Selflessness In Ayn Rand's Anthem

I believe that the author of Anthem, Ayn Rand, thinks that it is important to know that conformity can be used for not only good but for evil. For example, conformity may be good if a criminal conforms to the law and changes his ways. The society in which Equality 7-2521 is an example of a bad form of conformity. People have changed everything about them to fit in with everyone else that they are no longer their own person. They are just like everyone else, they share interests, character traits, behavioral reactions, etc. If everyone is the same, society will never improve. If everyone had the same intelligence level, we would never discover new things.

In the novel, Anthem by Ayn Rand, conveys a deep understanding of collectivism. Collectivism is when you give a group priority over yourself as an individual. The main character, Equality 7-2521, does not have an identity and cannot express himself as an individual. In Equality’s world they can not be self-centered and always have to think about others. Anthem takes place in the future, and the citizens are unaware of the past. Equality 7-2521 is unique and different than everyone else. He believes there are greater things in the earth yet to discover. Ayn Rand focuses this book towards the future, but makes connections to the past.

America has had a tumultuous existence, replete with war, progress, and ideologies. The most formidable of these is individualism, or the shift of society’s focus from the group to the individual and a growing emphasis on their personal needs and desires. Despite wide criticism, it has become the societal norm, spanning all generations, genders, races, and walks of life.

When one is confined to society and held captive against their ego, it is imperative that they learn to eulogize their own individuality, and learn to improve themselves. In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, Rand uses Equality 7-2521 to communicate the importance of the individual. Equality has always had his own sense of individuality that causes him to stand out and defy the social norms. His individuality allows him to persevere and diverge from collectivist society.

Imagine living in a world where everybody's lives are completely mapped out by the government. Where every decision is made without the input of the citizens it affects. In the novella Anthem, Ayn Rand depicts a completely collectivist society, where every idea, action, and invention is purely for the benefit of society as a whole. Everything is done with the entire population in mind, and individuality is extremely frowned upon. However, when the story's protagonist, Equality, makes a huge scientific discovery, his intentions are more selfish than that.

In the novella Anthem, individual rights and freedom do not exist. The word “I” is prohibited to be spoken by men. Equality 7-2521 is a street sweeper of the city and he is different from the others in the society. Equality is more intelligent, taller, learns quicker, and he enjoys learning about science; especially how things move and work. Since the word “I” is the unspeakable word, Equality uses the word “We” to resemble that he is doing these actions . While sweeping the streets, Equality discovers a dark tunnel that was made during the Unmentionable Times. He sneaks into the tunnel every night to perform scientific experiments. In his experiment of dissecting a frog, Equality discovers that metal draws the power of the skies and that

Marxism is the idea of social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. Social processes are the way individuals and groups interact, adjust and reject and start relationships based on behavior which is modified through social interactions. Overall marxism analyzes how societies progress and how and society ceases to progress, or regress because of their local or regional economy , or global economy.In this case, Marxism’s theory applies to the novel, Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, where a society where mass satisfaction is the instrument utilized by places of power known as the Alphas in order to control the oppressed by keeping the Epsilons numb, at the cost of their opportunity to choose their own way of life.

Ayn Rand once said, “Collectivism holds that the individual has no rights, that his life and work belong to the group (to ‘society’, to the tribe, the state, the nation) and that the group may sacrifice him at its own whim to its interest.” In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, she depicts an anonymous, communist city in which no individual has any rights, they only exist for their “brothers”. Equality 7-2521 is a very venturesome and curious character that wants nothing more than to be an individual and live with no limits.

The removing of family in Anthem’s society made it a way in making sure there was no type of love of feelings. Equality stated, “Children are born each winter, but women never see their children and children never know their parents” (Rand, pg. 41). This is a cruel way of removing of families because the government takes away the parents child and separates them where family is not even a thing. This is an example of the society making people individuality because they don’t have a choice. The removal of family made it easy for individuality to not

Social stability is not worth the price that the citizens of the Brave New World payed for it. Social stability is not all bad, because there will never be fights or war. Also social stability can good for the economy for instance; the children learn to hate books and nature and desire only to engage in consumerism thus supporting the economy. The Government exerts total control over every aspect of its citizens lives. Losing your individuality for the sake of the stability of the masses. Individualism is not possible because of the style of government seen in Brave New World. Social stability is the end goal of all societies, the Brave New World was stable but at a great cost to its citizens. This book

Equality 7-2521 tries to persuade them to listen to him, telling them that he gives them "the power of the sky" and the "key to the earth." The scholars respond, saying, "What is not done collectively cannot be good” (Rand 73). Ayn Rands anthem shows opposition to collectivism through the topics, selflessness, family, and invention

Unlike during the Unmentionable Times, when men created “towers [that] rose to the sky,” it is an

The novel Anthem by Ayn Rand is set in a dystopian society where the idea of collectivism is prevalent. Collectivism is the idea of a group having more priority than any of the individuals in it. Throughout the novel, the characters refer to themselves as “we” instead of “I” and refer to each other as their brother men. Equality 7-2521 tells the reader that whenever they feel tempted, they are to repeat the phrase “We are one in all and all in one.There are no men but only the great, WE, One, indivisible and forever.” (Rand, p.19)

The critical flaw in the collective state that Equality capitalizes on to escape lies within its very foundation. Anthem best exemplifies this flaw through Equality’s escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention, as he describes “It was easy to escape the Palace of Corrective Detention. The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about. There is no reason to have guards, for men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were ordered to be” (66-67). The Council believes the fallacies it espouses, making it easy for Equality to escape. They believe that no one would ever defy a direct order from them, so they never accounted for the possibility. Another flaw of the collectivist fallacies lies in its inability to match the technological development of Equality. The Council rejects the lightbulb because it “would wreck the Plans of the World Council … and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise” (74), and by the end of the novel, Equality’s scientific skill advances enough to construct an electric fence around his home in the woods. As Equality says, “[the Council] has nothing to fight me with, save the brute forces of their numbers. I have my mind” (100). No matter what, until the Council begins to accept changes to their “Plans”, Equality’s society will outmatch theirs. The final fallacy weakening the collective state renders itself in the Council’s inability to care for the individual needs of its

The utopian society in the Brave New World can be compared and contrasted between our contemporary society using individualism, community and the human experience. The fictional novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1932, is about a utopian society where people focus stability and community over individuality and freedom, but an outsider is introduced to intervene with the operation of the utopian state. In the contemporary world, people need to show individuality in their communities in order to survive, and to be human, one must show emotion, which is the opposite in the Brave New World.