Social Control/ Fahrenheit 451 & the 1960's

     Social control can be split into four categories: internal social control, external social control, informal social control, semi-formal social control, and formal social control. Internal social control is the way society shapes a person simply through culture. The biggest form of internal social control in most cultures is family. Without family to set a norm, there would be very few regulations or boundaries known to a child. This form of control also includes school, peers, and the media. Most of the time, we take internal social control for granted.
      The second kind of social control, external social control, includes outside forces made up of negative and positive reinforcements. This form may include laws, police, punishments in school, bribery, and even bullying. External social control is less psychological than Internal social control and is usually more prominent in it's use.
      Informal social control has to do with the way a certain action or belief will be reacted to by the culture. It usually doesn't involve direct punishment through the law, but has more to do with bandwagon and prejudice. For example, if a student dropped out of high school, many people involved in his or her life would most likely be very disappointed and may even inflict some form of social punishment. The law, however, would have no obvious effects on the individual.
      Semi-formal social control is not so extreme as to be able to carry out arrests or incarcerations, but still carries out it's duty with direct punishment from a sort of law. A person who inflicts this kind of control is called a Professional Controller.
      The last form of social control is formal social control. This includes the law and punishment for breaking the law. Arrests, trials, and even parking tickets are all forms of formal social control.

      In the movie "Fahrenheit 451" and in the 1960s, social control was present, but in different degrees and in different areas more than others. Violent social control was more prominent in F451(Fahrenheit 451), but it had it's place in society during the 1960's as well. In F451 a person could be killed for refusing to leave their books, books being completely banned. Even if they did allow their literary treasures to be burned, they were often arrested, and after that little was known as to what happened to them. In the 1960's, a death penalty for such menial crime did not exist, but other forms of violent social control did. For example, African Americans were sometimes chased by police who sprayed them, children in particular, with water hoses. On top of this, women during the 1960's were sometimes physically abused. Although this will always be the case, they were more so then than in the present day. Lastly, three major assassinations occurred. Martin Luther, John F Kennedy, and Jr. Kennedy were all killed for social and political reasons.
      So what is worth protesting and why? In Fahrenheit 451, those in charge banned books for a reason. In the movie, a character says the reason is so that people will not be hurt by the books because books bring about unnecessary and painful emotions. This, however, is not the true motive of those in charge. Banning books limits the knowledge and consciousness of people which makes them ignorant and easily swayed. A government's worst enemy is rebellion. In order to avoid this, knowledge is simply kept from the general public.

     In the 1960's, the Civil Rights were pushed by African Americans and Caucasians alike for a couple of different reasons. In the case of African Americans, their motives and reasoning is significantly more obvious. They were the ones struggling under the tide of segregation and prejudice. They were not able to go to the same schools, ride the same buses, or even drink from the same water fountains as whites. With far less rights than Caucasians and social persecution at every corner, it is easy to see why they wished so badly to gain equality. 
     The reasons for Caucasian's support for African Americans' rights are slightly less obvious. The majority were simply morally aware and felt sympathy for their cause, but this was not the only reason. Another reason for their support was because they were afraid of America looking like a hypocrite, which it was. They didn't want the rest of the world to see the "land of freedom" harboring segregation for such menial reasons as skin color.

      Oftentimes, when one party puts forth a deviant display of their beliefs, the other side condemns them further than their previous state. Christians are a great example. The more that we stand up for our beliefs in day to day life, the more we are looked down upon by others. If instead, we stayed completely silent, we would experience much less condemnation and criticism, but we would also have little to no effect on the spiritual state of our fellow peers. it is natural that when one is presented with views in opposition to their own, they will either conform to them or fight them with all their defenses up. The same concept goes for opposing parties in any conflict. In this manner, both sides become more and more stressed in their views and more and more prejudiced against the other side.
They begin to caricature the other side in all their flaws and caricature themselves in all their strengths. In other words, they exaggerate the opposite party's weaknesses till nothing else is distinguishable and exaggerate their own strengths till they are blind to any vice on their part. This phenomenon has happened and is currently in place between Democrats and Republicans, Communists and Capitalists, the wealthy and the poor, and many other parties. It's name is prejudice.
      In Fahrenheit 451 the informal resistance was somewhat similar to that of the 1960's, but also different. The people in F451 who still believed in reading hid books in their houses and when they were caught either chose death over denial of their convictions or to run away in order to carry out their beliefs in secret. People in the 1960's weren't that different. If they were in support of women's rights, they would defiantly learn and work. African Americans defiantly went to the places that would not serve them and simply sat waiting to be served. Men drafted for the Vietnam War often ran away to Canada (similar to how people in F451, including Montag, ran away).  They were different, however, because in the society of F451, the punishment for breaking the law and keeping books or running away was far more severe than for young women, African Americans, and drafted young men in the 1960's. On top of this, people of the 1960's were more outspoken in their protesting. They were able to have marches and organize committees committed to their cause unlike the people in F451 who had to be especially secretive in order to avoid punishment.
       Informal social control was also present in both Fahrenheit 451 and the 1960's. In Fahrenheit 451, it was not all too uncommon for an observant of someone's crime to report them in secret. This is actually a form of semi-formal social control, but still applies. In addition, books were socially considered evil and anyone who read them, an outcast. Instead of reading, people occupied their time with watching TV and listening to music. This reinforced laziness and made the work of reading seem even less appealing. In the 1960's informal social control included a lot of people looking down their noses at other people. This was similar to how people in F451 saw people who kept books, except in that scenario, those who kept books were considered even more inferior and perhaps even a threat. The three main groups of people looked down on were African Americans, Independent young women, and soldiers in Vietnam.