Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was first published in 1951 as McCarthyism was taking hold in Washington, America was moving into a period of uniformity, and television sets with "I Love Lucy" and "Father Knows Best" soon would be in living rooms nationwide. J.D. Salinger's not-so-happy The Catcher in the Rye featuring a young man who's anything but uniform was published that same year and, to this day, remains the target of censors.

In 1951, two world wars were behind us; a cold war hovered over us. Between cartoons, TV stations soon began interrupting programs  for civil-defense preparedness sirens -- aka, nuclear- war preparedness. Blacks did not sit at the front of buses and did not dare to use the same bathrooms as whites in the South. Despite the cheerful family-oriented comedies so many nostalgic Baby Boomers fondly remember from the '50s, those years were not always happy ones and often were frightening and full of unfettered hate, naive apathy and  intentional ignorance. Sometimes, often, we close our eyes to the truth; it's easier not to know some things.

That's what happens in Bradbury's classic book. Technology has grown to the point that people's homes are fireproof and television families are brought to them in the walls of their homes. It's easier not to read. For one thing, it's less work. For another, books can be a tad too awakening to reality -- the bad things we'd prefer not to know about and not have to confront. So, in Bradbury's dystopian future, people have chosen to quit reading, followed by the government's decree that no one is to own books. No one. Of course, some exceptions exist: tintillating sexual magazines are OK as are some trade publications. Nothing political, philosophical, literary or realistic, though. No Shakespeare, no Socrates, no Bible. Because firefighters no longer are needed to extinguish house fires, they now start them -- at the homes of people, subversives, who are found to possess books.

Most people are fine with this decree; after all, they weren't reading anyway.  Even Guy Montag, a fireman, is fine with the idea until he meets a young woman who tells him about a time when people read books openly and without fear. Montag later meets a former teacher and begins to hide books, even the Bible. And when he cannot any longer hide them, he learns the way to save literature for what he and others hope is a different future. That way involves one thing the government cannot totally control -- people's minds and specifically their memories.

As a journalist, I've often heard the plea from readers for "good news." And I've nothing against that. I enjoy a light-hearted feature as much as almost anyone. But if we don't also report -- and read -- the "bad news," we will be closing our eyes to a big part of our world and, worse yet, letting wrongdoing fester.

Bradbury's novel is as relevant today as it was in 1951, maybe more so as we see bookstores closing and libraries changing their focus from books to multimedia events, parties and such. Socrates is still relevant today. So are the Bible and The Catcher in the Rye. We cannot, or rather should not, fight to save only those books that teach what we believe, but even those whose subject matter we detest. For what is it worth to stand up for what we believe, if there is only one thing we can believe?