Doctorow, Bradbury, and Orwell reveal to their audience that because the importance of individuality has not been learned, society prosecutes unique individuals. Humans are like snowflakes; no two are exactly the same. Despite this fact, the world struggles to accept ideas that they do not understand or accept. World leaders, such as Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong Un of North Korea, enforce strict measures to guarantee that their beliefs and ways of life are obeyed.
Not Learned
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This expectation of blind compliance is seen in the Thought Police and telescreens of Orwell’s 1984. Winston, the quiet hero of this novel, knows all too well the lengths Big Brother and his relentless Thought Police will go to remain in control. After writing in a forbidden journal, he admits to himself, “The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed... the essential crime that contained all others in itself...sooner or later they were bound to get you” (Orwell, 19). 1984 unveils a stark world where even the most basic form of individuality - a person’s thoughts - can get citizens arrested. Contrary to Orwell’s vision, everyone is entitled to have their own thoughts because it is something that they are born with. Free thinking, however, is seen as a threat to the establishment in both Winston’s and today’s society, rather than a tool to build a better world.
The cost of straying from what is considered ‘normal’ is extreme and often comes at the price of a person’s life. In Bradbury’s riveting Fahrenheit 451, Montag is forced to confront this shortly after deciding to understand the forbidden books of his world. His epiphany comes when he rushes to a midnight fireman’s raid. After pulling up to his own home with the other firemen, all Montag can do is look on in numbed shock as the captain boasts, "’Well,’ said Beatty, ‘now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?’ Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless; he felt his head turn like a stone carving to the dark place next door, set in its bright borders of flowers” (Bradbury, 109). Montag realizes that Beatty sent the Hound to kill Clarisse, his bright young companion because she was so different. She had to be extinguished simply because she caught raindrops in her mouth rather than do what most other children did.
This targeting of nonconforming individuals is another way that Montag’s society is slowly committing cultural suicide. In both Montag’s and Winston’s worlds, being an individual is fatal. This fate may be shared by the modern world if the importance of individualism is not embraced. Throughout the world, men and women are still forced into gender-biased roles. If they step outside them, they risk a brutal retaliation. Hendri Yulius, a homosexual author, reveals his own experiences in a public school, “At school I was treated and bullied as if I were an object, just because I 'violated' the existing masculine norms” (Yulius). Because of his sexuality, Yulius was persecuted and shunned in his hometown. Like Winston and Clarisse, Yulius resembles a square peg in a round hole. He does not fit in with others, and thus, he is mentally and physically abused.
The justification for bullying is simple and brutal; when people do not conform to society’s standards, they are labeled as unnatural. It is not always directed to sexuality either; racial and religious feuds stretch back centuries. This hatred towards individuality is toxic and threatens the lives of millions. It fuels a ravaging self-destruction of society and individuals that could have disastrous results if left unabated.