Totalitarian ideal worlds? No, thank you!

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury describes a #dystopian world in which fireman Guy Montag's job is to burn books instead of putting out fires. Captain Beatty, Montag's superior, justifies the book-burning to the increasingly doubtful Montag as saving society's happiness, because reading books leads to antisocial behaviour, the destabilisation of society and emotional problems. Only by eliminating them and punishing those who still read them despite the ban could peace and tranquillity be achieved for society. Thus, Beatty explains, coloured people do not like "Little Black Sambo". White people, on the other hand, don't feel good about "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and smokers are frightened by a book about tobacco and cancer of the lungs. His motto for saving happiness is therefore, in a society where independent thought is considered dangerous: "Burn it".