REVIEW: Anthem

[Anthem; by Ayn Rand; Signet Books, N.Y.; Signet Books copyright 1961; ISBN 0-451-19113-7.]

Why are we reviewing a book as old as Anthem? There are two reasons. First, Anthem is one of the most enjoyable books we have ever read, and we hope that by reviewing it, readers unfamiliar with it will read it. Second, Anthem, while highly relevant to the 20th century world of its time (1930s), is even more relevant to our current (early 21st century) world.

Of the seemingly infinite number of books of fiction and non-fiction we have devoured over the decades, two novels stand out as number one favorites. The first is Anthem, and the second is Atlas Shrugged. The first is like a beautiful literary tone poem that massages the spirit and soul, and it is the spiritual prelude to Atlas Shrugged, which is like a guidebook to life and the future, wrapped in a highly complex philosophical detective, adventure, and grand romantic art form.  Re-reading these numerous times over the years has been one of the most rewarding and enriching of intensely personal experiences.

Ayn Rand emigrated in 1926 from Soviet Russia, having fully experienced the collectivism of communism of Lenin and Stalin.  She came because of the inspiration of America, from its personal freedom to its capitalistic opportunities.  She came for the values of America, the only nation on earth founded on Enlightenment values.

She found those values, but she also found something terribly sinister.  America's intellectuals--academicians, politicians, journalists, and so on--as well as labor and business leaders were thoroughly enamored of Soviet Communist values she had experienced on her own skin and from which she had escaped.  In the land of liberty, she saw those who most drove the culture trying to drive it into a Soviet-like state.  That she could not endure.

Her first novel, We the Living, was set in the Soviet Russia she had left, and she demonstrated how such a collectivist society kills, first the spirit, then the body.  She had experienced it all first hand.  Her second novel was Anthem, written in 1937, and it was a radical departure from the first novel.  It became the spiritual ancestor of Atlas Shrugged (1957).

The nation of the 1930s was not sensitive to collectivism, and it turned a deaf ear to any truths about collectivism. Nevertheless, Anthem persisted, and was republished in its present form in 1946.  It has never been out of print since.  For the 1946 re-issue, Ayn Rand revised some of the English she was still learning in 1937, but the content and style of the book were not changed.  She wrote, in typical Randian phraseology in the Author's Forward, “I have lifted its face, but not its spine or spirit; these did not need lifting.

Parenthetically, the Ayn Rand Centennial edition of Anthem contains a length introduction by Leonard Peikoff, her colleague, with considerable history about her and Anthem.  The same edition has the original text with her by hand rewrites.  (Incidentally, my original paperback copy from the 1960s cost $0.60; the Centennial edition paperback costs $7.99!)

She wrote about her world of 1937 and 1946, and about the world of Anthem:

“Social gains,” “social aims,” “social objectives” have become the daily bromides of our language.  The necessity of a social justification for all activities and all existence is now taken for granted.  There is no proposal outrageous enough but what its author can get a respectful hearing and approbation if he claims that in some undefined way it for “the common good.”

Were she still alive, surely she would hold in moral contempt the old term made mantra of the collectivists today, the obscenely immoral “social justice.”

Although written about the Red Decade and socialist Great Depression and New Deal era, Anthem transcends that era, and any other era.  That makes it as relevant in 2007 as in 1937.  In fact, given the dangerous, degraded state of America’s popularly held values, principles, and culture, Anthem has acquired an eerie resemblance to a prophecy.  Today’s culture is merely the logical extension of the very same values and principles of the culture of 1937.

The story is set in some indefinite future.  Chapter one introduces us to the central character who speaks with the voice of the spirit of all mankind yearning to be free.  He is “Equality 7-2521, as written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on the left wrists with their names upon it.” 

He builds the mood and character of the world he lives by citing quotations, mottos, and inscriptions that the leaders of his world hold dear.

• From the “World Council”:  “We are one in all and all in one.  There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever.”
• The “Great Truth”:  “…all men are one and … there is no will save the will of all men together.”
• From the Teachers at the Home of the Students:  “We are nothing.  Mankind is all.  By the grace of our brother are we allowed our lives.  We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State.  Amen.”

The society of Equality 7-2521 is severely primitive and stagnant, spiritually lifeless, boring beyond bearability, and ugly in every respect.  It is a completely collectivized society, and its most heralded intellectual achievement has been the development of the candle.  All traces of individualism have been outlawed and educated out of the populace, who refer to themselves and others in the third person plural:  “We.”  “I” and “you” do not exist.

