Fahrenheit 451: Beatty tells Montag that firemen are "custodians of peace of mind" and that they stand against "those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought." How well are the firemen accomplishing these objectives? Are conflicting ideas the only source of unhappiness in their society? What other sources might there be?

 I got this blog topic from a Fahrenheit  451 fan’s  blog discussion post.

The fireman are good at the jobs they do, and because of that, they are bad.  They burn peoples books and houses to erase all “problems” in the world, but in the process, they are destroying the past. It’s really clear that the people in Fahrenheit 451 are very ignorant to the world around them and know next to nothing about the past.  Why? Books are history, and without them, who could tell truth from lie and true past from story? You clearly see the ignorance of people in the text. When Montag asks about fireman’s past, they show him a set of rules and a “history” of where firemen originated (Bradbury pg 33). It is clearly false, and when Montag asks if firemen ever at one time put out fires, they laughed in his face (Bradbury pg. 33). Even Montag himself is ignorant, mainly because he hasn’t read, like the majority of the people in the society he lives in! But the main reason why the firemen can never complete their goal of standing against, “those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought” is because it is impossible. It is impossible to make everyone happy. There will always be conflicts and opposing ideas no matter how much you try to pound it out of a society. The fireman literally CAN’T stop people from having conflicting theory’s and thought. There will always be different sides to everything. And, conflicting ideas aren’t the only source of unhappiness in the story. It is clear, mainly because of all the mentions of suicide that the society is far more disturbed and the conflict goes deeper than a few ideas. I think that the lack of purpose in life is what causes the unhappiness that the people in the story feel. The people in the society live to be entertained and stomp out anyone who goes against the rules or has any source of books. What is the point? Their lives are truly meaningless. They live in a zombie-fied fog and everyone is suspicious of everyone! Your neighbor watches you and you watch your neighbor. No one WANTS to live like that! But there is no way that the firemen can make people happy by deleting unhappiness. Especially when they think that unhappiness comes with indecision and conflicting ideas. One person thinks books have quality and are good and should be read. Another thinks they are trash and are evil and should be burned. That is the “conflicting idea” they want to stop out. They want ONE idea: Books are bad. But there is no way to make everyone think that same thought. As there are individual people in the world, there is no way to stop out conflicting thoughts.

Honors American Literature. "Fahrenheit #3: Discussion Questions through Part Two: The Sieve and the Sand." Web log post. Blogspot.com. 24 May 2011. Web. 8 June 2012. <http://montagrules.blogspot.com/2011/05/fahrenheit-3-discussion-questions.html>.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967. Print.