I would now like to pull what I felt was the important part of Anthem and open this up for some political and philosophical discussion. I think the smart thing for me to do is to simply transcribe it to the blog so everyone is on the same page. Frankly, this is the only really important part of the book in my opinion which you probably already know if you read my critique in my previous entry. Here goes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Whatever road I take, the guiding star is within me; the guiding star and the loadstone which point the way. They point in but one direction. They point to me.
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.
Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.
I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!
I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.
I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man's soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.
I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.
I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.
For the word "We" must never be spoken, save by one's choice and as a second thought. This work must never be placed first within man's soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all the evils on earth, the root of man's torture by men, and of an unspeakable lie.
The word "We" is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and the impotent, are my master? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?
But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of "We," the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
And 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."
------------------------------------------------------------------
So the natural question that spawns from this is, "How much responsibility do we bear for those less fortunate than ourselves?" I say that the only civil answer beyond our immediate circle of family and close friends is as little as possible.
I will make an analogy where the human race is a heard of zebras and the challenges of life are a pride of lions. I challenge you with this question. Is it not at least equally morally reprehensible for the slow zebra to expect the fast one to delay or halt his escape to come to his aid as it is for the fast zebra to refuse his aid? Is it not morally corrupt for the slow zebra to refuse to condition himself for the inevitable chase then to have the audacity to request aid in his getaway? Even a mother zebra will only aid and protect her young so much as they are able to help themselves. In the zebra world, it is every zebra for himself. This preserves the species and ensures that the strongest, fastest zebras run in the front of the heard in order to lead the other zebras to safety, food and drink. It is the responsibility of all zebras to maintain this pace or perish, for if the best zebras are not in the front of the pack, but instead burdened by the slow and lazy, their talents are wasted. The whole herd is now vulnerable to attack.
Well, the argument that you will hear is, of course, that humans beings are not animals. We are above that way of thinking. We are better than that. While it is nice to think so, it just isn't true. That is either the cry of the burdensome or of one whose superior talent, motivation or resources are not being stolen and cast into the abyss of that which is often called social justice or the greater good. It is incomprehensibly naive to think that the world is not a fiercely competitive place be it nation versus nation, person versus person or any other way you choose to divide the teams. This greater good is only good for those who are foolish enough to ignore this fundamental fact of life and take the necessary measures for survival in such an environment. It has become morally acceptable, and in many instances laudable, to steal from one for the benefit of another whose merit I personally call into question. This theft is known also by the kitschier name of Socialism.
Socialism and all entitlement programs thrive on the jealousy of the common masses. It instills the belief that everybody deserves to have what the richer of us have. If you read the comments posted after any given Yahoo! News article that mentions the economy, you will see that they are deluged with comments by those demanding that businesses and the wealthy and the politicians give up their exhorbitant paychecks for the greater good. Let's be honest about what jealousy really is. Jealousy or the hatred of others based on what they possess, be it wealth, beauty, intelligence, talent, etc., is nothing more than a hatred of our own inadequacies. Socialism wants you to feel inadequate. It wants you to hate the wealth and talents of others. This is the only way which Socialism will exist.
So Socialism throws around these romantic ideas of equality. Everyone has everything that they need provided by resources to which everybody works very hard to contribute, right? The unaccounted for variable here is human nature. I have worked for the state for five years and I know that people who are in an environment where their ceiling for achievement is limited, but their base security is guaranteed are not motivated contibutors. If the end result of a person's efforts is always equality among all, his motivation is no longer to succeed, but rather to do no more than the person next to him. So I ask of Socialism, how successful will your herd of zebras be with this kind of mentality?
Now back to the Anthem. The ideology in this book specifically, and of Ayn Rand in general, I find to be very liberating. I feel it is ultimately hardwired into the human brain to be selfish. Despite many selfless heroic acts and examples seemingly to the contrary, if we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that the human being is a very selfish beast. Rand applauds the natural state of this selfishness and goes as far as to assert that it is our duty to be selfish. Our selfishness, pride and pursuit of our own happiness results in our not being a burden on our fellow man. It is in fact, very unselfish for us to be more selfish. A parent who is too preoccupied with meeting the needs of the rest of the family without considering his or her own well being is ultimately bringing a lesser piece to the family puzzle. A healthier, wealthier, more attractive, happier mother or father/husband or wife will always result in a mother or father/husband or wife that is even more capable of meeting his or her family's needs.
