“War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” ~ George Orwell, 1984
There are a great many things that people take for granted. For instance, people flip a switch and expect the lights to come on, or turn on the tap and see water coming out of the spout. People also expect to go to the grocery store and see row after row of goods to purchase. There are a lot of things people take for granted, but if I were to ask people what it is that they take for granted I’m betting that I wouldn’t hear anyone say books.
There are 3 ways in which people can communicate with one another; express ideas. There are images; such as photographs and paintings; there are verbal transmissions; such as speeches or music; then there is the written word; which is the category books fall into. A book, therefore, is merely a written record of ideas or information, transmitted for others to read.
Books fall into two general categories; fiction and non-fiction; with each having subcategories of their own. For instance, non-fiction books may be history books, biographies, or how to books; books that teach you a specific skill. Fiction books might cover topics such as science fiction; as is the case with books like Dune, or the Foundation series by Isaac Asimov. Fiction might also include dramas, love stories, or thrillers.
Regardless of all the different categories of books, they all serve but one of two functions; to transmit ideas or knowledge, or to entertain. A good book can, therefore, be gauged by how well they accomplish the intended goal of the author. However, it is not always the author’s fault if a book does not accomplish the intended goal; the person reading the book has to be able to think about what they are reading for the message to get across clearly. I could take a book, any book, and hand it to a 3 year old, and it would not be the authors fault if the child didn’t understand the words written within it.
When we send our children off to school we hope, we expect that the schools will teach them how to read, how to understand, how to think about the words they read in books and other documents. The purpose of schools should be to expand the knowledge of our children; to teach them how to use their minds to question and analyze facts and data. However, I have found that this is not the case; at least it is no longer the case.
When our son was born my wife and I took a proactive role in preparing him for school. As soon as our son could sit upright on his own my wife began showing him flashcards that contained the alphabet or numbers. You have to understand, my wife is Filipina; therefore her English was not as good as mine. Yet by the time our son was 4 he was reading Dr. Seuss books all by himself; and he could count to a million on his own.
So, when our son finally went to kindergarten we weren’t surprised when his teacher told us that she was impressed with his reading and mathematical skills. Unfortunately, as my son made his way through the school system, not once was he given a book to read; and more importantly, he was never asked to do a book report on anything he’d read…NOT ONCE! I asked his teachers about this as he progressed through the school system and they told me that they do not want to overburden the children with homework. Although I did not realize it at the time, I think that is where the germ of the idea that our schools do not teach our children how to think; they teach them what to think was first planted into my mind.
When I made my way through the public school system, all those many moons ago, I recall being given a book to read by my teacher, and being told I had a week, or two, to read it; and upon completing it I was to hand in a book report on it. This process went on for most of my time in the school system; ending when I entered high school. I can’t honestly say whether they did that to ensure that I’d read the book, or if it was to gauge how much I thought about what I had read.
I’m not saying that I always enjoyed reading some of the books I was assigned to read; Charlotte’s Web sucked, as far as I’m concerned. However, there were some books that I thoroughly enjoyed; books that reached way down into my soul and touched me in ways I’d never dreamed of. It wasn’t always full length novels that I was required to read either; sometimes it was short stories, or novellas.
I still recall, as if it were yesterday, the first time I read Of Mice and Men, or Flowers for Algernon; how they made me sad. I also remember how the book Johnny Got His Gun, by Dalton Trumbo terrified me; yet I was unable to put it down. My parents also nurtured my love of books by buying me books to read; such as the Sherlock Holmes stories, and books containing Greek mythology.
Had the schools done to me what they did to my son, that love of books would have withered and died; but back then the schools were different than they are today; and things are progressively getting worse. By the time I had entered high school I had read many of, what I consider to be, the classics; Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Brave New World, Nineteen-Eighty Four, and the book I wish to discuss now; Fahrenheit 451.
When I was a kid books were still a common item to find in homes; which is not so common these days. Yet I truly believe that, although a child may read some of the above mentioned books, their minds are not yet sufficiently developed to grasp the subtleties contained within them. The first time I read Fahrenheit 451, I thought it was unimaginable a society in which books were banned; and that firemen would go around burning them because government did not want people to read things that might make them think about how lifeless their lives really were. Now, close to 50 years later, I can see that basic idea happening right before my very eyes; making Bradbury’s work almost prophetic.
Although I still read the occasional fiction novel, most of my time spent reading these days is for historical fact. When I first began this endeavor I found that I had difficulty making sense of what I was reading; the people who lived and wrote back in the early years of our country wrote much differently than people do today; in ways that demand you pay strict attention to both the words being used, and the grammar they used in the writing of those documents.
