Category — people

Title: Fahrenheit 451
Author: Ray Bradbury
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages: 190 (incl. afterword and interview)
ISBN: 0-345-34296-8
Price: $7.99 (CDN)

When I first read Fahrenheit 451, I was in grade nine, and though I liked it, I was too young and inexperienced a reader (and person) to get much more than the basics of the plot from it. When I tried again in university, I abandoned the protagonist, Guy Montag, and his wife, Mildred, in their parlour, hashing it out over the books Guy had been secreting away in the duct work. Finally, in October of last year, while visiting with my grandparents in Stratford, Ontario, I saw a copy of the 50th anniversary paperback of Fahrenheit 451 sitting on the shelf in Fanfare Books and I bought it (my previous copy was lost in one of my many moves all over Ontario) and tried reading it again.

The third time was the charm; this time, I really read it. I didn’t just skim it, I didn’t turn the pages and let osmosis do the rest, I really read it. I really thought about what I was reading, and the more attention I paid to the words and ideas, the more I felt like I was seeing pieces of our present and glimpses of our future.

This books gave me the chills.

The plot is still more or less as I remembered it from grade nine: Guy Montag is a Fireman, and his job is to start fires. He burns books that have been banned, because their contents make people think, and that makes them unhappy. It isn’t until he meets Clarisse McClellan, a young girl considered crazy because she enjoys thinking and imagining, that Montag begins to question the world he lives in, but when he does, his world falls apart pretty quickly.

As the story moves forward, as I met all  the characters and really listened to what they were saying and thinking, I kept being surprised by the parts that were so much like our own world. Consider this passage from the book:

Montag’s wife has overdosed on sleeping pills, and Montag has called in help to rescue and revive her. Two machines are brought in by two operators: one to pump her stomach clean, the other to replace her pill-saturated blood with clean blood.

The operator stood smoking a cigarette…”Got to clean ‘em out both ways,” said the operator, standing over the silent woman. “No use getting the stomach if you don’t clean the blood. Leave that stuff in the blood and the blood hits the brain like a mallet, bang, a couple thousand times and the brain just gives up, just quits.”

“Stop it!” said Montag.

“I was just sayin’,” said the operator.

“Are you done?” said Montag.

…”We’re done.” His anger did not even touch them. They stood with the cigarette smoke curling around their noses and into their eyes without making them blink or squint.

“That’s fifty bucks.”

…”Neither of you is an M.D. Why didn’t they send an M.D. from Emergency?”

“Hell,…you don’t need an M.D., case like this, all you need is two handymen, clean up the problem in half an hour.”

It’s as if an overdose is no more problematic than a leaf-clogged gutter. Just clean it up, and bob’s yer uncle. No need for a doctor, or personalized attention at all. Just send in a couple of guys with a machine.

While I sincerely hope that our health care system will never get to this point, I can relate to the impersonal treatment that Montag’s wife receives. I know not all doctors are like that: bored, indifferent, and kind of rude – but too many of them are. I’ve had appointments with doctors who spent the entire appointment staring at a laptop and barely even glanced at me. I would have bet money that if you’d put me in a line-up five minutes later, they wouldn’t have been able to pick me out.

This passage about schooling in Montag’s world (as spoken by his boss, Beatty) caught my attention too:

“School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected…Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally ‘bright’, and did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn’t it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against.”

Sounds like our modern ideas about social promotion to me. And given that classes are getting larger and that teachers have very little authority over their students, I could see there being a proposal to shorten the school day, lighten the homework requirements, and forego discipline altogether – and I could see that proposal getting some serious consideration, too. I know, and have known, teachers – even English teachers – who have overlooked poor spelling and grammar because “the ideas were good”. They didn’t want to fail a student and deal with angry parents, hurt feelings, or the possibility of having what little authority they do have undermined by an unsupportive administration who passes the kid anyway. I could talk for pages and pages about the bullying epidemic going on in our schools today – and it’s not just the “bright boy” who is being bullied either, there’s a lot of kids who get tormented everyday by their so-called peers for a lot of different reasons, or no reason at all.

