[Dragaera] OT: Ray Bradbury

[Maximilian Wilson]

On 7/18/07, Davdi Silverrock <davdisil at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/18/07, Maximilian Wilson wrote:
> > Not state-sponsored censorship, then. Self-censorship by the community.
>
> When the "community" is large enough, it *is* the state.


So the ban on picking your nose in public is state-sponsored? I don't know
exactly what Bradbury had in mind, but I see plenty of community censorship
that doesn't involve the state. Everybody knows that you can't publicly
speculate about, say, the differences in mean racial IQ between
self-identified blacks and whites. Even if there is one, it's probably
impossible to have a meaningful discussion in polite company.

Bradbury's assertion (various minorities wanting to burn stuff end up
> winning) doesn't make sense.  All existing cases of censorship are
> because of majorities performing the censorship - and if they are a
> minority, they need the support of those in power, and therefore
> become a /de facto/ majority.


So you acknowledge that minorities have and do censor majority opinion, with
the majority's consent. I don't know what "assertion" you're contradicting
and don't see how the majority's assent contradicts it.

Anyway, Bradbury is asserting that the whole book is about television
> (and presumably, self-censorship via endemic apathy).  The
> contradiction between Bradbury-then and Bradbury-now is that F451 is
> (mostly) not about apathy, but rather about zealous and fanatical
> censorship by destroying any possibility of anyone reading anything,
> ever.  It might have started out as self-censorship via apathy in his
> head, but F451 is, in its final form, about government censorship: the
> (presumed) apathetic-to-reading community has become
> antipathetic-to-reading; they voted to create tax-supported
> destroyers-of-books, which is to say, censors for the government.
>

[shrug] As you like.

It may not be the case that the "whole point" of Fahrenheit 451 is about
television (Bradbury doesn't assert that it is), but it's interesting to
note in the same way it's interesting to note that Steven Erikson's
/Memories of Ice/ is, according to the author, about motherhood. (Erikson
also says that that sort of theme is best left buried deep in the author's
head.)

-Max

-- 
Be pretty if you are, be witty if you can,
But be cheerful if it kills you.

Everything in Windows is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.
    -Clausewitz