Those who want slavery should have the grace to name it by its proper name. They must face the full meaning of that which they are advocating or condoning; the full, exact, specific meaning of collectivism...of the ultimate consequences to which these principles will lead.
Basically, people are pushing collectivism and they know what they are doing and they need to be honest about it. Collectivism is a form of slavery. If that is what you want, embrace it wholly.
THE STORY
Anthem is under 100 pages, and most humans could finish it in one sitting. If you like dystopia, this is really satisfying.
The story takes place in the distant future, and all humans live for the state. They are assigned names - like Equality, Freedom, Democracy, and Union - though none of the words mean what they should because they are just words. Everyone is assigned a vocation, and no one works for himself. All work is for the gratification of the group, though you'll never know what gratification truly is.
There is no word I. Everyone thinks for the group. No one is able to think for himself, imagine for himself, write, speak, or dream for himself. It is the "root of all evil" to do anything alone, even in private. There is no privacy.
But Equality, the protagonist, was cursed since birth. He has always been able to think private thoughts. Learning came too easily. He asked too many questions. He desired to be a scholar when he grew up, but at 18, he was assigned by the state to be a street sweeper.
Obviously, men and women were not permitted to be together or even think of one another until they were assigned for mating at the proscribed age. This, too, was a problem for Equality because he could think for himself and determine whom he was attracted to and interested in. He had secret conversations with Liberty, and she was very much like him, too. We'll get to her later.
One day, Equality made a discovery of a hole in the street (probably a manhole or entrance to an old subway from previous modern civilizations), and determined to enter it and explore. For two years he secretly visited this underground space where he found manuscripts (books) written by the "Ancient Ones," which he studied and learned about the past.
As time continued, Equality learned that the Ancient Ones had power to make light, which we know as electricity. In Equality's world, man lived in darkness. How Equality wanted to share this truth with the scholars, as if it would reach the state and the state would want to advance civilization. Equality shared his discovery.
He was brought before the collective (judges) and ridiculed for breaking all their laws and boasting of his own infamy. He "dared" to "think that [his] mind held greater wisdom than the minds of [his] brothers. He was told that what was not conceived by all men cannot be true; what was not done collectively cannot be good, and that men exist to toil for others. Finally, the World Council banished him to the Uncharted Forest.
In the Uncharted Forest, a man is punished to live out his days alone. Most would probably starve to death. But for Equality, it was like a rebirth. He learned how satisfying it was to eat food made with his own hands.
Of course, Liberty, she followed Equality to the Uncharted Forest, and they became a human family. Together they learned that there was "no danger in solitude." They came to understand the word and meaning of "I".
I AM. I THINK. I WILL.
In the end, Equality learned how to master his own will. Equality's "lodestone" pointed the way, in one direction, to himself. He declared that "For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose."
"I am a man. This miracle of me is mine own to keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before." (Yikes!)
He continued, "I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them...I guard my treasures, my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom."
In this new found freedom, Equality will choose his own friends and whom he will share his love and respect. Each man bears his own inner temple of his spirit, where he is alone, and each is a guardian of that temple.
He said: "Now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride. This god, this one word: I" (Oh, boy.)
Finally, Equality writes how he will live by his own truth. That he will find all those whose spirit is still alive in them and call them to follow him.
He asks, "What is freedom? There is nothing to take a man's freedom away...save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers."
At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But he broke their chains. Then he was enslaved by the kings. But he broke their chains. He was enslaved by his birth, by his kin, by his race. But he broke their chains. He declared to all his brothers that a man has rights which neither god nor king nor other men can take away from him...for his is the right of man and there is no right on earth above this right.
But then he gave his freedom and fell lower than his beginning. Why? What took away man's ability to reason? What caused man to worship the word WE?
Equality proclaimed: "I still wonder how it was possible, that men did not see whither they were going, and went on in blindness and cowardice, to their fate. I wonder, how men who knew the word I, could give it up and not know what they lost."
"Perhaps there were a few among men...of clear sight and clean soul, who refused to surrender that word. What agony must have been theirs before that which they saw coming and could not stop! They, these few, fought a hopeless battle, and they perished...they chose to perish, for they knew. To them, I send my salute...and my pity."
"For that which they died to save can never perish...the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. Man will go on, Man, not men."
"For the coming of that day shall I fight...for the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor."
A LITTLE OPINE
This is one of those stories that I cheer for the winner, the good guy. Yes, the protagonist is free from wretched enslavement. I get Rand's arguments every single time. Every warning she gives is true. So much in this book is true about the current society in the United States. Today, she could say, "I told you so."
However, I always have this problem with Rand because she is an atheist. Instead of knowing God as the Savior, she believed man had the potential to be his own god, and that was his highest liberty. That was why happiness was Equality's end goal, and his purpose; why he could say he will live by his own truth; and why he could worship himself.
These are problematic and, in many ways ,why society is in the plight that it is because man has not recognized God as Savior. Man rather be his own god; his own happiness his highest regard, despite whom he has to hurt to obtain it; and worship self and expect others who do likewise.
If Ayn Rand had a Christian perspective, her philosophy would look much different. While her arguments against slavery, collectivism, communism are right, her solution for man would be more defendable to me.
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