Captain Beatty gives several reasons as to the current state of society and why books are being destroyed. One of his main reasons had to do with how certain books would offend people. “Colored people don’t like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don’t feel good about Uncle Tom’s cabin. Burn it. Some one’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping.” P. 57, this quote shows how they found that no matter the book someone would find it offensive, whether it be a whole race that is offended or just a small group of people. Another reason that Beatty tells Montag is how there are less smart people coming out of school and more people who are athletic, this is happening so much that the word intellectual is considered offensive to some. Beatty also talks about how people who don’t know much in society are happy which means majority of people in society are blissfully ignorant. “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.” P 58, this quote shows how Beatty and most likely most of society feels about things, they believe that knowing about things and having knowledge is bad because it can lead to feeling unhappy about life. Entertainment is also cut down and shortened so that people in this society can enjoy it a lot quicker which shows their constant need to fill and emptiness by quickly getting to the climax of movies or programs and results in a very bland life. Beatty gave many reasons as to the current state of society such as books being offensive, people being smart and knowing things makes them unhappy, and the society’s constant need for entertainment.