20 December, 2025

I have always loved science fiction, especially the dystopian kind written by authors such as Philip K. Dick or Ray Bradbury.
It tells us far more about the present than we might think, and it often anticipates the first sprout of a seed that has already been buried and lies hidden.

In Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451, 451°F (about 233°C) is the temperature at which book paper catches fire.
The story imagines a future society in which books are forbidden because they are capable of generating critical thought.

“Free books,” some would say where I come from as well.
In this inverted world, firefighters do not put out fires: they burn books.

They eliminate them because they are inconvenient, unsuitable, or because they belong to a voice that is not their own.
But the protagonist, Guy Montag, a firefighter of the future, begins to doubt the system after meeting a young woman who reveals to him the beauty of free thought.

I wonder whether it will once again be women who show us the way.
Perhaps because they are able to move with a freer gaze, even within a system that proclaims itself liberal but often is not.

This is how the seed of indifference takes root, precisely where you would least expect it: in censorship, in distrust, in the control of information, in social conformity, in the protection of lobbies, in the fear of losing consensus, in purely economic interests and easy profits.

When instead knowledge, critical thinking, and cultural resistance should prevail.

And yet, at heart, I remain optimistic. As Guy Montag teaches us, we ourselves are the living testimonies of our best books.