I can only imagine how empowering it would feel to stand on a mountaintop and read aloud the pages that I copied into this blog. The empowerment of the individual makes one well up with the human spirit. This is why capitalism is the true economic system of the proud, the rebellious, the spirited and the individualistic. Capitalism is the system which favors those who defiantly declare, "Yes I can." You are not being rebellious by declaring yourself a socialist. You are, in fact, declaring yourself a coward and a conformist. Pseudo-intellectuals love to wax poetic about the merits and civility of Socialism and in doing so, unwittingly declare themselves and their fellow man to be weak, common, incapable, dumb, average, insignificant, sheepish, etc. Any man who will look upon you and try to explain why Socialism is a great idea is doing nothing short of insulting your abilities to your face.
Blogger's final thoughts:
I know as soon as I finished the passage from Anthem, I went into more of a stream of consciousness rant than a discussion of the passage itself, but as I sit here I am satisfied that I have captured the essence of what it said to me which, in its own way is also a commentary on the passage. Besides, that is why these blogs are open to comments by the reader and in cases like this, I don't even believe it becomes interesting until I start to hear what others have to say.
Showing posts with label individualism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label individualism. Show all posts
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Literary Analysis: Anthem by Ayn Rand
The book Anthem by Ayn Rand must be critically viewed in two very separate lights. The first of which is viewing the book as a story. The second of which is as a platform for the author's ideology. The former is a very stilted, short, predictable story that falls well short of other books of this genre. The second is served only in a tiny, brilliant morsel wedged into the story near the end of the work.
To address the matter of the story itself, I simply do not get the impression that Ayn Rand the philosopher translates well into Ayn Rand the storyteller. Anthem falls woefully short when held to the standards set by other dystopian classics such as 1984, Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451. The story seems to be pushed along clumsily as if it were merely a means to a more important end. 1984 is a personal favorite of mine and as I read that book, I thought the author George Orwell does a masterful job in making me feel the oppression of the society which he creates. I am drawn into the mind of the main character as he copes with and then attempts to undermine the drudgery surrounding him. The same cannot be said for Rand's Anthem. I just don't care about the main character, Equality 7-2521. Though I must admit, having finished the book only an hour ago, I have already forgotten his nameand had to refer back to the book, which may serve as a testament to the forgettability of the individual in her world of conformity.
Another fault I found in her dystopian world is the relative ease with which Equality 7-2521 is able to do as he pleases. In what is comparatively a very short book, this man is able to steal away every single night for three hours without ever raising suspicion until his own forgetfulness finally betrays him as he loses track of the time spent in his underground hideaway. Then, after being caught, he is interrogated as to his whereabouts to which he naturally remains silent. He is then whipped severly and thrown in jail. Here is where I would expect an all-powerful, individuality-crushing uber-state to grind not just a confession from him, but also every ounce of pride and spirit that Equality 7-2521 had left in his soul. This was not the case. Instead the jail is constructed so poorly that he is able to break out of the Palace of Corrective Detention with astonishing ease, retrieve his precious glass box which I imagined to be a very large light bulb and then stroll into the room of this society's ruling body of government with absolutely no opposition. I would think that a place called the Palace of Corrective Detention would offer a little more resistance to aspiring escapees, but apparently not. Of course, upon his arrival, the World Council of Scholars did not approve of his glass box as he had hoped, so they order his execution. No problem. Equality 7-2521 is able to leap out of a large window with his glass box in hand and run to the Uncharted Forest without a single threat of his capture. Conveniently, the beautiful woman in the story, the one he had tabbed the Golden One, shows up and they essentially live happily ever after. I know the book is extremely short, but this is just too incredibly easy.
If I may briefly play the devil's advocate, I could defend the aforementioned glaring weaknesses in Rand's vision. I will say that the very basis for her whole belief system is the shabbiness of a world of collectivism and conformity. I can argue that these apparent holes also serve to illustrate the meager quality of craftsmanship and courage of men in such circumstances. It is hinted that this is most likely the case as she describes the escape:
The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about. There is no reason to have guards, for
men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were ordered to
be. Our body is healthy and our strength returns to it speedily. We lunged against the door and it
gave way.
I would like to think that in the hundreds of years this government was said to have been in place, at least one other person would have had the wits and fortitude to try this. I understand why it was so easy to escape, but it is still a grievious flaw in this story.
The saving grace of this schitzophrenic work is when the personality of Ayn Rand the lecturer reveals herself and steps in to relieve Ayn Rand the storyteller. The moment when Equality 7-2421 discovers the word I, Rand steps to the pulpit and delivers a three page sermon of her philosophy of objecivism, individuality and virtue of selfishness. The book suddenly takes on a voice of strength and clarity as she makes declarations such as, "I do not surrender my treasure, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom..." This is the kind of writing that I believe is her strength and this philosophy is why Rand is loved by many and reviled by many others. She returns to the pulpit after three pages to preach about the way "The worship of the word 'We'" has destroyed the greatness of man and allowed society to regress to the point of futility where a man can apparently put a shoulder into the door of his jail cell and run unfettered down the street to make his escape.
