There are times when I truly question the intentions of knowledge. Is it enforced for the purpose of keeping us happy or discontent? It’s all up for debate. However, one can’t help but wonder.
I am writing this simply because of a book I read in my English class. That book is Fahrenheit 451 by the classic author Ray Bradbury. It takes place in the future, 2020 to be exact and it makes sense because it was written in the 1950’s when technology was just beginning to flourish. Bradbury’s seemingly far fetched predictions aren’t that far off at all.
The book is about a fireman, Guy Montag. In the future, firemen aren’t really what they are now. Since homes have all been made fireproof and there is no need for firemen anymore, they were given a new purpose: burning books. Montag lives in a society where books are banned, and tv’s or “parlors” are the real deal. No one questions it. They’re just fine and dandy with life and Montag’s no exception. That is up until one day he is on the job and witnesses a woman burn herself with her books because the thought of life without them seems meaningless. This is where he starts questioning the importance of books and knowledge in general.
We can’t deny that we ourselves witness the people, and we are those people as well, who skim through or just read titles on articles or stories because they don’t care enough to read the whole story; they just want the key information. People who did that in the world of Fahrenheit 451 were the people who assisted in the life they ended up living, a life with no progression or knowledge, just ignorant bliss.
Very often throughout history, it has occurred to some evil and insane people that the epitome of knowledge is books. Whether they are trying to prevent practical knowledge like with slaves or like the Nazi book burnings which were for the purpose of preventing the “wrong knowledge”, it has happened multiple times.
Around the 1700’s in Carolina, Georgia, and other U.S. states the first laws prohibiting slave education were put into place, and slaves writing and people teaching them to write was illegal. In some cases, they were allowed to read, but writing was a no-no; if they knew how to write, they’d be able to communicate with other slaves.
If possible, an even more extreme purging or cleansing took place in the 1930’s and 1940’s in Nazi occupied Germany and Austria. The cleansing was burning books that opposed Nazism or promoted “un-german” ideologies. It was conducted by the German Student Union and over 25,000 books were ceremonially burned. Some of the authors whose book were burned include: Victor Hugo, Ernest Hemingway, H.G. Wells, Helen Keller, and abundantly more.
Events like the Nazi book burnings took place both in real life and works of fiction. Ironically, the infamous novel, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is based on the nazi book burnings and is narrated by Death. It is about Liesel Meminger, a nine year old living in Germany during WWII, who after her brother’s death, is sent to live with foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann. Her foster father learns alongside her how to read after she shows a very strong curiosity in books. With the title being The Book Thief, it is obvious that Liesel gets her books by stealing them with the help of her best friend Rudy Steiner.
While back in the 40’s and 50’s some were fighting for the right to books and knowledge, we don’t give it much thought. In the world of abundant technology, we don’t spare a second glance to books, often times because we’ve got everything we need in our phones and computers.
One study, conducted by the Pew Research Center on over 1,000 teens and their reliability on smartphones and other technology. The study found that the majority of teens used their smartphones for internet use, whether it be for socialising and communicating with others or simply just for using the internet. The most popular social platform for socialising was Facebook with 71%, Instagram came in at a second with 52% and Snapchat was third at 33%. It was found that 92% of them use the internet daily and 24% use it “almost constantly”. The study polled students ages 13 to 17 years of age and it found that the typical teen sends about 30 texts daily. Another interesting thing they found was that teens in lower income families used Facebook while the higher income teens veered more towards Twitter and Snapchat.
When you think about it, it would be easier living like those fictional characters from Fahrenheit 451. Imagine living in a world with no worries; even though they didn’t know what they were missing, that doesn’t mean they didn’t feel it deep down in some part of them that there was something more to life.
Many have lived in a world where knowledge was forbidden and would not like to be in that place again. It’s up to us to keep spreading knowledge and putting in an effort into informing and teaching the future generations. As much as we’d like to shield others from the horrible reality of the world we live in, they need to know.
Knowledge is worth the worries so that we can find an effective way to help instead of playing life like a russian roulette game. If we are blind to others’ struggles, how do we help them? Nothing brings happiness like helping people and being helped, and knowledge makes that possible. As long as there are books, I’ll read them and as long as there is discontent, I’ll always lend a helping hand.