And Beatty says this to Montag in regard to books:

“You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right?…Coloured people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book…Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely brilliant with information…And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.”

We still – still! – ban books because the subject matter is upsetting in some way; because the book might bring to light or trigger our less than savoury characteristics and beliefs:  racism, homophobia, cruelty, murder, greed, corruption, religious intolerance, cowardice, rudeness, selfishness, and any number of other flaws. We seem to prefer that the uncomfortable bits of books be taken out, or cleaned up and sanitized. We would rather speak incomprehensible, ‘politically correct’ gibberish to each other than speak plainly, because we don’t want to risk upsetting anyone. We’d rather ban a book (or burn it) than explain it or learn from it.

Montag and Beatty, their observations and explanations, the similarities of their world to mine…this book raises so many questions for me! It makes me wonder, is Ray Bradbury right – are there too many machines now? Are we in the process of building Montag’s world for ourselves? Is our technology helping us, or holding us back?  Are we getting further away from each other despite all the technology that is supposed to make it simpler to come together? Have we developed too many ways for us to escape real life and forget how to be truly human? Are there too many false things to lose ourselves in? Are we going through life with our eyes shut? Do we ever really see anything, or are we just taking a quick glance at things because that’s what everyone else is doing? Are we becoming more stupid, more insipid, more greedy and entitled and remorseless?

Some days, the pessimistic and melancholy days, I think we are up the creek as a species and I simply assume that this vision of ourselves will one day be a reality. Other days I feel hopeful that we’ll be OK, that’ll we’ll stop before it’s too late to take it back, and that we’ll avoid forcing ourselves to live in Montag’s world. But, most days, I wait to see what happens, and I try to keep from becoming part of the problems we have, I try to avoid the things, and behaviour, and stupidities that could lead us to Montag’s world.

I don’t always succeed in this, but I always try.

On June 15, 2011, just as it was becoming clear that the Vancouver Canucks had lost the Stanley Cup final, a car was overturned and set ablaze. Very soon afterwards, the crowds that had gathered peacefully in the Fan Zones downtown – crowds that had been generally well-behaved and respectful so far – turned violent and ugly; a riot broke out.

News of the riot has spread far and wide – an international embarrassment for Vancouver – and nearly everyone has an opinion on the matter ranging from, “Let’s not be hasty – let’s allow the law to deal with these hooligans properly.” to, “String them all up by their toenails and let the firing squad have them.”

I sit closer to the “let the law deal with them” side myself – though I’d like to see some creativity in the punishments (and not the sort that involves bamboo slivers or waterboarding – but I will get to that).

While the riots were (and are) shocking and awful, what I am amazed by now is the use of cellphones and social media to record and “out” the villains who partook in the rioting. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures of the riot, and nearly all of the pictures show other people taking pictures or video recordings at the same time. The rioters have been caught from every angle as have a brave few who tried (and sometimes succeeded) in stopping some of the mayhem and violence.

I know that cellphone cameras and other personal devices capable of recording are legion; everyone has one. Even my cheap little cellphone will take a picture or a video – and these devices are often used to upload status updates to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, blogs of every kind, wikis, YouTube, and dozens of others. The use of social media is so prevalent that it has become a part of everyday life for most people, and nearly all of the rioters allowed their faces to be photographed as they cheered on the destruction or participated in it. They didn’t just get caught running out of stores with loot – many of them stopped and posed as though it were a photo op on the red carpet, as though they were celebrities!

Some of that mindset can be chalked up to feeling anonymous in such a huge crowd – especially when fueled by liquor and the collective adrenaline rush of so many people running amok. Some of this, I think, can also be attributed to being very used to having the things you do recorded for posterity and posted on Facebook, Flickr and the like – being photographed while looting a store, or setting a police car on fire was probably just another photograph to many. A few misguided idiots used these social platforms to brag that they were helping to make history! They were excited, and even proud it seems, to be able to say, “Yeah, I was there – I got hurt; I smashed some stuff up.” It’s a good story to tell, a wild anecdote to share with friends and – I guess – admirers.