There is an author whose books I thoroughly enjoy reading, his name is James Rollins. Rollins writes fictional stories that combine both science and historical fact, and usually revolve around a life threatening crisis that a group called Sigma has to prevent from ending life on the planet. I can read a Rollin’s novel in about a day; and they are typically around 400 pages long. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, which is over a thousand pages, took a bit longer; about two days. Stephen King’s 11/22/63, about how a time traveler named Jake Epping tried to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy is also over a thousand pages, yet once I began reading it I couldn’t put it down; reading it in a marathon session of about 14 hours.
Yet the notes from the Virginia Ratifying Assembly are about the same length as a Rollins novel, and I can only read about 30 pages a day without developing a headache; for they require much more focus and concentration than a fiction novel – they require much more THOUGHT.
So, the first time I read Fahrenheit 451 I breezed through it in a day or so; having to devote some of my time to other homework as well. Yet as a youth of about 10-11 yrs old the story was more important than specific passages, or ideas that Bradbury was trying to express. That cannot be said today; as every time I re-read that book passages jump out at me; making me say things like Holy Cow!
One such passage occurs as Guy Montag, the primary character of the novel, meets Professor Faber and brings him, what Montag believes to be, the last remaining copy of the Holy Bible. As I was re-reading that novel again last night, something Faber said jumped out at me and caused one of those Holy Shit moments, “The whole culture’s shot through. The skeleton needs melting and reshaping. Good God, it isn’t as simple as picking up a book you laid down half a century ago. Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.”
While that may not be totally accurate, people still read, it is what they read; the format that they utilize, and what is available for them to read that has changed. Let’s begin with the format. People these days are just as likely to read books online as they are to go buy a hardcover copy. This has led to the closure of book stores due to lost sales. Just as a woman can spend hours browsing through rack after rack of clothing, a lover of books could spend hours browsing the shelves of their favorite bookstore; looking for something tantalizing to read. Those days are slowly going the way of the dodo.
Next up is what people are reading. When J.K. Rowling published her first Harry Potter book it skyrocketed up to the top of the charts; as did the Hunger Games books, and the Twilight Series; about a bunch of teenage vampires. Yet a factually accurate book on, say the Civil War, or the drafting and ratification of the Constitution would sell far fewer copies.
This shows me that people are much more interested in being entertained than they are learning something about the history of the country they inhabit. Even the few history books that do sell well are often historically inaccurate, or they sell well because the people recognize the name of the author, and trust them. Such is the case with the books written by people such as Glenn Beck, Bill O Reilly, and Sean Hannity; they sell because people recognize the authors.
Finally, what is available for people to read has changed. When I first began studying the past, researching factually accurate records of what happened centuries ago, I could find books in the stores, or online which provided factually accurate source documents and quotes. That is becoming increasingly difficult; especially online. Web pages that I had bookmarked for future use have been taken down, and I’m lucky that I had saved a lot of what I had found to Word documents before those pages were taken down.
For instance, how many of you have heard of the Anti-Federalist who wrote under the pseudonym of Centinel? When I was doing my own research I found 15 of his essays online; and saved them for my own personal use. Now you can’t find any reference to them using search engines such as Google; they have been scrubbed from the internet. Little did I know, Centinel had written more than 15 essays, and my friend Mike Gaddy was kind enough to send me all of them. Those essays are available in book form on Amazon…if you’re willing to pay $900 for them.
It is my sincere belief that there is a war being fought against knowledge; against the truth. Our school systems certainly aren’t teaching our children the truth about their country’s past; and that has been going on since I made my way through the public fool system; it’s only gotten worse as time has passed.
Not only do schools not teach the truth, they teach our children not to question what they have been taught; to denigrate and insult those who speak the truth in opposition to the lies people are being taught. Our schools also do not provide our children with the critical thinking tools so that they could understand the truth; if they happen to stumble across it. My friend Mike also told me that the attention span of most people these days, in regards to anything factual in nature, is limited to about 1200 words. Hell, the Constitution has over 4,000 words; meaning it is beyond the ability of most people to read, and comprehend.
That is why Fahrenheit 451 is the most terrifying book I’ve ever read; as I see the premise Bradbury writes about happening right before my very eyes. Those who seek out, and speak the truth, are condemned by a society that cares more about pleasure and entertainment than they do facts and knowledge.
In closing, I would like to leave you with two quotes, and if possible, I would like for you to utilize your minds for their intended purposes and think long and hard about what they say. The first quote comes from James Madison, to so-called Father of the Constitution, and reads, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both.”
The second quote comes from the man who led Russia into communism, Vladimir Lenin, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”
I’m not going to explain what I think those quotes mean, I want you to think about them yourselves, and then ask yourself why you are so deficient in knowledge, and why the truth is so unimportant to you; for it is the lack of truth that is the underlying cause of all the problems this country currently faces; and no matter who you elect, or what we do as a people, until that is remedied things are only going to go from bad to worse.
~ The Author ~
Neal Ross, Student of history, politics, patriot and staunch supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Send all comments to: [email protected].