The Importance Of A Collective Society In Ayn Rand's Anthem

A collective society is the subjugation of an individual to a group. In Anthem, a dystopian piece of literature written by Ayn Rand, represents a collective society. The novel is about a young man named Equality 7-2521. His intelligence helps him through his journey in discovering ‘new’ discoveries in a society where the society is put before an individual, a collective society. In the novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, the process of establishing a collective society is the removal of love, knowledge, and individualism. Love is an essential part of human lives. The society in Anthem does not support the action of love which helps create a collective society. “We raised our head and stepped back. For we did not understand what had made us do this and we were afraid to understand it.” (Rand 57-58). Equality, Liberty, and everyone else in the society does not

In Anthem, the society puts limitations on their knowledge. It is shown when Equality states, “We wish to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the teacher forbade it.” (Rand 23) When the teacher forbids the questions Equality asks, it shows the limitations of his knowledge since he cannot learn more than he already knows. The society believed that being better than the rest of their ‘brothers’ is immoral. Having more knowledge than another meant more individuality and the society did not appreciate that. Individuality is a characteristic that differentiates one person from another, it is what makes one person themselves. The society in Anthem removes the idea of individuality. “There is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of specking the Unspeakable Word.” (Rand 49) The society effectively took away their individuality with the Unspeakable Word, ‘I’ by creating fear against the word. The word ‘I’ is a key term to Individuality for Individualism is about ‘I’ not