Deep Life Reflections: Friday Five
Issue 52 - Burning
Welcome to Issue 52 of Deep Life Reflections, where I share five things I’ve been enjoying and thinking about over the past week.
In this week’s issue, we explore Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian vision of a post-literature world in Fahrenheit 451, confront the power of truth through the lens of three courageous filmmakers in the harrowing and award-winning documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol, and reflect on the crucial role of free speech and diverse perspectives to enhance our growth and understanding.
Join me as we explore this week’s Friday Five.
1. What I’m Reading
Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury.
In Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, we are dropped into a world where firemen race to a house not to put out a fire but to start one. Their target is books, which are banned and then burned to silence different opinions and control the population. The title refers to the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns. The novel paints a bleak picture in a similar vein to Orwell’s 1984. As with Orwell’s classic, Bradbury depicts a future where society shuns books, intellectualism, and critical thinking. Instead, people have become emotionally vacant and shallow, lost to new forms of immersive, addictive technology.
Bradbury’s antihero, Guy Montag, is a fireman who begins to question the oppressive regime he’s part of after an encounter with a free-spirited young woman named Clarisse. This sets Montag on a difficult path of self-discovery as he grapples with the significance of literature and the consequences of a society that suppresses independent thought.
In the figure of Fire Chief Beatty, Bradbury creates a chilling antagonist who understands all too well the power of complacency and ignorance. Beatty predicts to Montag a future not of book burnings, but of society’s collective abandonment of curiosity and understanding—a self-inflicted wound; a world without readers, learners, and thinkers. In this desolate vision, there is no need for tyrants like Beatty to ignite the kerosene; the burning has already been done.
The novel, published in 1953, is an amalgamation of five short stories Bradbury had written earlier. Many years later, he would reflect, “I did not write Fahrenheit 451, it wrote me.” The book was influenced by Hitler’s book burnings in Germany in 1934, the ideological repression in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and the Salem witch trials in 1680. However, Bradbury’s biggest influence was his own love of books; he talks fondly about being introduced to Roman, Greek, and Egyptian mythology from the age of three. He also loved libraries (a trait I share with him).
Ironically, for a book about the dangers of censorship, in 1953, no magazine publisher would touch it for serialisation. With McCarthyism in full swing, no one wanted to risk publishing a novel about past, present, or future censorship. It took a young Chicago editor with little money but a big vision to bring the book to life. He bought the manuscript and published it in his new magazine. The young man was Hugh Hefner, and the magazine was Playboy.
Fahrenheit 451 remains an important warning about the dangers of censorship and the sacredness of free speech. Thankfully, we are fortunate to still live in a world abundant with books, where they continue to be celebrated, reminding us that as long as we value and protect them, the world of Fahrenheit 451 remains a cautionary tale, not a prophecy.
2. What I’m Watching
20 Days in Mariupol. Documentary by Mstyslav Chernov.
20 Days in Mariupol is about the first 20 days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, 2022. The port city of Mariupol was the first to feel the ferocity of the onslaught, and its name has become a byword for this war’s inhumanity. As many journalists understandably fled, three remained: Associated Press video journalist Mstyslav Chernov, and his two colleagues, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko. The three filmmakers courageously document the senseless destruction and death during those first three weeks.
Mariupol is pounded into rubble by Russian bombs, missiles, and artillery shells. Martial law is declared. Civilians huddle in basements as explosives rain down. Electricity, water, and internet service either stop or become near-useless. Chernov and his team capture all this carnage and work miracles to actually get the video footage edited and sent to the outside world despite almost no internet connectivity in the entire city (and they’re sending huge data files). This effort to document truth under extreme conditions shows the courage it takes to confront power with truth. Without these three journalists, the world would not have seen the horrors inflicted on Mariupol.
This is not just a war fought with military might, but also with the weapons of disinformation. The film exposes how Russian television news programs insist that reports of civilian casualties in Mariupol are “fake news” and that videos of atrocities against Ukrainian citizens have been altered or manufactured. When a British journalist, seeking accountability, confronts Russia’s UN ambassador and asks him to comment on Chernov’s unflinching reporting, he says, unsettlingly, “Who wins the information war, wins the war.” These words recognise the devastating power of media manipulation to shape conflicts and rewrite history.
20 Days in Mariupol won the Oscar for Best Documentary at last Sunday’s awards. Receiving the award on stage, a restrained and solemn Chernov said, “We can make sure that the history record is set straight and the truth will prevail, and that the people of Mariupol, and those who have given their lives, will never be forgotten. Because cinema forms memories and memories form history.”
For anyone who has seen the film, those images of a city reduced to ruins are likely burned into your memory. As painful as it is to watch, one must watch it in order to preserve the truth.
3. What I’m Contemplating
This week, I read about the contentious decision of a respected literary magazine, Guernica, to retract an essay about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I want to state at the outset that I recognise the complexity of the conflict and the wide spectrum of emotions it elicits. My focus here is on the principle of free speech, not on taking a side in the conflict.
British-born writer and translator Joanna Chen, who moved to Israel from the United Kingdom as a teenager, wrote an essay titled, From the Edges of a Broken World, published in Guernica on March 4. Yet, in the days after publication, many of the all-volunteer staff shared their discomfort over the essay, with some choosing to resign in protest. Central to their concern was a conversation Chen recounted with an Israeli mother, which one staff member cited as “harmful” and “disorienting.” The upheaval culminated in Guernica’s decision to withdraw the essay on March 10, accompanied by an apology and the promise of a forthcoming explanation.
I’ve read the essay, and it’s a deeply meditative piece that reflects Chen’s inner struggle with her principles and the fear, feelings of inadequacy, and conflicting loyalties that surfaced after October 7. In her writing, Chen—who refused service in the Israeli military, spent years volunteering at a charity providing transportation for Palestinian children needing medical care, and who works on Arabic and Hebrew translations to help bridge cultural divides—speaks of her desire to reach out to those on the other side of the conflict and connect as a first step. By retracting the essay, Guernica has denied its readers a similar connection: the opportunity to engage with a perspective that might challenge, enlighten, or even change them.
Just as Ray Bradbury defended the necessity of preserving books and the diverse ideas they contain, society should likewise protect and value the free exchange of perspectives, even—especially—when they provoke discomfort or disagreement. How might our understanding of complex issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suffer if we only hear from one side? Not that all opinions are equally valid or beyond critique—and they must stand up to the scrutiny of the core tenets of journalism: truth, accuracy, fairness, and impartiality—but that the suppression of ideas and opinions we don’t like weakens the opportunity for growth, learning, and understanding. It’s through our willingness to consider alternate views that we cultivate true empathy, laying the groundwork for reasoned debate, and steering us toward progress and, ultimately, a lasting peace.
In the words of novelist Phil Klay, “Literature cannot end wars; its task instead is to help us see why people wage them, oppose them, or become complicit in them.” When we put up barriers to the diverse expressions that literature provides, we move a little closer to the dystopian world Bradbury cautions us against.
4. A Quote to note
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (often attributed to Voltaire)
5. A Question for you
If you were to encounter a viewpoint that contradicted your own, how would you engage with it, and what would you hope to learn?
Thanks for reading and being part of the Deep Life Journey community. Have a great weekend.
James
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