Social Intelligence In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

As years pass by, scientists work tirelessly to make more advanced technology to make everyone's lives more comfortable and automated. In society, this is seen as a gift, since it allows the world to work less for the things wanted, but nothing can be perfect. Sadly, technology has lowered the intelligence level of humans, not only with knowledge, but also with social intelligence. This can be found in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where it is normal in society to not be intelligent. Throughout the book, there are multiple examples where people in the 451 world become too attached to their technology that they no longer want intelligence nor do they want to interact with other humans. These people live in a society where it has become the

Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.’” (58). It is important to notice the emphasis on “brilliant”, putting the quotation marks on them give off a sense of sarcasm in the way that they are not actually learning anything. Another thing is that they only get the feeling of thinking, without really doing it. In effort to satisfy their hatred of knowledge, the 451 people got rid of books and became less intelligent with the help of technology.

Through the social interactions between the character, you can see that the people in 451 do not have a lot of experience nor information about the field of social intelligence. When Montag meets Clarisse, “Clarisse, a seventeen-year-old ‘oddball’ neighbor, likes to talk about the world around her.” (NFS), he immediately knew that she was different than others. When Clarisse talks about school, she says, “‘I’m antisocial, they say. I don't mix. It’s so strange. I'm very social indeed. It all depends on what you mean by social, doesn't it? Social to me means talking to you about things like this.’” (29).

So much, that they prioritize it over many things like people and learning. During an incident that needed medical attention, engineers came over and said, “‘We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built. With the optical lens, of course, that was new; the rest is ancient. You don't need an M.D, case like this; all you need is two handymen, clean up he problem in half an hour.” (13) when questioned by Montag. People have developed a technology where they no longer need actual qualified people to control it. It happens so often that people often rely on the machines to revive them.When Beatty teaches Montag about school he says, “‘School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, language dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored… Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fitting nuts and bolts?’” (53). People are learning less because they know that technology is able to do everything already. People in society don’t feel the need to learn. They are also addicted to the technology since it supports them so much. An example of this is when Montag asked “‘Will you turn the parlor off?’ He asked. ‘That's my family.’ ‘Will you turn it off for a sick man?’ ‘I'll turn it down.’” (49). Mildred is so addicted to the TV that she is prioritizing it over Montag who was sick at