Throughout history many iconic figures have made predictions as to what they foresee happening in the future. Many of these people, if I were to start mentioning names, you would probably recognize. They have become famous for their grand insight and their supreme knowledge, but many become laughing stocks once others realize their calculations were quite wrong. I believe that if any of these prophecies were to be completely fulfilled, our world would go off the deep end. Have you ever considered what the future might bring? Ray Bradbury makes his thoughts quite clear, and, as offensive and as cruel as they are, they, slowly but surely, are coming true.
In an interview with his publisher Ray Bradbury speaks about his inspiration for writing this book. When asked how he was so well able to make his imagined story a prophecy of reality, he states- "I was considering the whole social atmosphere: the impact of TV and radio and the lack of education. I could see the coming even of school teachers not teaching reading anymore. The less they taught, the more you couldn't read books." Doesn't it make you wonder? If it means nothing, maybe I should tell you that this book was published almost 100 years ago. Does that make a difference? Back then, people were just starting to get TVs. In this book, people talk to TVs and they use these televisions instead of human interaction. Does that sound familiar? Most of the things in this book have already started to come true. Who knows what will happen to us if this story actually comes true? Author James Warner also mentions something along the lines of Ray Bradbury's book. He says- "Future 'books' will be bundled with soundtracks, musical leitmotifs, 3-D graphics, and streaming video. They’ll be enhanced with social bookmarking, online dating, and alerts from geo-networking apps whenever someone in your locality purchases the same book as you— anything so you don’t have to actually read the thing." Now you've got your kindle fire, and your electronic reading devices with all these apps and games, you've got your online reading sites with pop-up ads for all sorts of other games. The government doesn't need to influence our reading/technology choices, we make them ourselves, and it will be our own fault when Bradbury's story comes true.
Am I offending you? Do you love to read? Do you wish that maybe I would just stop complaining about the flaws of society and start talking about princesses and ponies? Or wait- is that your uncle that still believes in unicorns? Would he be offended if I accidentally mentioned that they were fake? Why are you so offended? What do you suggest I talk about? Can't you see? In Fahrenheit 451 Beatty mentions something that might make you think. He states- "Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy." And he isn't the only one! In the epilogue of the book, Ray Bradbury describes all the notes he receives about how offensive his book is. Isn't it ironic? You write a book to talk about how the world is so wrong because they won't let anyone interfere with their personal views, and your book gets banned. It is illegal to put out Christian Christmas decorations in the front of a public place because someone might get offended. My pastor once told a sermon about how at his old church, after having the design approved by the city for not being too offensive, they hung banners for Christmas on the street lights. Not a day later they get a call asking to take them down because somebody is offended. What has the world come to? And the scary thing is, there is only one way for this situation to go- down.
I'm guessing that you're probably a little scared right now. Who wouldn't be? Thinking about the future tends to bring that on. I guess I might have been a little heavy the first few paragraphs, but there is something else we have to understand. No opinion is foolproof, we have had that drilled into us since childhood. Nobody is ever truly correct, because there are so many ways to look at life, it is simply impossible. Ray Bradbury has a flaw. He doesn't know. He's not a prophet or a physic , he's a regular old Joe with too many opinions. He can guess all he wants, but he doesn't know. Neither do I. Neither do any of us. Some people can look at the world and think, wow, look at the horrible thing we've become. Others can smile and say, wow, look at how far we've come. Your opinion, no matter how right you think you are, is still your opinion. Many of us often confuse opinions for facts, and sometimes it scares us, but we need to keep going. There is still a little part of us that needs to remind us of the full half of the glass rather than the empty half we always seem to find. Bradbury can remind us again and again where his world might be going, but that isn't necessarily where our world is going. Oprah Winfrey says, “When I look into the future, it's so bright it burns my eyes." Bruce Lee says, “The future looks extremely bright indeed, with lots of possibilities ahead -- big possibilities. Like the song says, ''We've just begun.''” Marcel Pagnol states, “The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be” Our future doesn't just hold the end of the world, but it holds happiness and joy and fun and love and everything else we never seem to be able to see. Don't be afraid of what the future holds, but of what you will miss if you chicken out.
All in all, the world might, or might not be headed for disaster. We might all die, but then again, we might not. The future might be absolutely horrifying, or it might be everything we've been working for. The scary truth is, we don't know. We might not ever know. But we don't need to know. Ray Bradbury is a smart guy, he knows a lot about what he is talking about, and there are a whole bunch of ways that society is failing. It takes a very strong person to admit to the horrors of life, but an even stronger person won't let these negative opinions influence their views on life. In the end, it all comes down to what you want to see, and I just hope you make the right choice.
