Fahrenheit 451: Bradbury’s Views on Technology
Editor's Note: As part of this year's One Book community read, University of Toronto's Andrew Lesk will give several book talks about "Fahrenheit 451," focusing on author Ray Bradbury's views on technology.
I find that Ray
Bradbury’s very cautious views on technology – mostly implied in the book – reveal
a somewhat conservative point of view. This seems to be at odds with the book’s
more liberal trappings that are concerned with the necessity of free speech.
It’s as though
Bradbury can’t quite resolve a paradox perhaps known to his readers: We live in
a world that invariably progresses; in many ways, good and bad. But the
progress Bradbury sees is only bad, apparen'tly, and so he appears to takes
sides against progress.
Montag, for
example, is frustrated that “nothing’s connected” in the modern world around
him, and so he looks to the past – all those books – for knowledge and answers.
His friendship with Clarisse, who is linked to the non-technological world of
nature, and who feels “ancient,” is another symbol of this link to a past that
is perhaps somewhat idealized.
Similarly, Clarisse talks about the art in the
museums being “all abstract”; one assumes that more traditional forms of art – perhaps
the great Masters, and the Impressionists – are those to be admired. Implicit
too is that then-modern, abstract art is somehow less stable and, again, this
is conservative gesture reveals a desire for the past.
On the other hand,
progress means mostly technologies that control and oppress. The hound is
perhaps the earliest and best of these examples. It contrasts with the
nature-bound Clarisse, in its comparison to a honey bee that possesses a
“poison wildness.” And it is like the Eye: it “doesn’t like or dislike; it just
functions.”
As Beatty says, the hound “doesn’t think anything we don’t want it
to think.” This suggests that this technological innovation arises from someone’s
desire to control; but also that such “unthinkingness” is also part of human
nature, here in its worst incarnation. Technology can run amok and become
divorced from the human and natural world, and thus the hound, ‘man’s best
friend,’ has here been perverted into its opposite, or baser, nature.
Beatty promotes
the mindless technology of the type that is the Hound: he is giving us exactly
what we apparen'tly want. He is similar to Clarisse, whose face is like a mirror
to Montag, the every person of the novel, who “take[s] of you and throw[s] back
to you your own expression, your own innermost trembling thought.” Is it then
that the conflicting impulses of the novel are found in looking at the
uncomfortable similarities between Clarisse and Beatty, both of whom ‘know’
more than they let on but who are taking different paths using that knowledge?
Similar to all
dystopic novels, though, Bradbury can’t predict the actual future; its
relevance for today, though – with our easy conformity to technological marvels
such as the Internet and smartphones – is quite outstanding.
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