Since Prometheus and Gaea chose their own names, they started to create a new sense of individualism for the future generations to come. Here, it is proven that Prometheus will not have the rule of being assigned ordinary names, because he changed his name and Liberty’s to represent their
In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, mankind is a philanthropic machine. The brotherhood nobly works together to achieve a common goal. In doing so, each man is asked to disregard his own personal means and goals. For every decision must be a collective thought and every advancement, a joint action. However, one man in this machine malfunctions.
How could losing individuality affect a society? The novel Anthem by Ayn Rand is about a guy named Equality 7-2521 who is trying to find himself in a society where everything is controlled and different. Later, he finds himself even though he will have to go through many obstacles to get there. The process behind losing individuality in an Anthem’s society are in forcing strict laws, brain washing of their citizens, and removing of family. The Anthem society in forcing of strict laws made it easy for everyone to lose their individuality.
Individuality Is Not a Sin Equality 7-2521 thought individuality was a sin, but later on knew it was not a sin. This is correct; not everything people do affects others in a way. In the book Anthem, by Ayn Rand, in a story where everyone is the same and no one is allowed to be different, there was one person named Equality 7-2521 who dared to be different. Equality discovered that is is okay to be an individual.
Anthem by Ayn Rand explores whether the inhabitants of a dystopian society are genuinely happy or not. The society suppresses individuality, and people are controlled by a council of scholars. From the outset, it becomes evident that people are not happy. For instance, on page 18, Equality 7-2521 notes the pressure to conform to societal norms, even if it means denying individuality. On page 26, he remarks on the complete erasure of individuality and the expectation to think only as part of a collective.
Individualism is when a person has achieved non-conformity, self-reliance, free-thought, confidence, and finding one’s self through nature. Although individualism may be achieved in society, it cannot be fully achieved until one removes himself from society. Chris McCandless did exactly that; he removed himself from society by backpacking and hitchhiking throughout the United States to test and achieve individualism. McCandless’s last great adventure was to Alaska to fully obtain individualism, unfortunately, he died trying to find his spiritual belonging and individualism. Many people would think it was absurd that Chris left his family and threw his life away, and they would think that he was not justified in leaving society, however, Chris McCandless was justified in leaving society because by doing so he could achieve non-conformity and self-reliance without being oppressed.
Collectivism, or group prioritized decision making, is widely regarded as a negative attribute when isolated. The world of Anthem is an example of a world based off of collectivism, where the most recent technology developed is a candle, which recently replaced torches. The world is undeniably primitive in some areas, but is clearly not in others. Almost all economic and social aspects of the society seemed to have been developed years ago, yet almost no progress has been made in scientific areas. Science isn’t likely to be a large or common factor in collectivist societies, and scientific research has a positive correlation to technological advances resulting in the lack of development in technology.
In the book Anthem the societies work together and work as a unit to get everything done, compared to our society where we work as individuals and do things by ourselves. For insistence in Anthem there are multiple groups such as street sweepers or the scholars all of them have someone in charge and they make all the calls. Unlike in our society where we make calls for ourselves like when we go to bed and where we want go and spend our nights and what jobs we want to have. Some ways our societies differs are at the age of 15 all the boys are assigned to a task for the remainder of his life.
An additional prime example of individualism is seen when Mufasa gives Simba a speech of how he needs to find himself. Mufasa is trying to get through to Simba that he needs to be himself no matter what and not to conform to someone else’s expectation of who he should be This displays individualism because of how it’s relaying the idea that people should be who they want to be, not what others expect them to be. Individualism can clearly be seen in the movie due to these
Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem depicts a collectivist society in which members are shunned for being different, and are not allowed to act or think as an individual. On a stage set many years in the future, Rand gives the reader a unique insight into her individualistic views in which she highlights the dangers of this collective society through the leaders in Anthem using propaganda, fear, and the restriction of knowledge in order to enslave the minds of their subjects. Through this, Rand is also able to share her insight on collectivism in which she believes that collectivism is evil, nonsensical, and impractical. First of all, Ayn Rand’s novel exemplifies the ridiculousness and evil contained in a collective society by showing how the leaders of
The Nature of Mankind How do you react in the face of fear? Do you freeze, not knowing what to do, or suffice and take action? Are you scared stiff or get away from whatever it is? Maybe you’ve never been faced with this kind of situation.
Placing “Me” before “We” in Anthem During the 20th Century, communism was the main source of government in Russia. Ayn Rand opposed everything that Communists stood for. She believed in individualism and wanted to express her own thoughts. She based her book, Anthem, on her life in Russia and the struggles she endured.
Label versus Name In her novel Anthem, Ayn Rand uses the character’s names as a symbol to push the idea that individualism among a collective society becomes absent, causing a self-sufficient, creative, and powerful person within the society to be destructed. In this society, the force in control utilizes the character’s names as a way to illustrate a lack of individuality. In the beginning of the story, the character’s names represent an idea of collectivism.
At the end of the book, Prometheus is a described as an egoist from Ayn Rand’s definition. As he enters the forest to escape the dreadful society with his street sweeper friends, he is only on the lookout to find something where he can live and have shelter for himself. Prometheus was leaving his friends in order to take joy in his life without their help. If it weren’t for Liberty he would have kept going and enjoy his life. Liberty is the reason why he felt the need to open his heart and share his soul.
Anthem Argument Essay While reading Anthem, a very collective society was shown. But how different is the life depicted in the book compared to the style of life in America? Is America like the cut throat collectivist society shown in Anthem or is it more individualistic? Overall, America is a more individual society because the First Amendment promotes individualism, people in The United States can choose their own career and our government, which is a democracy, is created through individual ideas and opinions.
