Education and Empowerment: To Read or Not To Read

Education and Empowerment: To Read or Not to Read

In a society of reality TV, online social networking, and instant gratification we are pumping out generation after generation of Americans that lack both the interest and ability to fully understand and enjoy classic literature. Once seen as a privilege, and recognized as a tool that could literally improve a person’s standing in life, reading is now viewed as boring or burdensome. It scary to think but I believe we are heading towards a dystopian society that will rival those we read about in Brave New World, 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

Although each of the novels offer a different explanation as to why their society has stopped reading, it becomes painfully obvious that for each of this societies

the lack of reading and knowledge left the people vulnerable to being controlled. In Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451 the fire department is charged with task of burning all books. People are not allowed to have books because they believed that books were the cause of conflict among the population, making it impossible for them to achieve peace and harmony. (Bradbury) In George Orwell’s 1984 history has in essence been rewritten by the government to fit their agenda. Critical reading has completely been phased out, and replaced with easy, leisurely reading such as comic books. Nothing of substance, nothing what would trigger thought. (Orwell)

In my opinion Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is very reflective of our society. In this novel people are conditioned to have a natural dislike of reading anything that requires critical thinking, or deals with any subject of a serious nature. They actually have no yearning for anything of real substance. (Huxley) Between media conditioning via new, advertising and television the average American forms opinions and misconceptions about many topics and issues without realizing that they are being manipulated to think a certain way. We are constantly conditioned to be good high yielding consumers. We buy televisions, and then we buy the things we see on television. We buy computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy sneakers that cost $150.00 without questioning whether we need them or not and when they fall apart we blow another $150.00 without consider if the value is equal to what we are paying. (Gato)

Michael Moore makes a good point in Idiot Nation he points out that you can ask the average American male everything from who plays what position in which team, to who hit what in a game between Boston and New York in 1925, and they will spew all they answers in less than two minutes flat. But, if you ask them what the WTO is they will sit there completely clueless as to what it stands for. (Moore) We have become a nation completely satisfied