In the book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, a futuristic civilization where books are banned and burned is portrayed to be way for humans to live. A culture where the only reading you can legally do is of short, incomplete, stories or of scripts for television shows. This is portrayed to be the future of the world. Will our culture end up being bookless? It does not seem it will become that way now, or any time within the extended future.
In Fahrenheit 451 the only readings that are not punishable by the burning of the residents the books are in and the books them selves are that of a very short nature. Such books that are permissible by the law are magazines, television show scripts, and billboards. Even though these things can be read does not mean that the contents within them are not limited to the content and the detail that they go into. All writings are limited so that they would not cause thought in the fast paced world they are living in. “Whirl man’s mind around about so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!” (55) Even the television shows are so short that they will not provoke any in-depth thought. “Did you see that Clara Dove five-minute romance last night in your wall?”(95)
This civilization is portrayed to being the size of United States if not larger. This would take great effort to control the reading of the people of a land this size and would take great organization that it seems our country could not handle. The book mentions a war that lasts only a couple of days. “Quick war. Forty-eight hours, …., and everyone home.”(94) This is by no means in the near future of the United States. If it is, we would be the only ones left, fore the government of the United States would eliminate the rest of the world. The thought of a bookless would should be frightening to everyone. Without books where would our facts be. If someone asked you a question, one simple answer that is false could lead to be a fact for the rest of time by word of mouth. If the Bible was not legal to read how would a civilization know what the Ten Commandments were. The world would end up in sin. Is this a civilization that you would want to live in? A world of untamed humans would evolve. Do you see the people of the world today that can not read succeeding in life? They are left at the back of the pack when it comes to success, if our world went bookless the entire civilization would be of today’s illiterate status. Our world is far from becoming the civilization portrayed in the book.
The civilization in Fahrenheit 451 is high in technology and has no books. Our world has new technology every day yet it continues to have new books produced daily. War in the present last for years yet in the book they last only a couple of days, this is far from reality without the use of a hydrogen bomb, which would be the end of the civilization. Overall our current culture is far from becoming a civilization of Fahrenheit 451.