Equality 7-2521 lives in chronic fear and guilt.  He yearns to think and act for himself, and to be his own person.  Were he to be found out, he would be severely punished or killed.  He also lives in severe mental conflict because he is intelligent and has an inquisitive and active mind.  Because he was detected to have such potential, the Council of Vocations assigned him to the permanent position of street sweeper, from age 15 until the usual time of death at 40 – 45 years of age.

Despite the many re-readings of Anthem over the years, I was not prepared for a big surprise this time.  It was all there before, but the context for the surprise was not.  The quality of life and way of life details of this society focus on Marxist collectivism, to be sure, both in Ayn Rand's native Russia and elsewhere in the world. 

This time, however, in 2007, Anthem took me to the very heart and essence of Islamic society as well.  Ayn Rand probably paid little, if any, attention to Islam per se in 1937; but, were she alive today, she would surely draw our attention to the parallels of that totalitarian society as well, complete with its intellectual stagnation.  These are added reasons that make Anthem so relevant today.

Equality 7-2521 writes about the very special secret he has discovered.  He has found a hole in the ground, with a metal ladder leading to a tunnel below.  At the bottom are parallel rails and sundry accoutrements from the Unmentionable Times, when the long-forgotten and abandoned subway functioned.  This has become his private sanctuary.

Again, the parallel with Islam leaps out.  The Unmentionable Times of Anthem correspond so well to the Jahaliya of Islam, the term describing the "corrupt and evil" times that preceded the Great Truth of Islam.  Both the Unmentionable Times and Jahaliya, were, in fact, not times of corruption and evil. Certainly Bedouin societies were neither prosperous nor advanced, but other Middle East societies were in some contact with the Library of Alexandria, Greek Philosophy, Indian mathematics, and so on, which were far superior to the dark ages of Islam and Europe. The "Unmentionable Times" suggest an industrial society, evil by propagandistic proclamation, not fact.

What were the Unmentionable Times of Anthem?  Equality 7-2521 writes:

…We think of the secrets of the Unmentionable Times.  And we wonder how it came to pass that these secrets were lost to the world.  We have heard the legends of the great fighting, in which many men fought on one side and only a few on the other.  These few were the Evil Ones and they were conquered.  Then great fires raged over the land.  And in those fires the Evil Ones and all the things made by the Evil Ones were burned.  And the fire which is called the Dawn of the Great Rebirth, was the Script Fire where all the scripts of the Evil Ones were burned, and with them all the words of the Evil Ones.  Great mountains of flame stood in the squares of the Cities for three months.  Then came the Great Rebirth.

Pondering the foregoing description in these times brings a chill.

Equality 7-2521 secretes himself in the subway hole to write, to study, and to experience himself.  His is a dangerous pursuit since by doing these, he defies the regulations of the collective.

Then, one day, he finds her.  He becomes irresistibly attracted to Liberty 5-3000.  He violates protocol by renaming her the “Golden One,” for her hair and personality.  Both do all they can to develop a romantic relationship, which is an incredibly difficult accomplishment in their world.

Equality 7-2521’s scientific curiosity and study leads him to re-discover galvanic electricity.  He grasps its significance and the significance of the glass globes with internal wires he finds in the subway.  He causes a wire to glow, to produce light, and begins experiencing the strongest of desires to share this with his fellow men.  He just knows that this “sin” of individual discovery, and all his other sins, will be exonerated as his fellow men grasp the significance of his discovery for improving their futures.

When he finally frees himself after being caught and punished, he takes his primitive light bulb (which he calls his “glass box”) and battery to the annual meeting of the World Council of Scholars to give it to mankind.  The response he gets from the Council is vehement rejection and condemnation.  For us, the four or so pages of Council vitriol makes great reading. 

He escapes to the Uncharted Forest, knowing that he must always live alone from now on, but he knows also that he will be free from the collective.  He writes:

Only the glass box [his primitive light bulb] in our arms is like a living heart that gives us strength.  We have not built this box for the good of our brothers.  We built it for its own sake.  It is above all our brothers to us, and its truth above their truth.  Why wonder about this?  We have not many days to live.  We are walking to the fangs awaiting us somewhere among the great, silent trees.  There is not a thing behind us to regret.

To his joy, Liberty 5-3000, hearing gossip about his escape, escapes to join him in the Uncharted Forest.  They realize their romantic love for each other and begin the unfettered development their individuality.  The phrases and descriptions of these developments are beautiful.

