"But it’s not about censorship. The Firemen in 451 burn any and all books regardless of actual content. And Guy’s wife overdoses on sleeping pills because the banality of the world causes her to be so overstimulated that she has no stimulation at all and she overdoses to feel something, anything of substance. And the EMTs are unfeeling about the whole matter because they have a dozen calls just like her afterward. And when their neighbour dies, her head is so full of banality that she fails to even mention it in regular conversation. And the neighbour who died had to go to therapy because she had a clear mind that wasn’t filled with TV banalities like her peers. The book is about a society that has become so absorbed by readily available mass entertainment that they willingly handed over their freedoms because they believed they had no use of them (what’s the use of freedom of speech when you don’t have an original thought?).
This demonstrates a big part of reading proficiency that is lacking in the modern adult population. Some novels have a deeper meaning than what can be seen at a glance from the surface. Philosophy, morals, ethics… it’s not so black and white and some critical reasoning skills go a long way."
Almost 50% of adults have a literacy proficiency level of 2 or lower. Only about half the adult population can read at level 3 or above.* in the US?
No comments:
Post a Comment