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In Fahrenheit 451, what does the quote "It is an environment as real as the world" mean?
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The quote "It is an environment as real as the world" means that the televised images in the society of Fahrenheit 451 are so powerful and immersive that they replace reality and dictate perceptions, overwhelming human reason. Faber contrasts this with books, which allow for thought, reasoning, and personal control, highlighting the manipulative power of television as a tool for government propaganda and control.
In this quote, Faber is discussing the power of his society's televisions, in which three or four full walls of a room are filled with color images. He is comparing the power of these vivid electronic transmissions to the power of books. Books, he says, are preferable because humans have control over them. They can be shut, thought about, reasoned with, and argued over. In contrast, the televised view screens determine human perception. They overwhelm people with their sensory output. Faber says:
It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth. Books can be beaten down with reason. But with all my knowledge . . . I have never been able to argue with a one-hundred-piece symphony orchestra, full color, three dimensions . . .
Because the technology behind the televised images is so powerful, it obliterates human reason. Faber prefers the low-tech interaction...
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he can have with books. This interaction, he argues, stimulates thought rather than stifling it.
Of course, as Montag will find out when he himself is being chased, the televised images don't reflect reality—they only seem to, misusing technology to deceive the bulk of the population.
This quote is from Professor Faber, when he is explaining his history and his opinions on the structure of the future society. He knows that the public addiction to television is not accidental, but a deliberate construct of the government; it is the best way to propagandize and force the individual to believe what the government wants them to believe:
"My wife says books aren't 'real.'"
"Thank God for that. You can shut them, say, 'Hold on a moment.' You play God to it. But who has ever torn himself from the claw that encloses you when you drop a seed in a TV parlour? It grows you any shape it wishes! It is an environment as real as the world. It becomes and is the truth."
(Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, Google Books)
With this quote, Faber shows how the TV screens have replaced critical thinking and rational reasoning; the people watching the screens no longer need to think about their lives, but instead they can be told what they are thinking and feeling. Since the entertainment is all emotional with no intellectual content, their feelings and emotions can be controlled, and they lack the abstract knowledge necessary to analyze those feelings. Books are concrete and solid; they are consumed at the pace of the reader. TV is linear; it moves at a specific pace and the watcher has no control over the content, or lack of content. Consumption of television is absorption of the creator's views and ideals; the viewer must accept those ideals to enjoy the show.
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