Too Much Knowledge In Fahrenheit 451

When someone tries too hard to protect another person, they often end up hurting them more than they help. In Fahrenheit 451 the government tries to protect the people from too much knowledge which allows them to control the opinion and thoughts of everyone. While, in some ways this control benefits people, it also takes away from their humanity in ways that outweigh the good that comes from it. The high suicide and violence rates in the society, that are indirectly caused by the control of knowledge, show further evidence that keeping knowledge from people has more negative effects than positive. In Fahrenheit 451, the people are protected from too much knowledge, which makes them superficially happy, but also limits their humanity and causes

Knowledge is kept from students which leaves them bored and causes violence. When Clarisse is telling Montag about her school, she says that they have "'an hour of TV class, an hour of basketball or baseball or running, another hour of transcription history or painting pictures, and more sports, but do you know, we never ask questions, or at least most don't; they just run the answers at you'" (27). They spend the whole day at school keeping the student busy without allowing them to think or use their brains at all. The students have information thrown at them too fast to process and are distracted from thinking and doing anything that stimulates their brain. This version of school either leaves people exhausted or in need of activity to use the energy and thoughts that are wasted during school. When Clarisse is talking about her school and classmates, she says "'They run us so ragged by the end of the day we can't do anything but go to bed or head for a Fun Park to bully people around, break windowpanes in the Window Smasher place or wreck cars in the Car Wrecker place with the big steel ball. Or go out in the cars and race on the streets, trying to see how close you can get to lamp-posts, playing `chicken' and 'knock hub-caps.''" (27). The only places for kids to go to entertain themselves are ‘fun’ parks that promote violence. So many people are unhappy that suicide has become very common in their society. When Mildred overdoses on her sleeping medication, the handyman who was sent to fix her says "'We get these cases nine or ten a night. Got so many, starting a few years ago, we had the special machines built'" (13). They spent time creating a machine to fix people who overdose because there were too many people trying to kill themselves for a person to keep up with without something helping them. When Mildred and her friends are talking about death, one of them says