Anthem (Ayn Rand's Objectivist Manifesto)

Black Swan

To what extent does Ayn Rand's short fictional novel Anthem (1938) address the fundamental philosophical problems that pertain to existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, language, gender, and social organisation, as well as the dynamics that may exist between individuality and society?

If you are unfamiliar with this particular work, it's a quick read of few pages. Free Anthem text: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1250/pg1250.txt

Comparing Anthem with other works by Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged, etc.) when discussing her objectivist philosophical position may be useful, but let's not become completely sidetracked and lose sight of our review and critique of Anthem when doing so.

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Cannibal Ox

I think the form of the argument provides her with a good strategy of avoiding critique. When I started reading it I was comparing it to socratic dialogue, of having two or more characters discussing a topic/s in the form of a conversation, but I realized after a while that it isn't really a dialogue, more of a monologue. Which is interesting because, while a socratic dialogue gives space for alternative viewpoints, Rand's narrative gives no space to alternative viewpoints. It allows her to construct this massive edifice of paranoiac collectivism through a singular narrative, and to subsequently demolish it, through a singular narrative. There are no alternatives, no subtleties to her position, and no other way of thinking. She's right, you should just accept that dear reader, and accept the lesson she is giving.

It is clever, but I think it's also a little too authoritarian for my taste. Philosophers, I think, provide ideas and inspiration, and they do that through engaging with the world and the multiplicity of viewpoints in the world, whether rationalist, empiricist, or both. In that particular piece, Rand doesn't connect with the world or different viewpoints. In fact, she explicitly avoids the real world, which is more then a little paradoxical for someone who stresses the possibility of objective knowledge. There was a wealth of case studies around Rand at the time she was writing to study totalitarian and authoritarian societies but instead of using empirical studies, she chose to write fiction. I think she does this because it allows her to avoid reality, to construct her own little nightmarish worlds that allow her to take her points to the extreme.

I think that makes it difficult to critique her because you'd almost necessarily have to engage with her world, and her world has her own particular rules which she has constructed. I'm sure you could deconstruct the piece if you had the time and the patience, but I don't really see the point. She was a product of modernism, and she's long since lost any kind of relevance. 'Objectivism' in philosophy went the way of positivism long before positivism did. The absolute ego she describes was a fantasy even when she was writing, if not more so now. She wrote fiction, she dabbled in philosophy, and she wrote linear monologues that spoke of the glory and wonder of the individual. As a piece of reading, I can understand why people might like her, but as a piece of thought, not so much.

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Black Swan

Only he escapes the "we," and not she.

Liberty 5-3000 (aka Golden One and Gaea) trades one form of subordination for another. This was exemplified by when she "knelt, and bowed [her] golden head before" Equality 7-2521, "would obey any word [he] might speak," waiting "obediently" upon him, vowing "Your will be done," offering her "body [to be] delivered in submission," and to "Do as you please with us."

To what extent was Liberty 5-3000 objectified instrumentally by Ayn Rand to be used for Equality 7-2521's male "Ego" self-gratification purposes, given that she was presented as someone lacking autonomy by exhibiting her subordination to his "will?" This was not the "objectivist" position of Rand, but rather a very different kind of "objectified" relationship of gender roles noted by Martha Nussbaum in Sex and Social Justice, and typical of Rand's patriarchal subordination of women to an alpha male hero in her novels.

Red Hand

As a work of fiction, it's theme is similar to 1984, though much more condensed. I'd agree with donegalfella in that it is a fable...kind of like a Grimm fairy tale.

No characterisation or subtlety, just a plot with a big lesson in it- Totalitarianism is bad.She wants to prove a point and takes it to unrealistic extremes. No people can be trapped like the societies depicted in Anthem or even 1984 are.

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Valmont

I read Anthem while waiting for a storm to clear over JFK and was slightly sleep deprived so I hope my small analysis isn't too far off the mark for those of you who have read it recently.

Anthem cannot be judged singularly as representative of Rand's philosophy, to get an idea of its greater relevance you really do have to look at where it is on the continuum of Rand's work. I perceived Anthem as anticipating both The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged in that the thematic foundations are roughly similar and you can almost sense Rand fumbling about for that winning combination that popularised her two famous novels. The nature of the interaction between the individual and society is explored through a short story set in a dystopian future and to be honest, as a stand-alone novella, I didn't think much of it.

Ultimately, its redeeming feature is the absence of "I" in the lexicon of the fictional society because by simply removing it, we see how drastically the winning dynamic between the individual and society breaks down. What I found especially interesting was how the reasons for this elimination of the individual are suspiciously similar to the calls we hear on a daily basis for people to stop thinking of themselves, to consider the greater good, and that selfishness is wrong. Admittedly, Rand goes off the deep-end rather crudely in taking these sentiments to their absolute extremes in Anthem and the novella feels quite ham-fisted in this respect but by getting it out of the way she paved the way for her excellent explication of the same ideas in Atlas Shrugged.

That is the enduring legacy of Rand's novels- she took the values and axioms of collectivism in its modern manifestation and painted a disturbing picture of a society following them to their logical conclusions.

Selected

A body of text so replete with profundities, I have yet to read.

Anthem speaks to the individual directly and challenges the stagnant/impotent existential anarchist. Self-determination and personal autonomy cannot be established within the confines of a hierarchical and compartmentalised society.