These same photos and videos are now being used to “name and shame” the rioters on the Internet in just about every way conceivable – with absolutely no thought other than hunting them down and making them pay. Worse, it’s not just the rioters themselves who are being vilified – their parents, friends, employers and schools are also being raked across the coals. Names and addresses have been published with no regard for the safety of the people who live or work at those addresses. Families have received death threats – it must be the parent’s fault. These young adults, these educated men and women with jobs and rent to pay and ties to the community, would never have done these things if their parents hadn’t been so slack in their duty! Employers have been soundly told off and assured that their business will no longer be frequented – after all, who would shop at a store where the employer was so foolish as to hire a person without first posing interview questions regarding their behaviour in a hypothetical riot?

I’m not saying these rioters aren’t guilty – they are. They are guilty as hell, no question. I firmly believe they should be punished for their stupidity. However, I don’t agree with all the racist comments and threats the rioters have received – even the ones I think have made rather insincere apologies. They will be punished under the law – but I have a feeling no punishment outside of a public whipping and deportation of some kind is going to satisfy the people calling for blood out there.

I don’t recall where I read this (and if anyone finds the source, please point me to it so I can credit them properly) but, one person pointed out that even when the courts have meted out punishment to the instigators and participants of this riot, even when the law says they have paid their debt to society (whatever form that may take), they will continue to be punished online. The photos, the videos, the hateful comments and threats will be there forever, cached somewhere for all time. They will always be “that dude who lit the truck on fire” or “that woman who stole purses from the Coach store” – easy to find by simply Googling their names. That’s a punishment that keeps on giving.

Future employers, friends, lovers etc. will be able to Google a name and see the terrible things these people did. The punishment will be ongoing, probably for the rest of their lives. In conjunction with whatever punishment the courts give out, is that not enough?

Over the last couple of days, I’ve read a few apology letters from the rioters themselves (rioters who turned themselves in to police), and while I am impressed that they owned up to their misdeeds and will be appropriately punished by the law, I found the apologies themselves a little lacking – particularly in the case of one young lady who started out with a very thorough apology to absolutely everyone, and then followed it up with a lengthy justification of her actions.

Here are few excerpts (original spelling, grammar and formatting has been left intact):

Why don’t I think I deserve all this treatment?

Because for one, I’ve admitted to my mistakes, two, I am ready to deal with the consequences in a judicial manner, and three, because (may I remind you that) I am responsible for theft – a fairly minor action compared to vandalism and arson. Please remember and understand that I am not responsible for the riot.

I did not vandalize any buildings.
I did not set fire on anything.
I did not break any glass.
I did not instigate the riot.
I did not physically harm anybody.
I did not jump on any cop cars.
I did not even plan on being in the riot.

On any regular day I would not condone looting.

However, at the time of the riot everything just seemed so right.

At the time, being a part of the riot was simply to fulfill the adrenaline rush I was looking and hoping for – an adrenaline rush that I previously got from post-winning games: hugging randoms, dancing on the streets, honking car horns non-stop, and high-fiving just about everybody.  In the same way that everybody enjoyed collectively showing pride in our team, it was enjoyable to express my disappointment in a collective manor.

I had no intentions of defiling the city.  I love Vancouver as much as you do – I’ve lived here since I was 7 months old.  But in my immature, intoxicated perspective all I saw was that the riot was happening, and would continue happening with or without me, so I might as well get my adrenaline fix.

She also says that stealing a pair of men’s size 42 dress pants from Black & Lee was “purely fun” and justifies that too:

…My train of thought at this point was that “the place is already broken into, most of the contents of the store have already been stolen, so what difference does it make if I take a couple things?”

She uses the riots as a very misguided way to show her “feminist” side and roundly castigates all those misogynists out there:

Here’s another thing that bothers me: why is everybody so surprised that a female partook in the riot?  What is with this attitude that females are incapable of doing what men can do?  Maybe it takes an event like this to show you misogynists that woman are fully capable of anything you can do.  And if my actions lead to that revelation in your obscure little heads, then maybe it’s a good thing that I partook in this event.

