What is Crippling Us?

Gatto and Bradbury both have very parallel views on the cons of modern society and about where trends are leading towards. Bradbury, in Fahrenheit 451, writes about how people in a society like ours shallowly entertain themselves with simplicity and ignorance. Gatto writes about the cause of these trends, which is education and a lack of it, or a lack of interest in it. Bradbury writes that people will become indifferent, and life will be diluted, with even the Bible. Faber remarks "I wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down?"(81). Gatto says that "could it be our schools are designed to make sure [the children never] really grows up?". Gatto's statement could be interpreted as an observation of how schools are falling behind the times, and not focusing on the correct points that define a character, which I agree with. Bradbury also writes much on the way people think. Thought becomes shallower and shallower until deep thought itself is basically banned. The third important thing Faber recites is "the right to carry out actions based on what we learn"(85). Gatto reinforces this idea with the fact that he has observed kids' desires to learn things that are beyond the classroom, and that "adults regularly conflate opposition with disloyalty". Both writers recognize the fine line that distinguishes the rights everybody should have, which is to take an initiative in their own lives, but I disagree with the statement that opposition is not disloyalty when the same kids being discussed by Gatto are kids that Bradbury believes will become shallow and narrow minded, and basically incapable of taking the initiative for themselves. In this circumstance, I think that opposition will surely mean disloyalty, as it does in most cases in our own school. No kid would revolt because they feel that they are not learning enough.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
http://www.wesjones.com/gatto1.htm