Fahrenheit 451 Analysis

7. Discuss the complexities of Bradbury's message.  Is he against all forms of censorship?  Do you think a society such as this could ever truly exist?  What aspects of this society does Bradbury appear to detest the  most?  Use specific examples from the text in your argument.

     Bradbury talks about many different aspects of life in the futuristic society of Fahrenheit 451.  Perhaps the most mentioned aspect is that of censorship, as that is behind the plot of the story.  Many of his predictions  for a future society are surprisingly similar to our society today, while not exactly the same.    

     Guy Montag, the main character, is a fireman, someone, who, in this society, starts fires instead of putting them out.  These fires are started to burn books, which are not allowed to be read, or owned by anyone.  It is explained by Montag's captain, Beatty, why books are banned, "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred...Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo.  Burn it.  White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin.  Burn it." (59)  You can tell that this society is one based around keeping everyone happy and this censorship keeps, or tries to keep everyone happy. However, you can tell in the interviews with Bradbury that he would be against this , if it were to happen in our society.  In the Coda, Bradbury talks about how he is against the censorship of literature, using examples from his own life.  For example, he was put off when a college wouldn't use one of his plays because there were no women parts.  Bradbury says "...it's a mad world and it will get madder if we allow minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutang or dolphin...to interfere with aesthetics.  The real world is the the playing ground for each and every group to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule." (178)  Bradbury clearly could care less about anything else people do with the legal system and censoring, as long as it doesn't interfere with his writing.  This would appear to be the part of society which he dislikes the most.  The fact that some people were able to destroy someone else's book solely because they, as an individual were upset, frustrates Bradbury.  Bradbury also seems to detest the lack of intelligence introduced by technology, "The main problem is the idiot TV...The camera never stops and holds still.  So it clicks off your thinking; you can't think when you have things bombarding you like that...We bombard people with sensation.  That substitutes for thinking." (184)

     The future America that Bradbury describes, does seem, to be ever so similar to the society we're living in now.  The use of technology, like the Seashells and televisions that take up entire walls, are similar to our iPods and flat screens.  Ever increasing speed and the deterioration of the schooling system, appear to parallel our society today, scars are made to go faster, and children are learning the very minimum; just enough to pass the tests.  Montag's neighbor, Clarisse McClellan, introduces the reader to the deteriorating school aspect of society, "An hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you, bing, bing, bing, and us sitting there for four more hours of film teacher."(29)  Not only do the students appear to learn nothing, but they aren't inquisitive and weren't taught to question the world around them.  This may have been caused by the fact that, according to Captain Beatty, everyone should have the same intelligence level in order for everyone to be happy, so eliminating those that are above intelligence, is beneficial to their society.  On page 60, Beatty explains how society is able to level the playing field and better eliminate these great minds, "You can't rid yourselves of all the bad ducks in just a few years.  The home environment can undo a lot of what you try to do at school.  That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle."  From this you can draw similarities to our schooling system; curriculums are stripped to the basics so that no one is "left behind".  It would seem that a society similar to this would be possible, though probably not as extreme.

     Even now, with everyone having to politically correct so that we won't hurt anyone's feelings, and making everyone a winner, even if they didn't work or try at all, we are beginning to head towards the society of Fahrenheit 451.  It is well put by Granger, one of the men who memorize books, how man continues to destroy himself, "...it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got one damn thing the phoenix never had.  We know the damn silly thing we just did.  We know all the damn silly things we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it someday we'll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them.  We pick up a few more people that remember every generation." (163)   If we can stop destroying ourselves, we can create a better society, one that doesn't resemble that of Fahrenheit 451.Bradbury's novel shows a true portrayal of what a society such as ours could turn into if we are not careful; we could soon have firemen similar to those of Guy Montag and Captain Beatty.

