American science fiction guru Ray Bradbury created a futuristic world without books in 1950. The firefighters we know, in Ray's world, are not fire-fighting warriors, but "defenders of civilization"—they are ordered to burn books. 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the ignition point of paper.
Ray's creation is highly realistic and forward-looking, and he fantasizes that the world is a world dominated by "anti-intellectualism". His vision was even a decade earlier than the word "anti-intellectualism" was coined.
"Anti-intellectualism" first appeared in the book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by the American historian Richard Hofstadter. Upon publication, the book won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1964. Richard uses "anti-intellectualism" to describe a contradictory manifestation of the divergence between knowledge and ignorance. In different countries, different cultures, different fields, and different groups of people, "anti-intellectualism" will show different results. Some of the more representative phenomena are: unthinking follow-up, opposition to truth, and the theory of the uselessness of reading.
In Fahrenheit 451, the rulers use their power to implement "anti-intellectualism" in an attempt to stifle the minds of the masses. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist firefighter Montag takes pride in holding a brass pipe and spewing flames. But ever since he met the curious girl, everything had started to make a difference. The desire to learn in his heart was aroused, driving him from a law enforcer to a defective rebel.
Montag is the tandem and questioner of the whole story, and his role is to lead the reader to discover the truth of the world created by Ray. And what I want to discuss in this article are the three supporting characters in the book: Montag's wife, Mildred, and the fire chief Beatty, and professor Faber. As the "tool man" in the novel, in addition to pushing Montag toward change, they also represent the struggle of human instincts manifested by three classes - commoners, bottom managers and intellectuals under the pressure of "anti-intellectualism". Their performance is exactly the three attitudes that ordinary people like us often adopt under pressure – avoidance, repression and disguise.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Mildred - escape, superficial happiness can not hide the emptiness of the heart</h1>
Montag's wife, Mildred, represents the state of daily life of the entire civilian class. They pass the time with video walls, fast cars or amusement parks. Mildred also always carried a pair of Seashell headphones at home, which were constantly pouring in music and conversation. This habit made Mildred practice a good skill of reading lips with one hand, and the conversation with Montag had to use his eyes.
Every household has a TV room, and Mildred has replaced all three walls of the TV room with a video wall, and is still convincing Montag to buy the fourth. As soon as he had free time, Mildred soaked in the TV room, and even socializing with the housewives was carried out in the TV room of his own home or someone else's home. Everyone sat together and kept discussing the plot of the show that had been broadcast, calling the people on TV "relatives."
The nickname "relative" reflects people's indifference to communicative emotions in the real world. Smart products and commercially produced content replace the emotional needs between people. Mildred soaks in the TV room, wearing sea shells every moment, which is actually an escape, a renunciation of spiritual life. Constantly filling and occupying one's own thoughts with broken, fresh things, preventing one's own mind from having free time to generate the operation of thought. Over time, the habit of thinking is removed from life, and memory loses its effectiveness. Mildred couldn't even remember what had happened four days ago.
This phenomenon separates the emotional maintenance and belonging in human nature, the feelings between husband and wife exist in name only, the neighbors will not establish friendship, and the social atmosphere will become more and more indifferent. They were very convinced and obedient to the ruler's control, and seemed very happy on the surface.
Why is it superficial happiness? Because Mildred tried to commit suicide by swallowing medicine.
Montag discovers that Mildred has taken an overdose of sleeping pills and rushes to call the emergency number. Two operators came to the door, carrying two types of first aid equipment, one that probed into the stomach to absorb residual drugs, and one that pumped blood. The two operators treatEder like a corpse, and say in a tone of indifference that they will receive nine or ten suicide reports a night. The next day, the sober Mildred thought he had a hangover at the party the night before, and couldn't remember swallowing a whole bottle of sleeping pills.
This plot can be extended to two conjectures, one is that after people commit suicide, they are affected by the operator's instruments and forget the previous day's behavior, and the other is that this practice of swallowing sleeping pills in large quantities is an unconscious behavior, and people's mental emptiness is so serious that they seriously affect sleep, so they repeatedly swallow drugs to save sleep. But no matter which conjecture holds, the author Ray shows the reader through this detail that after the happiness, people generally show restless emotional pressure.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Biti - depressed, seemingly strong tiger skin is a dead bone about to collapse</h1>
As Montag's captain, Beatty represents the lowest level of managers. He knows history while maintaining the rule of "anti-intellectualism."
