That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles--right and wrong--throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
“Oh, yes, hello Mrs. Montag. You look lovely, as usual. Just thought I’d come by and see how the sick man is. Hello Mr. Montag, you don’t look ill to me. In fact, I’d bet money that you’re fine. You’ve been having reservations, haven’t you? I know the doubts you’re having, Montag. Every fireman, sooner or later, hits this stage. They only need understanding, to know how the wheels run. Need to know the history of our profession. They don’t feed it to the rookies, like they used to. Only the fire chiefs remember it now. I’ll let you in on it.
when did it all start, you ask, this job of ours, when, where? We didn’t get along well until photography came into its own. Motion pictures in the early Twentieth Century. Radio. Television. Things began to have mass.
“And because they had mass, they became simpler. Picture it. Nineteenth-century man, with his horses, dogs, carts, slow motion. Then, in the Twentieth century, speed up your camera. Books cut shorter. Condensations. Digests. Tabloids. Everything boils down to the gag, the snap ending. Classics cut to fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up as a five line dictionary resume. Do you see?! Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your intellectual pattern for the past five hundred years or more.
“Speed up the film, Montag, quick. A column, two sentences, a headline! Then, in mid-air, all vanishes! Whirl a man’s mind around about so fast that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time-wasting thought!
“School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work. Why learn anything save for pressing buttons, pulling switches, and fitting nuts and bolts? Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang, boff and wow!
“Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, Chinese, doctors, lawyers, chefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, Italians, Germans, Texans, women, men, homosexuals, people from Italy or Mexico. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you want to handle controversy, the less people you want to offend, remember that! All the minor minorities with their ears to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, they said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the sex-magazines, of course There you have it, Guy. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no complete censorship to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.
A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Who knows who might be the next target of the well-read man? And so when the houses were finally fire-proofed completely, all over the world, there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given a new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable, and frightful, dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executioners. That’s you, Guy Montag, and that’s me.
“You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can’t have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, what do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn’t that right? Well, aren’t they? Don’t we keep them moving, don’t we give them fun? That’s all we live for, isn’t it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit that our culture provides plenty of these.
“Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo? Burn it! White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Burn it! Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette conglomerates are weeping? Burn the book! Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them too. Five minutes after a person’s death he’s on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man’s nothing but a speck of black dust. Let’s not quibble over individuals with memoriams and eulogies. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright, Montag, and fire is clean.”
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