TU Tuesday- Local

Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text.


http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Change-is-brewing-at-coffee-business-3591034.php


    Matthew Edge, of Berne, is trying to make a change in New York politics with his "Occupy Democracy Project".  The Occupy Democracy Project "...focuses on campaign finance reform and clean elections".   
The group, originally named The New York Democracy Project, was started at SUNY New Paltz as a collection of students including Edge and his wife, Andrea, to "educate the public about the electoral process and how to achieve fair and balanced elections".  The group wants to break up the big corporations that support politicians and can sway the way they feel on certain topics.  Also, the group wanted to ensure equal public funds for any candidate that wants to run for office to level the playing field and eliminate those corporations entirely.  


   After college, the project was handed almost completely to Edge, as the others' priorities changed.  This caused some temporary tough times for Edge and his wife.  Edge needed a way to finance the project so he decided to start his own coffee business.  He built his own roaster for the beans and buys all of the beans fair trade from poor and developing countries.  The profits from the sales of coffee beans (at $13.00 per pound) go back to the project.  Edge has a range of flavor and roasts, each named with political references such as "...Wake Up Wall Street, Clean Bean Peace Machine, Democracy Joe and...Occupy Your Cup".  These names, and the project were influenced by the Occupy movements, which Edge participated in.  He discovered that many of those people shared his views on politics and even gave "...the extra help he needed to keep The Occupy Democracy Project going".  They helped him so much, the Edge changed the name from the New York Democracy Project to the Occupy Democracy Project.  

Number 9

#9.  Why do veterans deserve respect?

I think that veterans deserve respect because they have put their lives on the line to protect their country and their fellow citizens.  Veterans, unlike the rest of the populace have had to leave behind their families and homes, not sure if they'll return, or necessarily when.  These men and women have given so much for their country and for the protection of others, that it should be a given for them to receive respect.  The fact that they are brave enough to go into a field like this alone should warrant a deep respect from those who receive the benefits of their job, such as the freedoms we have in our country or the protection from our antagonists in places like the Middle East.  Veterans have seen the worst of humans and watched people they've grown close to die.  Veterans deserve our respect because they've risked their lives to protect ours.

What is Crippling Us?

      Between Gatto and Bradbury, they both tell that society is purely using school as a way to control people.  In Gatto's writing he cites other authors and draws a parallel to the Prussian system of education, "an education  system deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring the inner life,to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and to ensure docile and incomplete citizens- all in order to render the populace 'manageable'".    This point is echoed in Fahrenheit 451.  On page 60, Montag's captain, Beatty, is explaining how they manage to keep people in line, keep them from thinking for themselves; " You can't rid yourselves of all the odd ducks in just a few years.  The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school.  That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle".    
      
     Gatto provides examples from other writers and thinkers who also trace back our system of education to Prussia.  Gatto cites authors such as H.L. Mencken and James Bryant Conant.  One man in particular whom Gatto quotes is Alexander Inglis.  Gatto lists Inglis' six functions of our schooling system; the adjustive or adaptive function, the integrating function, the differentiating function, the selective function, and the   propaedeutic function.   One of the six functions that I found very interesting was the first function, adjusting or adaptive.  In the explanation of the function, Gatto writes, "Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority.  This, of course, precludes critical judgement completely.  It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things".   
      
     As for Bradbury, he uses the characters of Beatty and Clarisse to explain the society in which Montag is living.  Clarisse gives Montag her view of the schooling system telling him how the students do little learning and rarely ask questions.  Beatty allows for the reader for gain a better insight as to why and how this occurred.  After burning a woman along with her house, Beatty visits Montag and  describes the evolution of society which led to the state is in during the book.  This evolution  is caused mostly by the twentieth century, when everything becomes faster, including books, which were extremely shortened.  This led to a decline in schooling, " School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored...Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?"  


     Both of these images of society appear to be real, at least to me.  I feel as though Inglis' six functions are an accurate depiction of the public schooling system, especially the adjusting or adaptive function because if you compare the topics that we learn in school to what we could be learning, it is confounding as to why we're stuck in a rut re-learning the same things year after year, which few people use in their lives after graduating anyway.  Just ask any high schooler if their parents can help them with their home work...most likely they can't, and thetas because the topics learned in school have little to no relevance in everyday life.  With Bradbury's argument, you can see the same decline in education now as Captain Beatty  explained to Montag.     Not that school has been shortened, but compared even thirty years ago when my parents went to school, discipline has been relaxed greatly in schools.  Also, the use and mechanics of English have been consistently neglected, especially in the lower levels of education, meaning children have little to no concept of how to correctly put a sentence together, and if they can, they have no idea why, or the parts of a sentence.  For spelling, a heavy reliance on technology such as spell check reduces the need to actually know how to spell words, since if you can sound to out, the computer will probably figure out what you're trying to say, and fix it.  This decline in education and the use of public education to control the masses is setting society up to become similar to that of Fahrenheit 451.

