Yesterday Stuart, my son, gave me Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury to read. I wasn't that keen as it is set in a bleak dystopian future, and I am on holiday after all. But being the dutiful mother that I am, I complied, and I'm glad I did. It was first published in 1951, in the dark days of McCarthyism where individual liberties were being destroyed under the guise of making the world safe for democracy- one of the many great ironies of the Cold War. Creativity was stifled as the witch-hunt for communists scoured Hollywood and other creative industries. Obviously there are also echoes of Stalin's attempts at thought control and mass manipulation. He creates implied links between the book-burnings undertaken by the Nazis and the suppression of thought and questioning during this period in the US. I was reminded of the famous comment, 'Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.'
Also featured in the novel is another way to get people to stop thinking that is still so relevant today - to crowd thought out with inanities- endless, meaningless chatter from the TV and other modes of mass communication, the cult of celebrities, narcissistic postings of selfies instead of a curious eye looking beyond one's own image, and governments taking more and more control, limiting people's rights while ostensibly keeping them safe from innumerable external threats. One can see many examples from history and yet it seems we dismiss these lessons and blunder on.
Humans have developed and progressed through their ability to communicate and therefore we have established collective learning over thousands of years, rather than having to reinvent the wheel each time. Yet, there is so much that we ignore from the past. But some lessons should never be forgotten. On ANZAC day, the motto is always 'Lest we forget' which is very powerful. And I guess why I have always been interested in Holocaust studies is because it is THE most powerful lesson of the 20th century of man's potential to be incredibly inhumane- and I've never quite been able to get my head around it. And yet, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, man's indomitable spirit emerges.
Bradbury writes, "Even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us...... And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddam steam shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them."
So I guess that we have to keep on remembering - the bad and the good. Those awful perpetrators; those tragic victims; those who turned away as it wasn't their problem; those amazingly courageous people who made it their problem; and the incredible survivors who continue to provide testimony to ensure that we don't forget. And let's take those powerful lessons from the past, and try to be kinder to each other, more accepting and reach out to each other. We always have a choice and I have been really heartened by the Twitter hashtag #illridewithyou in response to the awful hostage siege in Sydney yesterday. Vilifying a group of people because of the actions of a single person is a slippery slope to hatred and persecution, and we can do better than that. And while there are people out there using social media in such a positive way, and it's gone viral, it's evident that there is still so much kindness and goodwill in people that can be tapped into. Maybe some lasting good will endure from this awful hostage event. And here's to remembering.
Also featured in the novel is another way to get people to stop thinking that is still so relevant today - to crowd thought out with inanities- endless, meaningless chatter from the TV and other modes of mass communication, the cult of celebrities, narcissistic postings of selfies instead of a curious eye looking beyond one's own image, and governments taking more and more control, limiting people's rights while ostensibly keeping them safe from innumerable external threats. One can see many examples from history and yet it seems we dismiss these lessons and blunder on.
Humans have developed and progressed through their ability to communicate and therefore we have established collective learning over thousands of years, rather than having to reinvent the wheel each time. Yet, there is so much that we ignore from the past. But some lessons should never be forgotten. On ANZAC day, the motto is always 'Lest we forget' which is very powerful. And I guess why I have always been interested in Holocaust studies is because it is THE most powerful lesson of the 20th century of man's potential to be incredibly inhumane- and I've never quite been able to get my head around it. And yet, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, man's indomitable spirit emerges.
Bradbury writes, "Even when we had the books on hand, a long time ago, we didn't use what we got out of them. We went right on insulting the dead. We went right on spitting in the graves of all the poor ones who died before us...... And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. And some day we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddam steam shovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in and cover it up. Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them."
So I guess that we have to keep on remembering - the bad and the good. Those awful perpetrators; those tragic victims; those who turned away as it wasn't their problem; those amazingly courageous people who made it their problem; and the incredible survivors who continue to provide testimony to ensure that we don't forget. And let's take those powerful lessons from the past, and try to be kinder to each other, more accepting and reach out to each other. We always have a choice and I have been really heartened by the Twitter hashtag #illridewithyou in response to the awful hostage siege in Sydney yesterday. Vilifying a group of people because of the actions of a single person is a slippery slope to hatred and persecution, and we can do better than that. And while there are people out there using social media in such a positive way, and it's gone viral, it's evident that there is still so much kindness and goodwill in people that can be tapped into. Maybe some lasting good will endure from this awful hostage event. And here's to remembering.
