Ray Bradbury: Enemy of the State

Our take: The man who lived in imaginary worlds, Ray Bradbury, hated the idea of higher education and government, as they were the very things that stole learning and thought, and were the "natural enemies of dreamers."

Bradbury, who died this week at the age of 91, was a man of the right, a detail sadly airbrushed out of most obituaries this week. Like the best science fiction writers, he imagined worlds and realms outside the grasp of government, where the focus was always on the people that populated them, not on the gizmos in their pockets.

Government's existence notwithstanding, Bradbury still found contentment. He was happiest over a typewriter, dreaming and writing his customary 1,000 words a day. There, living the joy of meaningful work, as he told Playboy, he "made the major discovery of my life." Namely, "I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way."

Read more about Ray Bradbury: Enemy of the State on Reason.com.