Tried and True

http://writingprompts.tumblr.com/post/17477297690/my-28-most-tried-and-true-writing-prompts

If I were forced to spend my life in a library, a museum, or a zoo, I would pick the library.  First of all, a library always has something to read, especially large libraries.  A zoo, while they're fun for a day or two, never really changes.  There are always the same gorillas and tigers and assorted birds and bears, but libraries are always changing as they receive new books, and while I'm a fast reader, I would probably never be able to read all of the books in a library if they were on an endless supply.  Also, libraries are generally quiet (which I like), but they also can host activities for the community.  Plus, while museums are fun and I love history, they don't update and change as quickly as libraries do, so like the zoo, they become boring once you've seen everything once or twice.  If I really had to choose to spend the rest of my life in one of these three places, I would choose the library in a heartbeat.

TU Tuesday- Commencement Speech

Information Texts:  Literary Non-fiction - Includes the subgenres of exposition, argument, and functional text in the form of personal essays, speeches, opinion pieces, essays about art or literature, biographies, memoirs, journalism, and historical, scientific, technical, or economic accounts (including digital sources) written for a broad audience 


http://speakingfrog.com/?p=516
http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost04/EducationPays2004.pdf


      In his commencement speech for Carnegie Mellon, Bill Cosby began by asking the graduates why the considered themselves nerds, "I don't know why you want to accept yourselves as being that, because you have continued on where non-nerds stopped." I think that education is an extremely important part of society today.  Not only because there is so much to learn, but because everyday jobs are increasing the qualifications necessary to work in that particular job. "And they quit.  All the non-nerds did that-- they said I'm tired, why do I have to know this?...I think that's very, very brave, considering how many friends you lost," said Cosby on the same subject.  As an American high schooler, I see a lot of my peers (especially in the few regents classes I take) that have the potential to be in advanced classes and perform better in general, but don't because they don't feel like it.   I also must agree that sometimes, the classes you take and how hard you work, or the effort you put in,  affects the friends you have.  I have lost, or become more distant with some people because we've gone on different paths educationally.  


     After talking about his first big show as a comedian, Cosby offered excellent advice to the graduates, "I don't care what you do, when you are good then you bring you out."  I think that this is important.  I tend to second guess my abilities a lot, and it is sometimes hard for me to show these.  I think that because I am a fairly shy and quiet person, particularly around people I am not comfortable with, it makes it even harder for me to show that I am good at something.  Cosby offered some more advice when he said, "But you can't be proud and you can't carry it out unless you are sure of yourself and prepared."  I think that getting an education is the best preparation you can receive in today's society.  Education sets you up to live a better life.  According to College Board's, Education Pays, in 2003 a study comparing average full-time year-round workers with a four year college degree and average full-time year-round workers with a high school diploma showed that those with a four year degree "...earned $49,900, 62 percent more than the $30,800 earned by the...worker with only a high school diploma."  And the numbers continue to increase with the more education you get.  An education can have a huge and lasting impact on your life.  

#34 What I Spend Money On

Being a teenager that doesn't have a job, I don't really have that much money.  However, when I do acquire money, I tend to spend it on the same things.  First, since I like most types of music and am constantly finding new songs and artists that I like, I tend to buy iTunes cards.  Sometimes, if I only have about twenty-five dollars, that is the only thing I buy.  When I have more money I like to shop for clothes.  I go to my favorite stores first, especially if I saw something in the catalog or online that I really liked, if I can't find anything there (which is EXTREMELY rare) I might actually put the money away in the bank.