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GrandmaPoses t1_iu26g4i wrote

Reply to comment by open_closet in TIL that Fahrenheit 451, a book about a distopian future where books are banned and burned, was banned and burned by the apartheid regime in South Africa with other tens of thousands. by open_closet

Yeah the book is more a critique of modern pop culture than anything but - proving the book’s message - the actual meaning has been buried under the more sensational and easy to digest “they burn books in the future”.

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Swellmeister t1_iu30fmk wrote

No. It's because the original message is drivel "People became too stupid to read, all cuz of TV!" Hurrdurr. What a childish reactionary story, repeated a thousand times throughout the ages without a lack of truth.

"People will selfcensor because it's easier than thinking" is actually thought provoking, and quite easily found in the book, even if Bradbury didn't intend it.

Bradbury wanted there to be one theme. That doesn't mean the book doesn't have a better, more intelligent theme in it.

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naraic42 t1_iu4jn8u wrote

>"People became too stupid to read, all cuz of TV!"

I mean, is he wrong? People used to read Dickens novels to their kids, now he's considered a slog to read. In the case study of yours truly, I used to read shitloads of books - then along came TV, games, and internet, and all the quickfire instant gratification with it. Now I can barely do a chapter of a book before losing focus. Fast paced shallow entertainment is shortening attention spans, and the ability to digest longform content.

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Swellmeister t1_iu4p88z wrote

Counterpoint. Dickens is a slog to read.

And reading is not a magical source of information or intellect. There are significantly powerful stories to be told in video games and television and people eat it up. Senua's sacrifice won goddamn awards, and thats a story that cannot exist in any print medium, and only house of leaves comes close and its still not as good. The point Bradbury is makingthat people became vacuous idiots. And there is amble proof that it's a stupid ignorant point.

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nomagneticmonopoles t1_iu4taj5 wrote

I'm not disagreeing about the value of the stories in other media, but wouldn't TikTok and the general push towards shorter videos and more digestible content be exactly the confirmation of Bradbury's hypothesis? Media is dumbed down by becoming less verbose, and in doing so, meaning is lost.

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Swellmeister t1_iu97fxk wrote

No. It's only the first half of his theme. "People will consume information in smaller bits" it still lacks the second half "and that will make them willfully stupid".

In essence they do the opposite. The drive for knowledge is a large part of what tiktok does well. People in this age have access to greater knowledge than ever before and they are taking advantage of it greater than Bradbury could have ever imagined

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naraic42 t1_iudz4cc wrote

There's much more information. I'm not sure how much more actual knowledge there is...

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Gizogin t1_iu52ccl wrote

Except that the older generations have been complaining of this for literal centuries, and it’s just kind of meaningless. New forms of media supplant old ones all the time, and it isn’t inherently a bad thing.

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