1. Beatty mentions that political correctness takes over: "The bigger the population, the more minorities...the people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual [people]." Today, books are banned from schools. We have to be careful not to offend minority groups, and many of our laws, books, and media are centered around not offending them.
2. Beatty states that their society tried to make everyone equal, so as to make everyone feel better about themselves. He states, "the word 'intellectual' became the swear word it deserved to be...you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright'...and wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings...after hours?" This happens in our society too; smart kids don't answer questions so that they aren't labelled as a suck-up, being smart is socially uncool, and the stuff we teach in schools is slowly becoming more and more basic, in order to cater to everyone.
3. He states that their society cut all books down to brief summary, because people wanted to know what it was about without having to go through the effort of reading it. He states, "Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute readio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column." This happens in our society too; we would much rather watch the movie of the book instead of reading it. We look up plot summaries online instead of making the effort to read it.
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