Wednesday, November 05, 2014

A World Where Everyone Is Always Right

Off the Shelf -  By Etinosa Agbonlahor | Tuesday, November 04, 2014 


 In a recent interview, Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) states, “We live in a time when it’s not okay to say the truth and then learn you were wrong later.” As the Internet and its cornucopia of readily accessible information grows more entrenched in our daily lives, it’s hard to imagine how people found out where to eat, reach a destination, or hypnotize chickens without Google. 
There’s a creeping fear of having the wrong information, holding the “wrong” beliefs, or just not being in the know. After all, how can you not get the joke in this ad, understand the deal with , or have an opinion about Ebola and immigration when decisive opinions already exist all over the Internet for you? 
In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury imagines an opposite world, one in which information is severely limited, books are anathema, and Montag, the protagonist, is a fireman who starts fires instead of putting them out.
What’s interesting about this novel is that despite imagining a radically different scenario in terms of how much information people can access, the dystopian world of Fahrenheit 451 is only slightly removed from ours. -  More

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