Montag became suspicious of the significance of the firefighters' burning of books and wanted to take a leave of absence to escape, but Beatty sniffed the anomaly and went to the door to enlighten Montag. As a counselor, Beatty has obviously been through a lot of battles. He skillfully introduced Montag to the origins of firefighters. The cause of destroying books was not easy, but from the invention of movies, radio, and television, everything became simple. Books are gradually becoming niche, and the quality of information and knowledge is constantly declining. There is more and more fun in life, and the mind thinks less and less. "Intellectuals" became a minority, a curse word. In order to maintain the desire for equality of the masses, and to keep the ignorant masses immersed in pleasure, the firefighters became the defenders of the city, burning books and purging them of intellectually curious outliers.
It is better than withdrawing money, and it is even possible to quote the scriptures and attack knowledge with knowledge. As usual, he should be a lackey of a ruler through and through, but Ray's creation is wonderful, and Beatty is struggling. The way he struggles is repression, not only suppressing Montag's intellectual curiosity with fancy words and interlocking logic, but also suppressing himself. Until Montag took the flamethrower and opened the safety bolt to himself, he still teased and mocked Montag, constantly provoking Montag and forcing the other party to burn himself. Beatty had lived enough, he knew knowledge, but under the oppression of the powerful, he was doing a job of destroying knowledge, leading to physical and mental exhaustion. He has been using a way of numbing himself and others, avoiding the search for truth and pursuing spiritual life, and finding a seemingly legitimate reason for himself and the powerful—to maintain people's happiness and drive out the outliers—to underpin the behavioral motives of the firefighter profession.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > Faber - disguised, carefully adapting to the weird world</h1>
Faber is a retired English professor. Montag first met him, and he was hiding a book in his arms. Faber saw that the firefighters were terrified, and his first reaction was to prepare to flee. The second time Montag called him, as soon as the books were mentioned, Faber was so nervous that he hastened to deny it, believing that Montag's problem was a trap to carry out his crime. His sensitivity was formed under the intimidation of power. The man who kept the books was either burned to death with his house or sent to a mental hospital, and as a former professor, how could Faber not be sensitive and not afraid.
He is the minority "intellectual" targeted by "anti-intellectualism" in Ray's world. As one of the crowds squeezed out, Faber lives carefully, is well versed in the dangers lurking in the city, and does not trust everyone. But he knows how to hide his desire for knowledge, act like a "normal person," and disguise himself as a member of the people around him. He dissuaded Montag from reading poetry in front of the housewives and tried to help Montag maintain his composure in front of the captain, but he did not stop Montag from rebelling with his heart. When everything was irretrievable, he sincerely helped Montag and showed him the way out, and he fled to another city.
Faber's disguise is to be able to survive in the cracks. He was the guide on the path to Montag's awakening of consciousness. Faber understood everything, but did not dare to say anything. Because he knew that the grasshopper could not shake the tree, he could only choose to hide himself silently.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the relevance and revelation of Fahrenheit 451 to reality</h1>
Although the world depicted in Fahrenheit 451 is not exactly the same as today's social form, "anti-intellectualism" is still serious in the United States, and even in our daily lives, it is gradually revealed.
Although portable smart devices have brought people closer to each other in the vast world, they have also shifted people's social attention from offline to online. Are we gradually ignoring the way we interact with relatives and friends who put down their mobile phones and talk face-to-face? The network's concealment of people's true identities also allows the public to dare to publicly attack true knowledge and authority. The "intellectuals", on the other hand, keep silent with the attitude that gentlemen do not argue with villains. Isn't this ray's portrayal of The Three Characters of Eldrid, Beatty, and Faber in the book? So behind our performances, is there also a struggle?
"Anti-intellectualism" has shown its power, and many of us have not realized it, and even pride ourselves on ignorance, and so many people are saying that "reading is useless." Books carry the life experience and life experience of a part of history, and whether it is useful or not depends on the reader's thinking and action. Optimistic is that curiosity is also an instinct of man. There are those who promote "anti-intellectualism," but there are still those who respect truth and science. Some people are immersed in pleasure, but there are still people who enjoy the process of learning and learning. While there is no power in life that oppresses us, we need to start being wary of the infiltration of "anti-intellectualism."