Fahrenheit 451

The world is too nice. Too kind. I sometimes think that if politicians, feminists, little league parents, students, busybodies and families had more problems to resolve and more losses to mourn, our society would remember its humanity. Who would harass their neighbor, sprint to the spot where he has the chance to cast the first stone or cry out that the world handed over satisfies him not if he has a sick child at home, a troubled marriage to tend to, a neighborhood to renew or a home in ashes on the ground?

You may look around yourself and see that you find these things in your life or in the lives of those around you-- maybe you even find them in abundance. Alas, why is it that, knowing this, we continue our harassments and maliciousness towards others? We demand that we get what we need at the expense of all others; forsake them! If I wish not to do some task, I shall wait for you to do it for me; if I have no income, you must pay for my bills; if I am excluded from your story, you must change it! We ask society, like the kind of mother known for ruining her youngest son, to dote on us and grant us our every request as we relish in the ease and comfort of our newfound disengaged reality.

In many of the books we have read this year, we see this strain of self-entitled demand for what some call political correctness. We see it particularly in Cry Wolf and Fahrenheit 451 and I choose to focus here on the latter. When most look at this work and ask, “What is missing from this culture?” the answer is usually books. However, the missing books are simply a side effect of a culture missing the right to feel troubled. In a society where happiness presents itself as the ultimate goal, of course, things such as literature, philosophy, religion and the like must be eliminated. These things make individuals question the nature of their lives and the society in which they live; these things are good neither for the happiness of the individual or for the stability of society.

In Fahrenheit 451, the reader finds a society where nothing is an inconvenience and entertainment is in abundance. Family and religion are substituted by the connections felt with characters in television shows broadcast in living rooms. The endurance of interpersonal conflicts is unnecessary; if husband and wife disagree, they divorce. No one takes time to ponder life or even think as there is little to provoke new thought and the mind is filled with noise or external dialogue at almost every moment.

With all of this in place, happiness should be complete. Alas, we see countless suicides and the well-read Fire Chief Captain Beatty “wanted to die.” In accommodating the needs and wants of every minority, complete stagnancy developed in society, culturally and psychologically. Because what you think or believe may offend someone else, your thoughts and beliefs must be burned.

This poses a fine example of the ultimate problem facing our contemporary world: how do we balance political correctness with the human rights of an individual? This question seems almost contradictory at first, given that the political correctness movement seems to be a result of an effort to uphold equality as a human right. However, we must understand that bending to the wants of every minority or majority in the name of their rights as individual entities ultimately means the destruction, or burning, or individual rights. Society cannot have both; a balance must be struck.