Ray and me

Your may now pay homage to me as the genius you always knew I was. Back in October,  I wrote about Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451":

The book is not really about heavy-handed government censors who want to control our thoughts, though that take on it is pretty widespread. The insidious thing about the society described by Ray Bradbury is that the government is merely responding to the people's wishes, giving them the comfortable world they want, where they do not have to be challenged and think of unpleasant things.

Now we have the last word on the subject, from Mr. Bradbury himself:

Now, Bradbury has decided to make news about the writing of his iconographic work and what he really meant. Fahrenheit 451 is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands.

[. . .]

He says the culprit in Fahrenheit 451 is not the state — it is the people. Unlike Orwell's 1984, in which the government uses television screens to indoctrinate citizens, Bradbury envisioned television as an opiate.

Thank you, thank you. I accept your praise in all humbleness. Just send cash. Disagreeable comments will be deleted.