Fahrenheit 451: 50th Anniversary

[Caius Marcius]

With so many on this group concerned about "censorship" of Harry 
Potter, I thought this article on the 50th anniversary of Ray 
Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 might be of interest:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110003492

Here's the money quote:

Today, Mr. Bradbury is more concerned with another problem that he 
thinks he didn't prevent. "There's no reason to burn books if you 
don't read them," he says. "The education system in this country is 
just terrible, and we're not doing anything about it." 

One of the often-overlooked details of "Fahrenheit 451" is that the 
censorship Mr. Bradbury describes was not imposed from the top by a 
ruthless government. Rather, it seeped up from the indifferent 
masses. As a villain explains: "School is shortened, discipline 
relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and 
spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely 
ignored. . . . No wonder books stopped selling."


    - CMC