[Dragaera] OT: Ray Bradbury

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Bradbury is not the first author I've heard of who has lamented that 
everyone missed the point of a famous story. My general reaction,  is that 
the author failed to properly make his point in that case, or else he 
himself misunderstood the point of the story. _Farenheit 451_ is an 
excellent example. The story, as written, doesn't provide any support that I 
can remember for the idea that the government started burning books because 
people had stopped reading them. The idea doesn't even make any sense to me 
except in the context of censorship and mind-control.

Bradbury may have postulated that television was used to "narcotize" society 
to the point where they would accept that kind of censorship (where books 
were marginilized to the point of uselessness and finally destroyed 
outright) but that's background material. It's not the point of the story as 
it's written. Saying that it's about the evils of television is like saying 
that _Brave New World_ is about the evils of state sanctioned drug abuse.

Well, it's interesting to see Bradbury's viewpoint on things, at any rate. 
Maybe I'll have to dig up a copy of _Farenheight 451_ and give it a re-read 
in light of this article.