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Debated on violence in media
Debated on violence in media
Debated on violence in media
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The novel, Fahrenheit 451, by the author Ray Bradbury shows the reader a futuristic setting in which the people have progressed to violent means as a way for the population to express itself, and his predictions have started to show in modern day society. The people in his society are sadistic and use violence as a way to please themselves, and utilize their darker motives as entertainment. Today’s society and Bradbury’s society both have violence that is morally wrong, yet both societies have no control over their citizens’ eagerness for the brutality. While modern day society has not lowered itself to the act of pleasing itself with violence yet, today’s society has begun to wander down the path towards meaningless violence.
People of both societies commit crimes on community levels as declarations of rebellion or as an attempt to gain leverage. Teenagers in Bradbury’s society commit acts of murder, vandalism, and terrorize the other citizens of the community. “…to bully people around, break window panes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lampposts, playing ‘chicken’ and ‘knock hubcaps’” (Bradbury 27). The youth of this society are murderers, and they have fear installed into the people who rebel against their ways. “I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other… Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I’m afraid of them and they don’t like me because I’m afraid” (Bradbury 27). They take advantage of their fear and use it as a lever to keep the opposition against their free reign of the streets of the community. People in current soci...
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...e people worldwide have started to become heated with their reactions and violence more common. The government is supposed to restore the peace, yet they imply that they have done nothing to fix the problems.
The world as a whole is a more violent place. Terror rampages around the world daily and the people do nothing but contribute. Violence rises and “violent crime rose by 3.7 percent, including a 12.5 percent spike in murder rates” (Williams 1). In Bradbury’s world the people are so self-invested that they do not realize the enormity of the problems that their society is facing. People in current times acknowledge the issues and they do nothing to stop it. Governments are becoming corrupt, police hurt people with no cause, people have started to incline towards violence on a daily basis, and Bradbury’s dystopia where violence is a pleasure is becoming a reality.
¬¬¬Though most American people claim to seek peace, the United States remains entwined with both love and hate for violence. Regardless of background or personal beliefs, the vast majority of Americans enjoy at least one activity that promotes violence whether it be professional fighting or simply playing gory video games. Everything is all well and good until this obsession with violence causes increased frequency of real world crimes. In the article, “Is American Nonviolence Possible” Todd May proposes a less standard, more ethical, fix to the problem at hand. The majority of the arguments brought up make an appeal to the pathos of the reader with a very philosophical overall tone.
The theme of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 can be viewed from several different angles. First and foremost, Bradbury's novel gives an anti-censorship message. Bradbury understood censorship to be a natural outcropping of an overly tolerant society. Once one group objects to something someone has written, that book is modified and censorship begins. Soon, another minority group objects to something else in the book, and it is again edited until eventually the book is banned altogether. In Bradbury's novel, society has evolved to such an extreme that all literature is illegal to possess. No longer can books be read, not only because they might offend someone, but because books raise questions that often lead to revolutions and even anarchy. The intellectual thinking that arises from reading books can often be dangerous, and the government doesn't want to put up with this danger. Yet this philosophy, according to Bradbury, completely ignores the benefits of knowledge. Yes, knowledge can cause disharmony, but in many ways, knowledge of the past, which is recorded in books, can prevent man from making similar mistakes in the present and future.
How is it that in the year 2016 violence is not only increasing but is also being accepted at a startling rate? Most teenagers in modern days believe “that it was acceptable for a boyfriend to act aggressively towards his partner in certain circumstances.” (Statistics). If teenagers today believe that acting aggressively towards your partner is okay, will they grow to believe that other forms of violence are acceptable as well? Will they create a world where domestic violence, rape, and murder are “no big deal”?
Fahrenheit 451’s Relevance to Today Fahrenheit 451’s relevance to today can be very detailed and prophetic when we take a deep look into our American society. Although we are not living in a communist setting with extreme war waging on, we have gained technologies similar to the ones Bradbury spoke of in Fahrenheit 451 and a stubborn civilization that holds an absence of the little things we should enjoy. Bradbury sees the future of America as a dystopia, yet we still hold problematic issues without the title of disaster, as it is well hidden under our democracy today. Fahrenheit 451 is much like our world today, which includes television, the loss of free speech, and the loss of the education and use of books. Patai explains that Bradbury saw that people would soon be controlled by the television and saw it as the creators chance to “replace lived experience” (Patai 2).
It’s no doubt that the plots of Fahrenheit 451 show Ray Bradbury’s worry about the society’s progression as well as his irritation about censorship.Throughout the novel, characterizations and symbolisms illustrate that most people such as Mildred, her friends, and Beatty all lose his or her conscience and abilities as a human. Fortunately, there still exists some people such as Montag and Faber observed the crisis in the society, and these people contributed effort to rebuild culture and civilization.Reflect to today’s society, people are still facing social problems such as lack of communication and technologies replace culture. These phenomenons should catch attentions and be solved.