This part really got to me. I agree that her actions in the riot were equally stupid to the actions of the men taking part in the riot – but that hardly makes her a feminist. A public apology for participating in a riot is not the right time to call yourself a feminist for participating in said riot. It was most certainly not a good idea that she partook in that travesty – her involvement doesn’t send any kind of good message to anyone whatsoever.

On the bright side, she did try to rescue some trees:

I am majoring in Conservation Biology at [redacted].  I strongly belirve in ecological conservation and sustainability.  That night, I saw a few  people that were trying to knock trees down.  So what did I do?  I yelled at them, saying “Pleaaseee, not the treees!!!!”  And what did they do?  They stopped.  And I felt like a hero.

A hero who participated in a riot, looted a store and laughed about it on film. Brilliant.

Her attempts to explain her actions (I still think it reads like a justification) gives me little reason to believe in the sincerity of her apology – but she’s made it. So, now we wait for the courts to punish those caught red-handed and those who turned themselves in – and I hope that punishment is more than a mere slap on the wrist and a fine, but more creative than jail time. Here’s what I would like to see:

Community service

And not just picking up garbage downtown or serving food at a shelter either. I’d like to see these fools working with the businesses they destroyed. A couple of unpaid retail shifts a week to help pay for the damage and insurance deductibles, along with a direct apology to the store owners and staff. I would also like to see them clean up after other major events in Vancouver – the Festival of Lights, any parades,  and any other large gatherings of any kind where people litter copiously. It might give them some small idea of how awful it is to clean up other people’s messes.

Counseling

I know, there are psychologists who say that it wasn’t entirely the rioters fault – that there is such a thing as mob mentality, and it is possible to get caught up in it and do something really stupid. I’m not even necessarily disagreeing (I haven’t got a psych degree, what do I know?) but I still think the people who are charged should have to undergo a year of counseling by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist and learn to truly accept their actions (no excuses of any kind!) and learn proper empathy and compassion for other people and other people’s belongings. I also believe that they should have to refrain from drinking during this time. If alcohol was that much of a factor, then clearly, these people do not understand what “drink responsibly” actually means. Until they do, no alcohol. Period.

Making reparations

Financially, some of this can be covered with community service as I stated above, but I would also like for those caught and punished to spend some time visiting with those injured or affected by the riots. This includes in person apologies to law enforcement, medical staff and all the individuals negatively hurt by this incident. Perhaps looking into the eyes of the man who was beaten outside of the Bay, or at the four year old girl whose father was punched in the face trying to protect her and get her out of the riot area, or at the people in hospital with cuts, bruises, stab wounds, burns and broken limbs would help them understand the true extent of their participation. It wasn’t just a pair of pants you stole (or a purse, or a mannequin leg, or anything else) – you took away people’s sense of safety and community. You contributed to their injuries and fear. If your excuse is, “Everyone else was doing it.”, remember that someone saw you doing it too, and used you as their excuse.

A proper thank you

I would also like to see all those punished for being part of the riot work together to help plan, and put on, a proper and public thank you for those who deserve it: law enforcement, medical staff, city workers, firefighters, the volunteer clean up crew, the brave few who stood up and said, “You can’t do this – not in my city.” to the looters and rioters, the TransLink drivers who did their best to ferry people out of danger, the security staff from various buildings downtown who helped the injured and protected property, the lovely people who helped others get out and helped attend to injuries when paramedics couldn’t get through the crowds, the people who jumped in to defend those being beaten, and even for the police dogs who braved streets of broken glass to help their handlers get things under control.

I think a big, alcohol free, thank you to all these people is in order – put on by those who made it necessary for the aforementioned to put themselves in harm’s way. And, of course, these party planners would also be responsible for the clean up afterwards.

That is what I would like to see – a meaningful punishment that puts them smack in the middle of the community they so recklessly ruined. Let’s not clog up prison cells with these people, or debate for months and maybe even years, over this. Let’s not spend taxpayer money on endless and dreary court hearings – let’s put things back together, hold those responsible personally accountable and ensure that this sort of disgraceful display of juvenile idiocy never happens again.

