BRAINWASHED - Ayn Rand 01
“Anthem” - faceless, nameless We & They
“Anthem” by Ayn Rand (1938)
(sponsored by Amazon)
An Adam and Eve's sad, but hopeful love story. People in the City have NO name, NO face, but actually, humans with warm blood. The famous “1984” by George Orwell was published a decade later (1949) after World War 2.
They are educated to call themselves ONLY by plural pronouns. A man, Equality 7-2521 (his name), assigned as a Street Sweeper, driven by his inherent curiosity, discovered science and electricity in secret. But the Council of Scholars rejected his invention of a light bulb as dangerous. Their (his) torture scene is so painful and bloody.
They (he) met a woman, the Golden One (whose official name is Liberty 5-3000). And they fled into the forbidden Uncharted Forest. As the legends of Robin Hood tells, a forest is symbolized as a sacred zone. And the two awakened…
Collective Society
In the future barren Cities, the citizens are forbidden to call themselves by singular pronouns as the Unspeakable Word, which can be punished by the death penalty. Instead, they are allowed, even educated (= brainwashed) to call themselves ONLY by plural pronouns. This plurality means to kill individuality, erasing their faces to obey the central authority Great We, as a common sense.
This is a convenient instrument for the World Council to control ALL of their life, from their assigned occupations, regimented routines, to even mating and breeding. Citizens NO longer have a room for personal taste, choice, or desire.
The Cities are forced to achieve absolute equality. Forced equality, especially the resulted equality, is NOT ideal for human society, but rather leads to suppress, suffocate talents and geniuses. Being smarter, distinctive, unique, or doing anything different from others is a crime. No dialectic competition, No advancement. This results in a dark-age stagnant society with faceless people. Equality is an antonym of Diversity. However, nameless citizens, instead numbered, are unconscious, unawakened due to the strict brainwashing (= education).
Citizens are educated to believe in being “One in All and All in One.” There is NO individual man, and they follow ONLY “Great We.” Any self-interest or personal happiness is considered selfishness as well as a sin. Their purpose is ONLY to serve the whole brotherhood.
But Equality 7-2521 defies this social system by pursuing knowledge, love, and self-consciousness, and is awakening out of (the singular) his inherent genius. Ayn Rand chants an anthem to the Ego to return to “Cogito, ergo sum” of René Descartes.
The Unspeakable Word
The “Unspeakable” means substantially “forbidden.” In the society, this word exclusively signifies the singular pronoun “I”. This word "I" is considered the root cause of All human evil, torture, and pain in their life.
The penalty is stipulated as death by burning. Actually, a man named "Saint of the Pyre" was burned on a pyre for discovering and speaking the Unspeakable Word. This is a typical public execution in a totalitarian society to educate the people to obey the authority docilely. It's rather realistic in our modern World, and reminiscent of the Inquisition in history.
This is a policy to govern the people. In order to force people as a whole to feel, think, and live as part of the collective society, the authority has eliminated the word “I”, instead forcing people to use ONLY the plural “We” and “They”.
To rediscover the Unspeakable Word represents the ultimate triumph of the Ego over the collective society. The Greek concept Logos (λόγος) is multi-faceted and very deep. According to the philosophy of Heraclitus (c. 535–475 BCE), Logos is the universal, divine reason and fundamental law underlying All existence. In the view of his “Panta rhei”(Πάντα ρει; everything flows), Heraclitus said that cosmos is an “ever-living fire.” So it's rational that Equality 7-2521 has found his appropriate name, Prometheus.
A word made incarnated flesh, NOT only an instrumental communication tool. The most common word “I” in our everyday life symbolizes individual consciousness and our own independence. The singular 1st person pronoun represents our self-worth and personal identity.
Enlightenment
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| Prometheus, by Heinrich Füger (1817) |
Equality 7-2521 defies the City by thinking for himself, NOT for themselves, and pursuing science alone in a secret tunnel. Through individual inquiries, they (so, he) explores newly discovering Himself.
At the same time, he is realizing that true social, as well as intellectual, development can be achieved by independent endeavors, NOT by mandated tasks of the collective society. But in this case, there is yet NO competition, but ONLY his extraordinary innovative genius.
Equality 7-2521 has rediscovered a lightbulb and electricity. This represents the triumph of individual reason over collective brainwashed superstitions. But his innovation is NO longer a contribution to the collective society, but a testament to his own perception of the laws of nature, or Logos.
The lightbulb is a symbol of science as a whole and the innovative intelligence of human nature. His light is going to shine over the new dark age World, and literally enlighten the brainwashed ignorance of the people. Electricity can be symbolized as the fire of Prometheus. It's NOT coincidental that newly reborn He, as a singular cogito, has chosen to name himself as Prometheus.
Collectivist Science and Innovation
The society has missed, or intentionally rejected, any advancements. Actually, the Council of Scholars has taken 100 years to discover how to make a candle! This is reminiscent of the Soviet stagnant productivity and the typical inertia.
And the Council of Scholars unanimously rejects his lightbulb because his genius is NOT subject to the collective society, but standing out and rather dangerous for the authority. This plainly shows how the authority values conformity over extraordinary talent.
As the society brainwashes citizens as a whole that the Earth is flat and the Sun revolves around them, there are so many unknowable things that people shouldn't know. The collective authority doesn't respect any scientific objectivity, but exclusively loves dogmatic rules to govern or manipulate people.
Return to Ego
Equality 7-2521’s scientific discovery rationally entails the discovery of being himself, his Ego, simultaneously. Because a creative innovation requires the creator's subjectivity, self-confidence, free will, self-realization, and deep contemplations, All of which collective societies deprive. Even in order to be objective for evaluation, we need subjectivity, as the base stratum of inter-subjectivity.
