Fahrenheit 451 Wasn't About Burning Books

Sure, that's what happens in the book, but that's not really what it's about. By the time I got to high school, Fahrenheit 451 and the other dystopian classics weren't a meaningful part of the curriculum anymore. This fact really seems to accentuate the entire point of the book. The main character is a fireman, yes. In this mildly sci-fi future, the traditional firemen we think of today are obsolete, because buildings are now generally fireproof. Now, instead of putting out fires, the firemen of this age start them. If someone is found to be in possession of books or other intellectual materials, firemen are dispatched to set their entire collection ablaze and leave the fire to eventually burn itself out. This is what happens in the book, but it is not what it's about. The government in this future didn't just wake up one day and decide to ban books. This was a slow, societal progression towards anti-intellectualism. To put it summarily, the general populace slowly grew to believe…