{"id":276,"date":"2019-05-28T11:20:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T15:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/?p=276"},"modified":"2019-05-23T18:54:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-23T22:54:34","slug":"the-value-of-thought-in-the-modern-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/the-value-of-thought-in-the-modern-age\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Thought in the Modern Age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Society both craves instant gratification, and antagonizes melancholy. Consequently, laziness and procrastination are abundant, like an eerily quiet disease that disguises itself with symptoms of happiness and joy. Thus how wise it is, to be the destroyer of such a disease. Unfortunately, in modern society, the purveyor of the disease is, none other than the media. I was recently rereading Fahrenheit 451, and noticed that Bradbury also states that \u201cNot everyone is born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone is <em>made <\/em>equal.\u201d There are clearly multiple analogies with modern society. However, the conflict is that the media is not purely a bad thing. In fact, books are essential to Montag, the main character, because they give to him the truth in its bare form, emanating the history which happened so long ago, not what the propaganda the government or other institution wants. Expressive, unadulterated media is an essential component of a free society. Media today, however, is a means of further tightening the grip of the powerful on society. Without reading a real history book, not a simplified digest of information that the government provides. Yet in society, do these truths really matter? The cognition of these facts have no importance to a great society, as the average man simply does not care. Bradbury famously said, \u201c\u2018The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour\u2026. Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don\u2019t step on the toes of the dog lovers, the cat lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, [etc.] \u2026 There was no dictum [to stop writing], no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.\u2019 \u2026 \u2018With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers, instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word \u2018intellectual,\u2019 of course, became the swear word it deserved to be\u2026. [By limiting books,] Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against\u2026. People want to be happy, isn\u2019t that right? Haven\u2019t you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren\u2019t they? Don\u2019t we keep them moving, don\u2019t we give them fun? That\u2019s all we live for, isn\u2019t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.\u2019\u201d This specific passage so enthralled me because it nearly perfectly aligns with our society and culture here in America today. The fact that Bradbury wrote this sixty-three years ago (in 1953 when Fahrenheit 451 was published) highlights his genius. The book is an incredible piece, and is eerily accurate with its predictions of what modern society would look like.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Society both craves instant gratification, and antagonizes melancholy. Consequently, laziness and procrastination are abundant, like an eerily quiet disease that disguises itself with symptoms of happiness and joy. Thus how wise it is, to be the destroyer of such a disease. Unfortunately, in modern society, the purveyor of the disease is, none other than the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sahilnawab.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}