‘Sensitivity’ or Self-Censorship?

Published February 22, 2017 5:12pm ET



Here’s an excerpt from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

Now let’s take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! … Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. … There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no!

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