As Captain Beatty was trying to explain to Montag why Clarisse McClellen was dead, he stated: "She didn't want to know how a thing was done, but why. You ask why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it. The poor girl's better off dead."
I think our society discourages asking the question why. That may sound like a senseless thing for me to say, but I believe it to be true. I think, however, that sometimes our society applauds when people ask the question why. Those cases are like times when scientists ask the question why and they are able to make a new invention because of it. It is also acceptable for somebody to ask why and then solves a mystery or something. Those are both examples of when it is acceptable to ask why.
However, I still think that asking why in a certain way, is very socially unacceptable in our culture today. I think people see it as socially unacceptable when people ask why to deep life questions, and when they ask why to things that cannot be answered by humans. It becomes unacceptable to many, when people ask why in a way that stirs questions within us and makes us ponder deeply.
I believe that when Captain Beatty says, "you ask why to a lot of things and you wind up very unhappy indeed, if you keep at it", he is saying that you become unhappy because it stirs questions within you that cannot be correctly or incorrectly answered. Asking real questions that are deep can be a very gripping thing. It can lead to major soul searching. Asking why has lead to divides in things like friends, communities, churches, schools, and even families.
I believe, very much so, that our culture looks down upon asking why because many people believe that you don't need to ask life's tough questions; they believe you should just go through life trying to attain things like happiness and a good social status- two things that will never satisfy; when in fact, it is facing life's tough questions that actually gets you somewhere.
Bradbury, Ray. The Hearth and the Salamander. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 60. Print.
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