Discussion Topic
Beatty's Views on Responsibility and Consequences in Fahrenheit 451
Summary:
In Fahrenheit 451, Captain Beatty's views on fire symbolize the societal tendency to avoid responsibility and consequences. Fire, used to burn books, represents the destruction of problems rather than confronting them. This reflects a society that shuns human emotions and challenges, opting instead for distractions like entertainment and pills. Beatty's perspective highlights a parallel with modern society, where avoiding consequences fosters entitlement and undermines personal responsibility, as seen in examples like financial bailouts.
In Fahrenheit 451, how does Beatty's statement about fire destroying responsibility and consequences prove true?
Beatty says this when he and Montag are at Montag's house, preparing to burn it down. In the earlier parts of the book, we can see how fire (or at least the way fire has been used in this society) has destroyed responsibility and consequences.
In this society, fire has been used to burn books. This is part of a larger drive to rob people of their human impulses. People have been encouraged to ignore the real problems that come with being human. They have been encouraged to simply rid themselves of these problems by pretending they don't exist. True human life consists of having feelings and problems and confronting those things and their consequences. In this society, by contrast, people run from those things. We can see this clearly in how Mildred retreats into her parlor walls and in how her friends try to forget their families.
When Beatty...
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says the line you cite, he is speaking figuratively. His society's default reaction to every problem is to burn it (literally or figuratively). He is saying that they rid themselves of responsibility and consequences by simply destroying their need to make choices and confront problems. This society does this by trying to get people to simply live in the moment and forget that they are human beings.
How is Beatty's comment about responsibility and consequences in Fahrenheit 451 relevant today?
When Montag is trying to understand how Mildred could have turned him in, and trying to figure out a way to save his books, Chief Beatty taunts him:
"This is happening to me," said Montag.
"What a dreadful surprise," said Beatty. "For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities. Except that there are."
(Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Google Books)
The parallel with modern society is that the loss of personal responsibility, and the idea that there are no consequences, creates an entitled society. When tolerance enables one to make bad decisions and suffer no adverse consequences, the lesson learned is that one's personal action is always correct, and if people oppose you, it is because they are inferior. There are dozens of examples in modern society of people making bad decisions and being rescued from the consequences; the example that everyone knows is the bank bailouts, where bad decisions were rewarded with money to save the institution. When people are not allowed to fail, and when failure is not allowed to have adverse consequences, the concept of personal responsibility begins to vanish, until people think that any course they take in life should be subsidized by others, regardless of its objective value. When people take responsibility for their actions -- "I did [this] and I accept the consequences" -- it leads to a stronger society.
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