that the environment becomes more liberal or more conservative?

19

Thanks for the quotes Larry Mudd.

All I need to add at this point is that if we are going the route of tapioca banality, I want my 3D sex magazine.

20

Wow, Larry Mudd, you just kicked my ass. I’m going to have to read this book again.