To Burn, or Not to Burn...

Recently, I began rereading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. This is one among a few of my very favorite books. I haven't read it in years, and since the last time I did read it, I've also read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. While reading Fahrenheit 451, all of these books have popped into my mind in one way or another, until I began seeing a striking common thread. Not only did it begin to make me think, but it also began to make me stop and look around a bit at the reality of what we are becoming in this society.

I will try not to throw in too many spoilers, because I hope that, if you haven't already read these books, you will take the time to thoughtfully read and enjoy each of the books I am using for reference.

If you haven't read them, and maybe even if you have, you are wondering what common thread I've found. I'll tell you. They all deal with societies that, for the sake of keeping everyone equal and "happy", have completely thrown aside humanity's finest qualities. The Hunger Games stands aside a bit in the fact that not everyone was included in the fabricated "happiness", but there were those who were deemed "worthy" of being happy enough to sacrifice the good of others in order to achieve and maintain it.

As I'm thinking about this commonality, as I said, I've been putting some thought into our society. It's true that every generation has probably looked to the past generations and thought that, in some way, it was a happier and simpler time in previous years. I believe that in a lot of ways that is true. Personally, I look at the generation of my grandparents, the WWII generation, and think that they really had something special. They had a work ethic, a solid set of morals, and a classiness about them that is almost non existent today. I look back to my own parents' childhood and teenage years thinking how different it was from what our kids are in today. It seems that our education system is failing, our morals have completely gone out of whack, our government is, well, I'm not even sure how to finish that statement.

Why? What is changing? Oh, yes, the need for everyone to be equally "happy" has begun to set in. How? I'm not sure where it started. Maybe it's been a slippery slope all along the modern times, and maybe it's more recent, but, somewhere along the line, we have given up our right to be who we are, and all for the sake of not stepping on the toes of those who are not like us. Who are we, and who are those not like us? Take your pick. White, black, Christian, atheist, Pagan, Jew, Muslim, southern, northern, homosexual, heterosexual, American, etc, etc, etc.

To quote one of my favorite movies of all time (The Incredibles) "When everyone is special, no one will be."
Yeah, I said it. It's okay to be special. It's okay for your kid to win a trophy if mine doesn't. It's okay for my child to be considered talented at piano and your child is only mediocre. It's okay for businesses to say Merry Christmas during the Christmas season, because there would be no freaking December 25th gift giving, Santa Claus coming, stocking hanging, holiday if it weren't for Christmas. If you don't like Jesus, don't celebrate Christmas. I don't see a whole bunch of atheists celebrating Hanukkah, and rightfully so!

What I'm trying to get at with all of this rambling is this. We have slipped so far into a state of moral relativism, modernism, political correctness, whatever you want to call it, that eventually everything will be grey, like The Giver's society. We will all be "medicated" to keep us happy as in The Brave New World. Our government will set up a facade of wealth and happiness while all the while riding on the backs of its own people as slaves as in The Hunger Games. And all of this will be achieved by eliminating our ability to think for ourselves or to access true knowledge as in Fahrenheit 451. We are so close to allowing government regulation to rule over our lives to the point of not being capable of the simplest freedom. The freedom to be human. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: not fabricated happiness, but true happiness. The happiness that comes from being the person God made us to be with the moral and ethical ability to stand up for what is truth, beauty, and goodness.