Captain Beatty's opinoin about ignorance

Captain Beatty would say it is better to be ignorant and happy than to be aware, educated and disturbed at the world because what else would you want in life? There are so many people in the world and he says "our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. What do we want in this country above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right?" (pg. 59) He says that people want to have pleasure and even Montag agrees with what Captain Beatty says. Montag actually answers yes after Captain Beatty asks "what else would you want in life."

Captain Beatty also says it is better to be ignorant because if people aren't, they start asking questions. Eventually this will lead people to something bad, to something good, or right back to the beginning where they were in the first place. People might get into something they might not want to get into. For example, one time Captain Beatty read a book and in the Farenheit 451 it says you can only have a book for 24 hours and then you have to burn it. Captain Beatty says "the books say nothing! Nothing you can teach or believe. They're about nonexistent people, figments of imagination, if they're fiction. And it they're nonfiction, it's worse, one professor calling another an idiot. . .You come away lost" (pg 62). Captain Beatty says it's better to not know anything or be happy because then you don't get lost.