In time they settle in an abandoned house from the Unmentionable Times and move in.  It is filled with things the Evil Ones had to leave, including a big library.

In the final chapters, Ayn Rand gives the reader the most important ideas, the conclusions of Equality 7-2521, and all written in elegant prose, in the first person of the main character:

• I am.  I think.  I will.
• I wished to know the meaning of things.  I am the meaning. 
• I wished to find a warrant for being.  I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being.  I am the warrant and the sanction. 
• I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity.  I know not and I care not.  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 done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.

She could be speaking to those of us who are alive today, and to those who will carry on tomorrow:

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. 

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, no matter what their number, for his is the right of man, and there is no right on earth above this right.  And he stood on the threshold of the freedom for which the blood of the centuries behind him had been spilled.

But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning.

Man gave it all up for altruism, the moral code of duty-bound, self-sacrificial service of individuals of all they have of value to the service of others, at the expense of themselves.  (Ayn Rand did not mention altruism per se in Anthem, but that is what the “We”-ism means.  Later in non-fiction presentations of her philosophy, she expounded at length about altruism.)  Man can never be free to relate properly with other humans and enjoy their company when he is enslaved to them by altruism.

In every generation, there are the few who never give up, and Anthem, through Prometheus, the new and proper name Equality 7-2521 has given himself, addresses those humans who do not succumb, who do not give up, and who would rather perish than submit to moral horror. He writes:

Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hears was not to be final, and their night was not without hope.  For the battle they lost can never be lost.  For that which they died to save can never perish.  Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth.  It may sleep, but it will awaken.  It may wear chains, but it will break through.  And man will go on.  Man, not men.

Anthem is a superb introduction to the powerful ideas and writing of Ayn Rand for young people and for any adults whose minds have not been closed off.  For those familiar with Objectivism—even very familiar—Anthem serves as a tonic for the mind, particularly when cultural, national, and international events tear at the fabric of one’s spirit.

The development of Equality 7-2521’s “I,” his recognition that he is an individual, beautifully flows in unforgettable prose.

Since Anthem, the Left have abandoned any pretense of supporting the Constitution, rights, capitalism, or even of America herself.  The only changes with the Left have been their increasing their numbers, the broadening of their causes, and the increasing virulence of their quest for communism (little “c”).  In other words, theirs has been only much more of the same.

The Right, having abandoned reason for religious faith, have increased their numbers, increased the scope of their causes, and have increased the virulence of their pursuit of the logical consequences of their dropping reason for religion:  the theocratic state.

Some choice, indeed:  totalitarian communism versus totalitarian religion.

On fundamentals, Left and Right have merged.  They differ only in trifles.  Republicans have become the handmaidens of Democrats.  Both unite under collectivism, quibbling only about which kind to pursue.  This is why Anthem is as relevant to the Right as it is the Left--and to Islam.

One important point must be stressed about the society pictured in Anthem.  Ayn Rand exactly portrayed the collectivist society far more accurately than books like 1984 and so many science fiction movies.  They err egregiously by presenting totally collectivized societies as highly technologically competent monster societies.  The reason this portrayal is inaccurate is that mind and force are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist.  No fully collectivized society can also remain a technologically advanced society.  Minds shut down, and creativity withers.  Even the USSR had to steal from or be given by the foolish West almost everything technological.  An even more primitive example is the centuries long morbid stagnation of Islam, which began long before the USSR began.

What is different now, as the West and America degenerate into crude collectivism, is that the world finally has the proper antidote.  It had no such antidote to the counter-Enlightenment assault on reason which eventually corrupted America.

That antidote is the philosophy of Ayn Rand—Objectivism.  The USA may be far too gone to expect any turnaround for a very long time, but it will occur.  The yearning to be free never goes away, and now the world has the intellectual ammunition it will need for a future renaissance.  The genie cannot be put back in the bottle. 

The vituperation against Ayn Rand over many years and to this day reflect the recognition, at some basal level, by her detractors that she is right.

One day the world will have unfettered reason, applied explicitly and consistently, the restoration of rights, and a reversal of the cultural degradation that has made our modern world so ugly.  The struggle towards that goal has been symbolically portrayed in Anthem.

Comments

[discount coach]

We don’t always get our hopes and dreams, and we don’t always get our own way.
But don’t give up hope, because you can make a difference one situation and one person at a time. Did you agree with me？