Ray Bradbury’s satirical novel Fahrenheit 451 suggests that technology will abolish critical thinking. This is a skill that Americans use less and less. We have an endless supply of information at hand with 24 hour news: online newspapers, blogs, online magazines, radio and TV. And what to we watch? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR3fkgFfrFo&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qvz9jyf4gUk&feature=related Here we are in the depths of the information age, and we have become complacent with the information we are fed.
Americans primarily watch news and commentary that they agree with (very little, if any news is unbiased). http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php News commentary shows have become so popular precisely because they allow us to avoid thinking critically about these ideas. They interpret facts and tell us what to think about them. We have come to trust these shows, their news agencies, and our information system. This trust keeps us from feeling the need to re-interpret the information we get. Compare this with the behavior of news consumers in the middle-east where they know they cannot trust the news they get. http://www.muslimwestfacts.com/mwf/110512/Middle-EastNorth-Africa-Relies-Many-News-Sources.aspx People in these countries are more likely to consume opinions that they disagree with. Knowing that the information that they get requires them to sift through what they do get in order to extract what truth there is. This requires critical thinking. It isn’t that our technology and relative personal and political stability has made us stupid, it has made us lazy. If we don’t need to use these skills, then we won’t. It’s sort of Darwinian.
Ray Bradbury’s book is satire and satire usually pulls a situation beyond its own reality in order to prove the point. But could this happen? Could our government decide that censorship is in our best interest and burn or ban books? Would we support such an action? Some would argue that the First Amendment prevents that from happening, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t happen. We have once given up our rights for a personal sense of safety and security. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf It could happen again.
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