Also, through an accidental encounter with the Golden One, Equality 7-2521 is realizing what Love is, which is forbidden by the authorities in order to control their breeding policy administered by the Council of Eugenics. Love requires individual identities for each other, and the free will for respect.
Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 flee into the Uncharted Forest. A forest is commonly symbolized as a sanctuary for criminals and outlaws, in the territory of which the authorities tacitly connive. And then, they both start a New Life, planning to rebuild a civilization lost in the Unmentionable Times long, long ago…
Hidden and forbidden Love
Love requires the identity of each other, before reciprocal appreciation and respect. That's why Love usually sprouts along with developing identity in childhood.
In this society, Love is also controlled by the authorities as a reproduction process under their breeding policy. For a citizen, it is a crime to prefer a certain citizen over others, as All must be loved equally. To think of a special woman for Love is forbidden, except during the Time of Mating, restricted ONLY at the Palace of Mating.
As Equality 7-2521 secretly called Liberty 5-3000 "the Golden One," and in turn, she referred to him as "the Unconquered," both of them share the same value of forbidden individualism and respect each other in the midst of the collectivist darkness. Their love is a beacon of humanity just as the fire of Prometheus. Through growing their forbidden love, the lovers are reclaiming humanity to hand down to the next NEW generation.
Defiance, Freedom
“But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. That and nothing else.” (Part 12, Anthem)
Equality 7-2521’s scientific discovery itself is seen by the authorities as a crime of a deliberate individual act. But he has defied the Council of Vocations by abandoning his occupational duties and conducting secret research in a tunnel. So he is a self-conscious revolutionary in the collective society.
After his genius had been rejected by the World Council of Scholars, Equality 7-2521 didn’t obey and ran away into the Uncharted Forest. This is his own self-determination against the customs of the totalitarian society. He abominates everything in his oppressed collective Life, and has chosen to be honest to be Himself abandoning the society with his defiant courage. He must have known if arrested, he would NEVER be alive with impunity…
His sincere love with Liberty 5-3000 is also a rebellion against the Time of Mating, while “breedings” are exclusively controlled by the Council of Eugenics. So there is absolutely NO room for private love in the society. Moreover, the lovers both name each other, the Golden One and the Unconquered, first. Of course, it's a transgression to be punished.
Later, He renamed himself Prometheus and named his love Gaea, symbolizing the mother of the New creation, as He learned a lot by reading manuscripts of the Unmentionable Times.
In this context, Freedom is Not merely political, but social, as the ability for selection and self-determination according to one's own independent judgment and rational self-interest.
Freedom started being established when he abandoned the collective society sweeping out of his mind and determined to build a NEW society based on the rights for individuals.
He, newly reborn Prometheus, shows through his indomitable perseverance that Human Nature can NEVER be patient with, and rationally can't stop rebelling against such absurd oppressions. Defiance against conformity is required in order to protect the identity of the Ego, secure Liberty to be the Self from threatening authoritative powers. All revolutions, evolutions, developments, or advancements in human history came out of the core of Human Nature as the modes of representation.
“Anthem” depicts barren scenes of communism, socialism, or any kind of authoritarian political system in Ayn Rand's mind. Such political systems aim to spoil humanity to subjugate the individual Ego to the collective authority.
This sad and desperate dystopia is NOT only a fiction, but also a reality deeply rooted inside of Ayn Rand's mind, reflecting her real turmoils in her childhood and adolescence.
In my next post, let's continue to examine her background to reach this “Anthem” and her following works stemmed from her original philosophy of Objectivism. Coming soon, and stick around!
Further reading (sponsored by Amazon):
Introduction
Part One: Philosophy
Chapter 1 - Introducing Objectivism
Chapter 2 - Review of Randall’s Aristotle
Chapter 3 - To Young Scientists
Chapter 4 - Who is the Final Authority in Ethics?
Chapter 5 - The Psychology of Psychologizing
Chapter 6 - Altruism as Appeasement
Chapter 7 - The Question of Scholarships
Chapter 8 - Of Living Death
Chapter 9 - Religion Versus America
Part Two: Culture
Chapter 10 - The Intellectual Bankruptcy of Our Age
Chapter 11 - Our Cultural Value-Deprivation
Chapter 12 - Global Balkanization
Chapter 13 - How to Read (and Not to Write)
Chapter 14 - The Lessons of Vietnam
Chapter 15 - The Sanction of the Victims
Chapter 16 - Through Your Most Grievous Fault
Chapter 17 - Apollo 11
Chapter 18 - Epitaph for a Culture
Chapter 19 - Assault from the Ivory Tower: The Professors’ War Against America
Chapter 20 - The American School: Why Johnny Can’t Think
Part Three: Politics
Chapter 21 - Representation Without Authorization
Chapter 22 - To Dream the Noncommercial Dream
Chapter 23 - Tax Credits for Education
Chapter 24 - Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason
Chapter 25 - The Pull Peddlers
Chapter 26 - About a Woman President
Chapter 27 - The Inverted Moral Priorities
Chapter 28 - Hunger and Freedom
Chapter 29 - How Not to Fight Against Socialized Medicine
Chapter 30 - Medicine: The Death of a Profession
Chapter 31 - Libertarianism: The Perversion of Liberty
Epilogue
“For the New Intellectual” (first published in 1961; Random House) is Ayn Rand’s first non-fiction work! — A challenge to the prevalent philosophical doctrines of our time and the “atmosphere of guilt, of panic, of despair, of boredom, and of all-pervasive evasion” that they create.
Preface
For the New Intellectual
We the Living
Anthem
The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged
“We the Living” is Ayn Rand's first published novel (first published in 1936), a timeless story that explores the struggles of the individual against the state in Soviet Russia!
Introduction
Foreword
Part One
I — XVII
Part Two
I — XVII
Afterword
