Ray Bradbury Dismisses Internet as "Distracting" and "Meaningless"

Daily Tech ^ | June 25, 2009 11:45 AM | Jason Mick (Blog)

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

One of science fictions last surviving greats sounds off with controversial opinions about the internet

Ray Bradbury doesn't believe "in colleges and universities" -- or the internet. Mr. Bradbury opened up about his distaste for the internet in a recent interview. (Source: The New York Times)

With the loss of Arthur C. Clarke and Michael Crichton last year, the survivors of the elite group of twentieth century science fiction authors has dwindled.  Such greats as George Orson Welles, Robert Heinlein, and Isaac Asimov had already passed away.  One of the last surviving greats is Ray Bradbury, currently 88.  Mr. Bradbury is known for such classics as Fahrenheit 451, The Illustrated Man, and The Martian Chronicles.

Recently Mr. Bradbury has taken his passion for books to new heights, campaigning for the Ventura County Public Libraries.  He explains, "Libraries raised me.  I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

Perhaps out of concern that the internet is displacing printed works, he let loose some colorful comments about the internet and its worth in The New York Times this week.  He comments, "The Internet is a big distraction.  Yahoo called me eight weeks ago.  They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo!

[mylife]

Bradbury....Meet Vonnegat.

[mylife]

Lol!

[magslinger]

I take the whole article, quote and all, with a grain of salt. The author very obviously knows little about science fiction and doesn't seem very capable of using the Internet for research.

Michael Crichton wrote some pretty respectable science fiction in the twentieth century, but he was not one of the greats to go with RAH or ACC.

(George) Orson Welles, to my knowledge, never wrote any science fiction other than a radio play adaptation of H.G. Well's War of the Worlds.

Bradbury's credentials as a science fiction author are IMHO suspect. No other science fiction author was required reading in general literature courses.

[SunkenCiv]

"Libraries raised me.  I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

Gee, and what do they have down at the library, ya luddite?

[atomic conspiracy]

Welles didn't even write the radio adaptation, Howard Koch did. Koch also wrote the screenplay for Mission to Moscow, the notorious wartime whitewash of Stalinism, and was later blacklisted after a run-in with HUAC.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well,...if every one went to the libraries ,...the world would be a calmer place...LOL!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I liked his basement library...see the clip:

Ray's Basement

[snarks_when_bored]

(All I can remember are some of the racier parts of Rabelais and Boccacio...)

There's a pair I never got around to, g_w. "The Decameron" was always on my list (and no doubt shall remain there); "Gargantua and Pantagruel" never tempted me. I think I mentioned before that I still hope to finish "Tristram Shandy"...

[grey_whiskers]

My favorit quote from Tristram Shandy (which C.S. Lewis recommended for reading at table, as it was a "gossipy, formless book which can be opened anywhere":

Chapter 75

Dr. Slop was within an ace of being an exception to all this argumentation: for happening to have his green baize bag upon his knees, when he began to parody my uncle Toby — 'twas as good as the best mantle in the world to him: for which purpose, when he foresaw the sentence would end in his new-invented forceps, he thrust his hand into the bag in order to have them ready to clap in, where your reverences took so much notice of the ***, which had he managed — my uncle Toby had certainly been overthrown : the sentence and the argument in that case jumping closely in one point, so like the two lines which form the salient angle of a ravelin, — Dr. Slop would never have given them up; — and my uncle Toby would as soon have thought of flying, as taking them by force; but Dr. Slop fumbled so vilely in pulling them out, it took off the whole effect, and what was a ten times worse evil (for they seldom come alone in this life) in pulling out his forceps, his forceps unfortunately drew out the squirt along with it.

When a proposition can be taken in two senses — 'tis a law in disputation, That the respondent may reply to which of the two he pleases, or finds most convenient for him. — This threw the advantage of the argument quite on my uncle Toby's side. — "Good God ! " cried my uncle Toby, "are children brought into the world with a squirt?"

[grey_whiskers]

Favorite not favorit.

I need more sleep: went to bed at midnight, woke up 4:30 AM.

Been doing that kind of thing a LOT lately.

Cheers!

[BunnySlippers]

I agree.

It’s amazing when you can be right there in real time experiencing the demonstrations in Tehran ... and respond back to someone who is right there in the streets.

Even astronauts Tweeting from space to anyone who has a connection in real time.

I’m surprised Bradbury has missed it.

[Larry Lucido]

Shut up and write.

[Larry Lucido]

there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth;

Probably "Zeus," but pronounced by an ancestor of Barney Frank.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

That is a familiar routine....

[snarks_when_bored]

Good stuff, but I had want of some context so I backed up a chapter...

It is a singular stroke of eloquence (at least it was so, when eloquence flourished at Athens and Rome, and would be so now, did orators wear mantles) not to mention the name of a thing, when you had the thing about you in petto, ready to produce, pop, in the place you want it. A scar, an axe, a sword, a pink'd doublet, a rusty helmet, a pound and a half of pot-ashes in an urn, or a three-halfpenny pickle pot—but above all, a tender infant royally accoutred.—Tho' if it was too young, and the oration as long as Tully's second Philippick—it must certainly have beshit the orator's mantle.—And then again, if too old,—it must have been unwieldly and incommodious to his action—so as to make him lose by his child almost as much as he could gain by it.—Otherwise, when a state orator has hit the precise age to a minute—hid his Bambino in his mantle so cunningly that no mortal could smell it—and produced it so critically, that no soul could say, it came in by head and shoulders—Oh Sirs! it has done wonders—It has open'd the sluices, and turn'd the brains, and shook the principles, and unhinged the politicks of half a nation. These feats however are not to be done, except in those states and times, I say, where orators wore mantles—and pretty large ones too, my brethren, with some twenty or five-and-twenty yards of good purple, superfine, marketable cloth in them—with large flowing folds and doubles, and in a great style of design.—All which plainly shews, may it please your worships, that the decay of eloquence, and the little good service it does at present, both within and without doors, is owing to nothing else in the world, but short coats, and the disuse of trunk-hose.—We can conceal nothing under ours, Madam, worth shewing.

That first bit about whipping out the object instead of naming it put me in mind of "The Marine Biologist" episode of Seinfeld. Here's the defining moment:

A Titleist!

[grey_whiskers]

LOL! Only you could connect Tristram Shandy to Seinfeld.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

No soup for you!

[snarks_when_bored]

(heh)

[BushCountry]

Bradbury has a point... Sorry to disagree. Society has changed and not necessarily for the better. I love easy access to almost any question, I love being able to communicate on whole new levels, hell, I make a ton of money off of the Internet, but something is fundamentally wrong with with how the Internet affects society. Text happy, YouTube driven, MySpace crazy kids and society as a whole.

His speech against computers in any classroom before the sixth grade was inspiring. We need to take a step back and not dismiss this notion out of hand. Just saying...

[BushCountry]

Hope I didn’t kill this thread... arg.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

It was getting slow....

I enjoyed his visit to the High Desert out here in Californai...but I don't remember him saying anything about the internet...but that was several years ago...