I was just reading a blog post, The real life drama of the tween, by my cousin Carri on her website Solas. Her blog post is in response to a Facebook posting by one of her friends that read as follows:

“What the hell am I supposed to do about my skinny 10 year old begging me to let her go on a diet? I have told her again and again that she’s not fat that she is skinny but she’s not believing me. Any suggestions?”

Is this really the state of things now? Ten year old girls who feel so crappy about their bodies that they beg to go on diets?

But, then I think back to being ten, about the little clique of mean girls in my class who made fun of my clothes, my hair, my lack of fashion and verve and chic. These little girls had the super cool jelly shoes, their cute pink runners were covered in friendship pins, their arms were festooned with the jelly bracelets that were so popular. Me? Not so much. Even my sturdy and serviceable school supplies were fodder for these girls! They had Tweety Bird Trapper-Keepers and pencil cases covered in the coolest cartoon characters. I had normal pencils and plain plastic binders.

I remember feeling so angry that my mother refused to spend the extra cash on the cooler stuff – I didn’t care if it broke or lasted or not, I just wanted to be like everyone else.

I wanted to be prettier, more fashionable, I wanted boys to think I was pretty and smart (but not too smart, not smarter than him anyway).  I was always skinny as a kid, and later that became an issue too. All my friends started getting boobs and I remained flat-chested. They started to have curves, and I had the shape of a ruler. Even being skinny didn’t make me happy.

Maybe it isn’t so far-fetched after all that ten year old girls feel pressured to look a certain way – we pressure each other into unrealistic behaviour and expectations all the time.

I’ve sometimes wished I could travel back in time and tell my ten year old self (and some of my older selves too) a few things:

1. The people making fun of you are not happy with themselves either. They are making fun of you so you won’t have the chance to make fun of them first.
2. Being smart is awesome (I think it’s cooler now to be smart anyway, but I could be wrong).
3. While others spend their lives chasing trends and purchasing the latest gadgets to look cool, you will actually be cool by not wasting your time and money.  This stuff becomes obsolete and passé faster than you can pay it off, so if you don’t actually need it, re-think buying it.
4. If you have a passion for something, pursue it – and don’t let anyone, not even your parents, discourage you.
5. Being a jerk to other people will not make you feel better about yourself. The little high you get from spreading your misery doesn’t last.
6. Don’t bother with magazines that tell you how to look or act to please someone else. Read a science magazine or a good book instead.
7. Starving yourself will make you tired, mean and unhappy. Don’t do it.
8. You only get the one set of eyes, so if you need glasses, wear them. You don’t look dorky.
9. Wear whatever you feel happiest in and remember, all those other girls in the skinny jeans and tight tops are horribly uncomfortable and self-conscious.
10. It’s OK to listen to music you actually like and to listen to lots of different kinds of music. It’s good to have broader tastes than the just the top 40.
11. The people you see on TV and in magazines don’t look like that in real life. They look perfect because they have a team of make-up artists, professional photographers, special lighting and an army of Photoshop experts working on them. It’s not real and it’s not worth striving for.
12. It’s OK to stop being friends with people who are never there for you, or have no interest in your life or you as a person. Be polite, but save your friendship for people who really care about you, and for whom you really care in return.

I would also tell my younger self that once you get to university, things begin to change for the better. The little cliques and self-important assholes you went to school with either move away (hurrah!) or go to the same school, but are suddenly a lot less important.

In university, you’re still going to meet a lot of jackasses, but their hoity-toity, holier-than-thou crap will be largely academic snobbery – and that is always amusing to laugh at. Later, in the work force, you’ll meet more people who never really left elementary school or high school in terms of how they think. They will still be bullies, still never listen to anyone but themselves and their little crowd of butt-kissers and they will still be miserable.

You won’t be able to change any of them, but you can choose to not become one of them.

So, ten year old (and current) self, be happy. Don’t worry about trying to please people you don’t actually like – you will never win that battle. Wear what you want, follow your passions, eat cheese fries sometimes and let the mean people of this world just pass you by.