It has always been a popular yet controversial topic; the future. We have seen dark and foreboding visions of the future thanks to some amazing writers and some amazing books. In 1984, A Clockwork Orange and Fahrenheit 451, issues of censorship, ignorance, conformity and chaos are addressed. These amazing works of fiction paint us a vivid picture of a dark and frightening world. What is more frightening is the fact that there may be more truth in those books than first expected. Society is trapped in a downwards spiral, and for some, it seems to be too late already. Fahrenheit 451 spoke very strongly to me, and I think it provides lessons that we need to embrace, lest we see our ultimate demise. The author of F. 451, Ray Bradbury, created a world that is a grotesque caricature of our own, but not too unlike it. People sit at home entranced by the glow of their video screens and blind to education, intelligence and logic. Books have become taboo, and those who embrace them are outcasts. This is not dissimilar to modern times, where TV and video games have taken over our lives, and education has become a nuisance more than anything else. Free thinkers are shunned by society, and slowly, conformity takes everything. Huge social and stylistic cliques have sprung up: punk, goth, jock, emo, etc… At this rate, trying to be different ends up with you being the same as a completely different group. In a way, we are the remaining “Book People” from the end of that book. We read and write and think and dream, while so many others sit at home and waste away in their technological comas. Humor me, hear my soapbox rant and let it fall not on deaf ears. This future must not come to pass. Save education and literacy, and save the wealth of knowledge they offer.
“This age thinks better of a gilded fool than of a threadbare saint in wisdom’s school.”
