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| Aaron Vance |
By Aaron Vance, Class of 2017
After reading Fahrenheit 451 this past semester, and rekindling an old flame with the works of Ray Bradbury, was I able to truly understand more in-depth the encouragement of disciplining ourselves against our appetites as Plato writes in his Republic. Having read that the semester prior to this one, I now understand more the implications of the actions that our appetite compels us to seek to do in contradiction to that of our logic and emotions.
In Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian society has formed on the grounds of equality. Firemen exist in the book in the endeavor to destroy all books by burning so that ideas would be not only censored, but also eradicated so as to contain duress and ideological difference. The burning of books forms a homogeneous society that is seemingly devoid of ideological volition and caught in the prescribed school of thought that the government has outlined to keep ideas from conflicting and the happiness of every citizen from being compromised. Bradbury wrote this commenting on the fear of book burning in the McCarthyism fueled decades in the mid 19th century. And as the main character Guy Montag progresses he finds that he isn’t happy within this society and strives to enlighten himself with books.
To conceptualize the old adage that ignorance is bliss would stand to defend that society’s viewpoint on knowledge, but doesn’t adequately defend happiness. Plato connects happiness to that of knowledge and the growth of our minds through logic and understanding, and by doing so serving to give basis to the needs of the soul. Moderation of the soul is key to this, man-writ-large approach, and the dystopia of Fahrenheit 451, the equally unintellectual society of the future fails because of its unintelligent populace. But in the same regard, Bradbury disparages the concrete absolutism by showing the detrimental effects it can have when one idea is embraced by a whole and disparity no longer exists to quell ambition.
Unrest is the key to allowing for ideas to flow. Humans must realize that we have all been endowed the right to be equal and to not be made equal. Everything in this world should be applied to us equally, however what we are able to give conceive in our own right, isn’t going to be the same as anyone else. Ideas will conflict, and people will find themselves stirred up as they seek to tackle ideological difference or incongruences. But never should people substitute a rejection of differences as to avoid the internal feeling of unrest, because by rejecting it nothing more than a false sense of happiness forms.
Aaron Vance, of Elizabethtown, Ky., is a freshman McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying political science, history and anthropology.