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orincoro t1_jeg2ncr wrote

F-451 is not specifically anti-fascist (though it does take place in an authoritarian future world) and probably a lot like 1984, it is often cited by far right propagandists who would co-opt the message of anti-censorship and make the case that the post-literary future it presents is the product of some derivation of Marxism. There may be some further ammunition in the book for this take, given that the “firemen” of this future are, according to the legend they subscribe to, eliminating all non-mainstream culture as a means of explicitly of ending class-conflict. This may lead some unimaginative people to conclude that it’s really a tract against socialism, which it isn’t.

However, it’s worth noting that the form of censorship against which the book was implicitly reacting was McCarthyism, and it bears further noting that while the book is of course about censorship on its face, its more animating motivation is probably as a criticism of all mass consumer culture, particularly television and advertising.

I imagine somebody is co-opting it for the same reason anything is co-opted in this way. Young people are told this is an important book.

Fuck neo Nazis indeed sir.

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ViolinistFamiliar187 OP t1_jeg7ihw wrote

Thank you for contextualizing it with 50’s American culture, I’m going to be thinking of this while I make my way through the book. The grass roots work of neo-nazis put this book in my hands, which is ironic considering I’m Jewish

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orincoro t1_jeg8l9x wrote

The book is quite timeless, but like 1984, it came out of the post-war paranoia of the 50s. Unlike 1984, it definitely takes the view that mass media is the chosen instrument of imperialism, making legacy media an enemy of “progress.”

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