(Editor's Note: On Aug 16, 2018 Katharine Otto posted an article entitled, "What Rules the Rulers?" on WriterBeat. A comment was posted by the author of this presentation, which I felt was worth publishing, and he's graciously given me permission to do so. RK)
Dystopic novels are usually part of the English readings in middle school, at least in the public school system that I attended. Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature where paper ignites) by Ray Bradbury is also among the dystopic novels used. The attempt is to expose young readers to the idea of governments that have gone way too far. Fahrenheit 451 has “firemen” whose sole purpose is to destroy books that might give the citizens ideas about how the government ought to behave.
Brave New World, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451 all have similar themes of governments that have taken control of almost every aspect of human behavior. Controlling what people read is a common theme, because, at least in the time of those writers, written material was the main method of transferring knowledge.
None of the authors, to my knowledge, could foresee something like the internet, and I cannot blame them for that. We are entering a phase of humanity that has replaced books to a large degree, and that will only grow. People like myself prefer books to understand things, but more and more citizens (young people) are relying on electronic books for news and information.
It has been proven in study after study, that if a student has to write things down, they capture more of the content, learn more, and retain more of the content. Despite the growing evidence that reading from a book and writing down the ideas and content are better, educational institutions are relying more and more on electronic sources.
I fear that the reliance on electronic sources will yield citizens who do not understand as much as those who had to read books and handwrite facts and content. Add to lack of understanding the fake news and ideologically-driven content found on the internet and you have citizens who lack an understanding of concepts, as well as their beliefs in false information. Critical thinking and literary criticism are becoming skills that students and governments find less than useful.
We already have Incels, who are convinced that sex should be provided by the government, and I would bet serious money that they got their information on their situation from the internet, and no other sources. As young people are exposed to more and more false information, and their abilities to critically examine ideas diminishes, they are going to believe and defend concepts that would not have gained any support in an environment of critical thinking and historical context.
Most of the governments in the dystopian novels take a dim view of history, and that is a critical point when indoctrinating the citizens to believe the nonsense that the governments of those novels want the public to believe. I also refer you to the deniers of the Holocaust, some of which have attempted to put forth their deranged view of history on this very website.
As one of them wrote in one of my responses, “I’ll debate you all day on the Holocaust” when, in fact, there is nothing to debate. The denial of history and the lack of critical thinking is the beginning of societies where citizens are indoctrinated into believing everything the government tells them, without question. I would like to believe that we have not entered the point of no return, but the march of ignorance and belief of internet nonsense is slowly taking over.
As Nietzsche said: “Convictions have done more to distort the truth than have lies.”
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