Censorship in fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury: the impact throughout

Censorship Causes Blindness

President Franklin D. Roosevelt once said “ Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man’s freedom.” This shows that censorship, such as burning books, has a huge effect on people. The memory of the book can never be killed, and its censorship on people can not last. A similar theme takes place in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Ray Bradbury argues that through the actions of the characters in Fahrenheit 451, that censorship is not beneficial to society. Censorship causes blindness in any society and moves people away from the truth.

Censorship is based on the idea of ability of learning something. People can censor you from the truth of something and that may or may not be beneficial. In Fahrenheit 451, the characters are censored from knowledge. They are afraid of knowledge, which leads them to depend on others such as the government to think for them. Fahrenheit 451 depicts what can happen if a society allows the government to take total control of what they do or don’t read, watch, and discuss. Knowledge cannot be gained without the freedom of the citizens. Society cannot improve without intelligent citizens, which proves the reason that censors should not be included in society. Some may say that today’s world does have censors that limit our knowledge, and the government must create censors for the development of citizens. In 2010 there was a news article about internet censorship in China. In the article it stated “ China operates an extensive censorship policy, which results in the blocking of specific internet results, as well as the complete blocking of a large number of websites, including human rights websites.” Even today in places like China, people are censored against their rights and knowledge that is crucial to their everyday lives. This shows that citizens need that information that protect themselves, and the government doesn’t always censor for the benefit of the people.

These censors also shape the daily lives of people. In the novel Fahrenheit 451 the citizens think less about life and just go with the social norm of society. For instance in the novel on page 31, it said “ I sometimes think drivers don’t know what grass is, or flowers because they never see them slowly. If you showed a driver a green blur, he would say that is grass.” People drive extremely fast due to lack of appreciation for nature; They never take time to look around and admire nature’s wonders and instead takes them for granted. This is present in the novel and present today. Some may say that the censors of today are important so that you are guided in the right direction, and they shape how you think for the better. This is not true however, the censors of society limit us to things to appreciate, and because we are so interested in following a society that is influenced by censors, we do not stop and think outside of the box.