According to MailOnline, having lots of friends in real-life, and on social networks, can ultimately make people less sociable, and increase sadness. A lot of people in today's society might consider themselves happy but are actually the opposite. Having a lot of friends makes people feel like they don't need to be an extrovert and can eventually cause them to become unhappy. In the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, the same problem is present in the futuristic society. Almost all of the people in the book are either always on some sort of device or they are so consumed in the robotic society that they never take the time to think about things. This causes a lot of the characters in the book to be discontent, but not all. There are still a few that do take the time to think about things and are not always on a device.
(OxfordDicktionaries.com). This also falls in line with Fahrenheit 451 because in the story because part
In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury created a fictional society in which the people only want to be happy. No one wants to offend and no one wants to get offended. To achieve this “bliss” their government has used technology to block out reality, to create a world of denial, and to provide endless, mind mushing entertainment. “[Bradbury] is unable, however, to support the idea that technology itself causes people to abandon independent thought in favor of simple conformity.” (McGiveron, 1996) Bradbury never proves technology is what destroyed intellectual thought, but the people in charge of mass communication. Bradbury is warning us that technology can be a conductor for mass exploitation.
Kevin Powers and Geoffrey Canada both describe violence and its effects on people in their novels. They assert that violence profoundly changes a person; however, they differ on the merits of these changes. Canada concludes that violence teaches people and helps them grow, while Powers concludes that it dehumanizes and scars them. The two authors also disagree on the necessity of violence. Specifically, Canada argues that violence is necessary and is used to gain distinction and status, while Powers argues that violence is unnecessary and causes people to lose their singularity and identity. Even further, Canada believes violence protects the boys and their lives, while Powers believes violence kills the young soldiers. From their personal experiences, Canada claims boys in the South Bronx need to be violent to gain respect and to survive, while Powers claims the violence of war is a waste of young men’s lives as they lose respect and even their lives.
Fahrenheit 451 illustrates a realistic future society where the definition of thought and reason are unknown. Books are banned because they contain too many conflicting ideas and therefore offer no actual value. Every moment of the citizens’ lives is full of stimulation, whether wall-sized interactive television, murdering strangers, or listening to music on wireless radio headsets. Everyone is taught not to ask questions or think beyond the decision of which show to watch. Being a pedestrian is something one can be arrested for and the concept of casually chatting or watching the world pass-by is considered suspicious activity.
In Bradbury’s dystopian classic, Fahrenheit 451, Clarisse says “ ‘I’m afraid of children my own age. They kill each other’ ” (Bradbury 27). Bradbury claims through Fahrenheit 451 that our society is becoming increasingly violent in youth’s culture. Furthermore, common sense seems to dictate that as technology advances violence, increases as well. Although schools are considered to be the safest places for children, media, behavioral problems, and influences inside and outside the home has increased the violence in our society.
Throughout human history, violence, for the most part, has been a perpetual struggle we’ve faced. It does not discriminate against location, color, or creed, and it has an impact, lasting or not, on each of us at some point during our lives. Living in a Western country, many of us have become accustomed to the idea that true violence only lives in the ravaged lands of warring countries or the dilapidated streets of rundown neighborhoods, but in truth it can be found anywhere. Community center’s, schools, churches, and even the most secluded towns all encounter violence, though sometimes behind closed doors, everyone is vulnerable to it. But what prompts it to occur exactly? Violence itself stems from the causality of several different factors,
You take advantage of your life every day. Have you ever wondered why? You never really think about how much independence you have and how some of us treat books like they’re useless. What you don’t realize is that both of those things are the reason that we live in such a free society. If we didn’t have books and independence, we would treat death and many other important things as if it were no big deal. That is the whole point of Ray Bradbury writing this book.
The Majority of people today believe that the society in Fahrenheit 451 is far-fetched and could never actually happen, little do they know that it is a reflection of the society we currently live in. In Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 books are burnt due to people's lack of interest in them and the fire is started by firemen. Social interactions is at an all time low and most time is spent in front of the television being brainwashed by advertisements. In an attempt to make us all aware of our faults, Bradbury imagines a society that is a parallel to the world we live in today by emphasizing the decline in literature, loss of ethics in advertisement, and negative effects of materialism.
“Fahrenheit 451” is an internationally acclaimed book and one of Ray Bradbury’s best works. The world he envisions is a bleak, dystopian world where technology has overtaken society and deprived them of creativity and imagination. He describes a single man that is woken to the world around him by an unlikely character, and causing him to venture out of his bland life for something greater. This man would go through many challenges and dangers, but would achieve his goal in the end. Ray Bradbury does preform an outstanding job in writing about the bleak future he envisions, and his readers take notice. The most notable thing Ray Bradbury is able to do is convey his themes of censorship and the dangers of technology.