Thursday, July 25, 2024
The Dystopian Submission of I to “We”
(I just successfully reposted a book review to the Amazon site but don’t know how long it will last).
Several years ago I had written a book review on the Amazon site for the Ayan Rand novella, Anthem.
Along with several other reviews I had written, Amazon eventually deleted it — kind of like YouTube’s latest scheme to delete many comments that fail to promote their vision. One needn’t be aggressive or rude in any way to be trimmed from YouTube’s election year “algorithms.”
Anyway, I hate to see a reasonable book review go to waste so, what follows is my appraisal of Ayan Rand’s novella, Anthem:
I read this book long ago and remember liking it. I recently read it again and its impact on me was far greater than my initial reading. Ayn Rand's Anthem is a masterpiece as well as a pleasurable read.
I don't think anyone could read or review this book effectively without comparing it to George Orwell's "1984” (both being dystopian works) but it was written before Orwell's classic work. I dare say that, for me, it was a better read with greater insight into the reality of totalitarian psychology and the threat it ultimately poses to humanity's...humanity. Anthem is clearly less bleak than "1984’s” world. The goodness of the novel's hero surpasses that of a mere cog in a government wheel who simply seeks escape. "Equality 7-2521" (the main character's "name") is a more likable character than Orwell's protagonist. He has the innocence of a child learning to play in a world where no one is allowed such "selfish" pleasure. He is not a subversive merely seeking to extricate himself from a cult-state with compulsory membership. He's a true human who knows himself with honesty and moral strength.
The dystopia depicted in Anthem is a more insightful appraisal of what motivates a dystopia and their prisoners than the genre usually offers. Orwell's government makes no pretense to being good. It's a caricature of evil (how many brutal dictatorship really know they're evil, particularly in view of the numerous academics and "thinkers" in the West who refuse to acknowledge the obvious). Orwell's prison-state loves war and cruelty and seems to savor the gloom it has produced. Rand's dystopia is like the one we are likely to get if such horror is to really triumph, a philosophy and system that tells us to love our "brothers," "sisters," and society at the total expense of even acknowledging our own existence or those whom we know and care for. The individual has no value in Anthem's bureau-state. So much so that the very word "I" has been banished from the vocabulary.
Initially the reader may find themselves confused or annoyed at the linguistic realities of this collectivist prison-world, where one must speak even of themselves as "we" and other individuals as "they," (isn’t that timely) but the awkwardness is absolutely necessary to drawing the reader into the absurdity of such a system.
Those who don't like Rand's weightier works will find that Anthem contains no long lectures embedded in the plot or deep philosophical ideals being continually laid out (things profound to followers of Rand and perhaps tedious to those who dislike her and her philosophy). Nonetheless, the philosophy of the novel is conveyed with ease - the nobility of individuality and the pathetic stupidity and oppressiveness of imposed collective "altruistic" ideals.
References to capitalism's virtues barely come up at all aside from subtle inference (not that this trademark in Rand's other novels is a bad thing).
Anthem is no direct sales pitch for the values of a free market. The novel expresses a more basic philosophical stance; the pure and simple quest for and valuation of individuality amongst the perennially imposing horde -- the horror brought upon innocence by those who would seek to mold us all into a mediocre or dystopian slumber of subservience.
Rand's individualist belief system can be found in Anthem in its most basic form, a beautiful expression of the promethean myth and the nobility of an individual who wakes from the sleep imposed by collectivism (a lesson that may become -- is becoming -- all too timely).
The world depicted by Rand in Anthem is a world where the very utterance of the personal pronoun "I" is a crime and the thought of applying an individual's affections to another individual is held in equal contempt by the bland authorities that have successfully imposed a collectivist prison even upon themselves. I can't help but be struck by the prophetic accuracy in which Rand has depicted modern day North Korea; a nation of mere cult members , some of who may be barely aware they are even in a prison.
The tragic fear this book sparks is that collectivism's socialist mindset will never truly rest or be happy until the entire world has been forced into membership in their cult of "we."
Rand's story contains some rather unique and beautiful prose, largely due to the simple purity in which the main character expresses himself. A childlike naivete' is conveyed by a person who is clearly wise yet constrained by the heavy guidelines imposed upon his psyche by his society -- rules of speech only being one constraint among many. One will be moved by depictions of promethean greatness in curiosity, individual striving, and even love before a sterile and unbending society of mindless "cooperative" fellow citizens.
What helps make the story quite believable is Equality 7-2521's slow awakening. Through much of the novel we follow his genuine belief in the order of things as they are. An inculcated guilt haunts his innermost thoughts. He is constantly at odds with himself over his curiosity about forbidden things, even the individual attraction and love he feels for another who, with equal awkwardness, reciprocates his feelings.
Equality 7-2521 will never "love big brother" (though Anthem does not actually have such a single overbearing personality). Rand's symbolic villain manifests as a more abstract but highly believable order of "councils." The "Council of Scholars" (clearly Rand's jab at intellectuals), are total fools who have maintained a system that produces nothing but allegiance to blind and concocted altruism. There is no "dear leader" but a dear everyone but yourself. It is a socialists dream come true - a world where everyone is a prisoner of everyone else.
Some would no doubt be offended at my comparing Anthem to George Orwell's widely known and respected novel, 1984, but I'd recommend actually reading Anthem before taking such offense.
In this early work of Ayn Rand’s, accurate depictions of a communal distopia are mere vehicles for describing something even more thought provoking, the creative human spirit seeking to break its chains and say "I" with neither remorse nor guilt.
