Apparently all you need to do to be a libertarian is oppose government book-burning. Or at least that seems to be the message of Jeff Riggenbach's labeling of Fahrenheit 451 as a "libertarian book". There's no point in getting too caught up in the semantics - Bradbury's classic is certainly consistent with libertarianism. But it seems odd to call it a libertarian book.
Anyway - it's a very good review by Riggenbach - it makes me want to go back and reread it. Its been years for me, as I imagine it has been for most people.
Still, I think we need to be careful about this. With that kind of attitude practically every American is a libertarian. Libertarian simply becomes "pro-liberty", and all the things that make libertarianism unique get washed away. It also ends up confusing people. It's like how some less informed conservatives and libertarians are actually shocked to hear that George Orwell was a socialist. You only get shocked by something like that when you get fed a juvenile, misleading ideological taxonomy.
Was Bradbury himself a libertarian? I honestly still don't know. The Atlantic wrote about an LA Times interview of his recently, and some of his remarks leaned libertarian:
"There is too much government today"... but it went on in the next sentence to something way too cozy with democracy for a lot of libertarians:
"We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people" followed by some curmudgeonly (albeit somewhat endearing) Ludditism:
"We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now" to a decidedly non-Luddite, non-libertarian sentiment I can applaud:
"He [president Obama] should be announcing that we should go back to the moon. We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever."
So maybe he's a libertarian, maybe not. My guess is he's probably got a few libertarian slogans and ideas but isn't what a libertarian would call "libertarian". Ultimately that doesn't really matter - the point is if all it takes to be libertarian is opposition to book burning, it seems to me you're setting the bar pretty low!
Anyway - it's a very good review by Riggenbach - it makes me want to go back and reread it. Its been years for me, as I imagine it has been for most people.
Still, I think we need to be careful about this. With that kind of attitude practically every American is a libertarian. Libertarian simply becomes "pro-liberty", and all the things that make libertarianism unique get washed away. It also ends up confusing people. It's like how some less informed conservatives and libertarians are actually shocked to hear that George Orwell was a socialist. You only get shocked by something like that when you get fed a juvenile, misleading ideological taxonomy.
Was Bradbury himself a libertarian? I honestly still don't know. The Atlantic wrote about an LA Times interview of his recently, and some of his remarks leaned libertarian:
"There is too much government today"... but it went on in the next sentence to something way too cozy with democracy for a lot of libertarians:
"We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people" followed by some curmudgeonly (albeit somewhat endearing) Ludditism:
"We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now" to a decidedly non-Luddite, non-libertarian sentiment I can applaud:
"He [president Obama] should be announcing that we should go back to the moon. We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever."
So maybe he's a libertarian, maybe not. My guess is he's probably got a few libertarian slogans and ideas but isn't what a libertarian would call "libertarian". Ultimately that doesn't really matter - the point is if all it takes to be libertarian is opposition to book burning, it seems to me you're setting the bar pretty low!
.
I sent an email to Riggenbach just asking about his thought processes on that and whether he knew anything about Bradbury's personal politics - if he responds with anything interesting I'll post it here.
*****
And speaking of book-burning... we've got our own budding fascists down in Florida.
To the best of my knowledge Ray Bradbury is still alive.
ReplyDeleteThe cellphone comment could be entirely consistent with libertarianism, so long as he is not advocating state action on the issue. As a technophile I wholeheartedly disagree with Bradbury's sentiment.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/08/16/ray-bradbury-hysterical-theate
ReplyDeleteYes he is - these were very recent comments to the LA Times.
ReplyDeleteWhen I say "was" I just mean as author of Fahrenheit 451 - was there an intended libertarian message or just a pro liberty/reason message.
He spoke at comic-con where he mentioned several of these same points.
Hahahaha - "Grampa Simpson zone of Larry Kingesque observational complaints" - I like that :)
ReplyDeleteThat's more or less what I meant by an "somewhat endearing Luddite".
Anyway, PKD is more my style.
ReplyDeleteOT...
ReplyDeleteThought I would pass this on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu1D2cWgAzA&feature=player_embedded#!