CelticBear’s Musings

This is hilarious, and terribly sad:

Houston Community Newspapers Online – Parent criticizes book ‘Fahrenheit 451′

“It’s just all kinds of filth,” said Alton Verm, adding that he had not read “Fahrenheit 451.” “The words don’t need to be brought out in class. I want to get the book taken out of the class.”
He looked through the book and found the following things wrong with the book: discussion of being drunk, smoking cigarettes, violence, “dirty talk,” references to the Bible and using God’s name in vain. He said the book’s material goes against their religions beliefs.

Now if you weren’t fortunate enough to read Fahrenheit 451 in school (or didn’t pay attention,) please at least read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

I find it pathetically fascinating that the man takes the time to search through the book looking for evil language and references to evil acts and completely ignores the book itself. If he’d bothered to read the book while searching for puriant and terrible content, maybe he’d realize the point of the book is that it’s a warning against the sanitization of culture, the lobotomization of society, that comes hand-in-hand with with ridding the culture of any art that might offend someone, anyone, or challenge beliefs or values.

Books like Fahrenheit 451 MUST be read in high school if not middle school, because what are the chances that once the average person leaves school they will be exposed to challenging concepts about society and speech and civics and freethought? That girl is going to grow up sheltered and incapable of actually being able to THINK, and be doomed to be a sheep following whatever the people she puts in authority over her life (or put there FOR her) tell her.

Books like Fahrenheit 451, and Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World and Michael Shermer’s Why People Believe Weird Things, and George Orwell’s 1984, should be read before a kid goes out into the world. Before college. Used to be college was THE place where the kid, away from home, could be exposed to different cultures and values and philosophies and concepts….but nowadays religious groups have so litigated the collegiate world to force their beliefs to be given unfair weight and nullified the effects of multi-cultural, multi-philisophical diversity, that it’s entirely possible for a college student to go through and avoid anything that would challenge their entrenched beliefs before spitting them out into society vaguely book-learned but not at all developed. Unskilled in skepticism or critical thinking, unable to think for themselves, they can remain ensconced in their protective bubble of ideology. Then they become Republican thocrats or “concerned citizens” who force school boards to “teach the controversy” that darn well doesn’t exist, or listen to televangelists who offer nothing more than worthless aphorisms and arrogant confirmation of their own intolarant and ignorant beliefs in exhange for their money and their self-determination. To die having contributed nothing to the improvement and development of humanity except to add fuel to strife and ideological conflict and inter-religious war and cultural sanitization.

So the book contains “damn” and “hell” and other oh-so-naughty words. Get over it. A word is nothing but a series of sounds we provide meaning to. A word has no power in and of itself. Power comes from the thoughts and intent behind the words, and the actions rhetoric prompts. And you can use words to explore the whole range of human experience, to encourage exploration and the value of discovery. To challenge and grow and question and examine everything from theology and politics, to actual statesmanship and the pursuit of widsom. Or you can use words to encourage ignorance and denial and delusions. To hide your awareness in the sand of self-righteousness and pray the bad boogey-monsters of reality go away.

Wake up, Sheep of Ignorance! Embrace challenges to your beliefs and learn from them! Grow and develop into thinking, critical people involved in the world around you.

Or at least go on your own and stop trying to dictate the ignorance of those who are affected by your actions of anti-intellectualism, anti-science, and anti-reality.