I am 40 years old. Like many I skipped out on listening in literature class. Recently, I have been interested in reading classics and figuring out what all the fuss is about. Why are these books considered "classics"? Is there a good lesson to be learned? Is it visionary writing for the time? What is it?
To save on time I am going to listen to a series of classics from Iman. I am an audio book kind of reader and each classic seems to be an hour or two long.
The first discussion will be on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 1954
The most interesting topic about this book is the meaning of freedom. What does it mean to take accountability for ourselves?
The story is about a society that deems books illegal and anyone that has books in their possesion will be punished in drastic measures. Hmmmmm. It shows how easy it is to convince the masses of anything you too. The ideas get past from generation to generation without even knowing why. Only that the law says its poison then its poison.
I relate this idea to marijuana. In a lot of the world the plant is still illegal. It is said it is a drug and can lead down a spiraling path to many failures in life. Why do we just take this at face value because we are told this. How can we deem alcohol (a nuerotoxic) fine and on the other foot believe a plant is a poison?
The reality in the case of the books in the story and marijuana is both actually have strong benefits for you. Maybe it takes a book like this to make the comparison.
The leader of the fire department Beatty hates books. He seems to think that books are poison because books do not have one stable meaning. He seems to not even come close to understand that books are ideas given by people from several different points of view. All of these different points of view can give a human being a much clearer picture of a topic. It is the freedom of the open mind that can see what is really going on.
I would like to see this book discussed in schools. It's the education of ideas from stories that lets us make a connection to reality, not what the words that are told to us by the power that be. They have their own agenda.
Does anyone else find this interesting? I would like to connect with you in the comments