I personally love the philosophy of Ayn Rand and think that she is a brilliant, courageous woman; though this being my first experience reading one of her works, I can say that I was very thankful that Anthem is such a short book, because storytelling is apparently not her strength and I would be wary of investing the time necessary to see what her other, more famous works, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, have to offer. My advice to an aspiring reader of this book would be to first read 1984 or Brave New World and upon finishing, read the final two chapters of Anthem. This strategy will afford the reader a far better dystopian story followed by a powerful declaration of the philosophy that one presumably seeks when he or she elects to read one of Ayn Rand's works.
To address the matter of the story itself, I simply do not get the impression that Ayn Rand the philosopher translates well into Ayn Rand the storyteller. Anthem falls woefully short when held to the standards set by other dystopian classics such as 1984, Brave New World or Fahrenheit 451. The story seems to be pushed along clumsily as if it were merely a means to a more important end. 1984 is a personal favorite of mine and as I read that book, I thought the author George Orwell does a masterful job in making me feel the oppression of the society which he creates. I am drawn into the mind of the main character as he copes with and then attempts to undermine the drudgery surrounding him. The same cannot be said for Rand's Anthem. I just don't care about the main character, Equality 7-2521. Though I must admit, having finished the book only an hour ago, I have already forgotten his nameand had to refer back to the book, which may serve as a testament to the forgettability of the individual in her world of conformity.
Another fault I found in her dystopian world is the relative ease with which Equality 7-2521 is able to do as he pleases. In what is comparatively a very short book, this man is able to steal away every single night for three hours without ever raising suspicion until his own forgetfulness finally betrays him as he loses track of the time spent in his underground hideaway. Then, after being caught, he is interrogated as to his whereabouts to which he naturally remains silent. He is then whipped severly and thrown in jail. Here is where I would expect an all-powerful, individuality-crushing uber-state to grind not just a confession from him, but also every ounce of pride and spirit that Equality 7-2521 had left in his soul. This was not the case. Instead the jail is constructed so poorly that he is able to break out of the Palace of Corrective Detention with astonishing ease, retrieve his precious glass box which I imagined to be a very large light bulb and then stroll into the room of this society's ruling body of government with absolutely no opposition. I would think that a place called the Palace of Corrective Detention would offer a little more resistance to aspiring escapees, but apparently not. Of course, upon his arrival, the World Council of Scholars did not approve of his glass box as he had hoped, so they order his execution. No problem. Equality 7-2521 is able to leap out of a large window with his glass box in hand and run to the Uncharted Forest without a single threat of his capture. Conveniently, the beautiful woman in the story, the one he had tabbed the Golden One, shows up and they essentially live happily ever after. I know the book is extremely short, but this is just too incredibly easy.
If I may briefly play the devil's advocate, I could defend the aforementioned glaring weaknesses in Rand's vision. I will say that the very basis for her whole belief system is the shabbiness of a world of collectivism and conformity. I can argue that these apparent holes also serve to illustrate the meager quality of craftsmanship and courage of men in such circumstances. It is hinted that this is most likely the case as she describes the escape:
The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about. There is no reason to have guards, for
men have never defied the Councils so far as to escape from whatever place they were ordered to
be. Our body is healthy and our strength returns to it speedily. We lunged against the door and it
gave way.
I would like to think that in the hundreds of years this government was said to have been in place, at least one other person would have had the wits and fortitude to try this. I understand why it was so easy to escape, but it is still a grievious flaw in this story.
The saving grace of this schitzophrenic work is when the personality of Ayn Rand the lecturer reveals herself and steps in to relieve Ayn Rand the storyteller. The moment when Equality 7-2421 discovers the word I, Rand steps to the pulpit and delivers a three page sermon of her philosophy of objecivism, individuality and virtue of selfishness. The book suddenly takes on a voice of strength and clarity as she makes declarations such as, "I do not surrender my treasure, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom..." This is the kind of writing that I believe is her strength and this philosophy is why Rand is loved by many and reviled by many others. She returns to the pulpit after three pages to preach about the way "The worship of the word 'We'" has destroyed the greatness of man and allowed society to regress to the point of futility where a man can apparently put a shoulder into the door of his jail cell and run unfettered down the street to make his escape.
I personally love the philosophy of Ayn Rand and think that she is a brilliant, courageous woman; though this being my first experience reading one of her works, I can say that I was very thankful that Anthem is such a short book, because storytelling is apparently not her strength and I would be wary of investing the time necessary to see what her other, more famous works, Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, have to offer. My advice to an aspiring reader of this book would be to first read 1984 or Brave New World and upon finishing, read the final two chapters of Anthem. This strategy will afford the reader a far better dystopian story followed by a powerful declaration of the philosophy that one presumably seeks when he or she elects to read one of Ayn Rand's works.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)