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It’s so weird to be reading Fahrenheit 451 in this day and age where we have the internet and computers and video games. I just finished reading the part where Captain Beatty gives his speech to Guy Montag after he witnessed a fire that bothered him and I keep thinking about the internet and how much there is online that can offend minorities and make people unhappy, especially when the internet is a place in which you can basically post your own content without having to deal with a publisher or an editor (unfortunately - because we get netspeak). Because of this, I end up wondering what Bradbury would write if he wrote this book today instead of over 50 years ago when computers didn’t exist.

I also can’t imagine reading and learning not being something fun to do. I find it joyful to learn even if the information is sad and depressing and hard to understand like philosophy. I want to be able to think and be challenged.

By the way, I think movies can be incredibly offensive just as well as books can be (though in some cases, the movie was based off of a book). So some of Captain Beatty’s logic really doesn’t scan right for me. Maybe they also dumbed down the movies in that world as well so that everyone could be happy, though I doubt people are really happy in the book. Guy Montag certainly isn’t.

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