Rand is uncompromising in her representation: everything needs to be extreme because man has conspired against humankind. Through the protagonist’s apophatic inquisition and deconstruction, Rand, successfully presents a mirror for the philosophically trained mind to gaze

“We did this work alone, for no words of ours could take the Golden One
away from the big glass which is not glass. They stood before it and
they looked and looked upon their own body.”

Undervalued thinker.

Black Swan

donegalfella wrote: »

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Dagny Taggart is an extraordinary improvement over the completely submissive Liberty 5-3000, but still subordinated to the John Galt leadership vision. Why were all the visionary leaders male in Rand's novels; e.g., Equality 7-2521 in Anthem, John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, and Howard Roark in The Fountainhead?

In Anthem did Rand construct a distorted and exaggerated straw man fallacy that appealed to the sympathies of the reader and was artificially vulnerable to attack, thereby providing her with a platform to advocate her notions of laissez-faire individualism as an infallible solution? Further, to what extent was this solution presented as a false dichotomy that involved a situation in which only two alternatives were considered, when there were many other possibilities?

Does Rand's Anthem suffer from a one-sided bias, in that she forces Émile Durkheim's dichotomy between the sacred (group interests) and profane (individual interests) into a black-and-white distinction between good and evil?

When Equality 7-2521 finds a house built during the Unmentionable Times with only two beds in the Uncharted Forest, along with books he does not fully comprehend (that use the personal pronoun "I"), why does he leap to the conclusion that the advanced technology of the house was attributed to, or can be best served by the pursuit of laissez-faire individualism? Are there no other alternatives?

Akin to the transformation of the word ambition by Mark Antony during his speech over the dead body of Caesar, the "Evil" of Unmentionable Times was transformed to good in Anthem by the end of the story. In like manner, electricity used for light appeared beneficial, but how does its meaning change when Prometheus (aka Equality 7-2521) planned to build an electric fence to act as a barrier between the people he accepts, and those he rejects? Will he merely shock them, or fry them, or unwittingly electrocute them when the ground was wet?

Are we to believe that laissez-faire individualism produces ultimate good consistent with what Shaftesbury in Inquiry Concerning Virtue contended about human nature, or are we to adopt the contrary view of Hobbes in Leviathan, where Prometheus and his followers go to "war of all against all" under the banner of individualism? “And the day will come when I shall break the chains of the earth, and raze the cities of the enslaved…” so forecasts Prometheus.

Valmont

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

In Anthem did Rand construct...

In short, you're pushing the misty and vague mixed economy, correct?

Do you support the idea that we can find the hallowed ground between egalitarianism and individualism? Personally, considering this is a philosophy forum, I've seen a massive failure of this mixed system to state its principles definitely. What I admire about Anthem and Rand's other work is that she is not afraid to lay her ideas down, without unnecessary fluff, and they are there for people to engage with, critically or otherwise. This mystical "Third Way" of doing things and eschewing the dichotomous constructs of Rand fuzzes everything into a nice mess of contradictions that hasn't done very well and I'm tired trying to figure it all out.

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Black Swan

Valmont wrote: »

In short, you're pushing the misty and vague mixed economy, correct?

In reviewing my posts up to this point, I fail to see any specific reference to a “mixed economy” per se, but I did question Ayn Rand’s androcentric and patriarchal bias, as well as several problematic issues that concern philosophy in general (not just as evidenced in Anthem), those being Rand’s use of a straw man fallacy, false dichotomy, one-sided bias between the sacred and profane, the implication that laissez-faire individualism always produces ultimate good, and the lack of alternatives.

Valmont wrote: »

Do you support the idea that we can find the hallowed ground between egalitarianism and individualism?

It depends upon how you define egalitarianism. It is not always a bipolar opposite of individualism. In some cases it can in fact be supportive of individualism, thereby illustrating a potential weakness of popular dichotomies. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “Egalitarianism is a protean doctrine, because there are several different types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated the same, that might be thought desirable.”

One way they may be treated equally is codified in the US Declaration of Independence, wherein it proclaims that each citizen has the unalienable rights to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Prometheus (aka Equality 7-2521) demanded these rights after the discovery of his individuality. Further, Rand made symbolic reference to “nature” when mentioning the Unmentionable Times and Uncharted Forest, that suggested the natural rights of man, a notion of John Locke that influenced the composition of the Declaration.

Valmont wrote: »

What I admire about Anthem and Rand's other work is that she is not afraid to lay her ideas down, without unnecessary fluff, and they are there for people to engage with, critically or otherwise.

We are now engaging “critically or otherwise” in the exploration of her ideas as fictionalized in Anthem.

donegalfella wrote: »

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No, I am not “Singling out Rand unfairly for criticism here” as pertains to our critique of Anthem, as opposed to her later works. This was an important question that remains unanswered in Anthem. Why was the female leading role in Anthem totally submissive to Equality 7-2521, when Ayn Rand was a “fearless woman” per your below quote?

donegalfella wrote: »

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Why?

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Black Swan

donegalfella wrote: »

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In Anthem Equality 7-2521 was the protagonist and the most important character. Liberty 5-3000 was the second most developed character by Rand in Anthem, and the first one selected by Equality 7-2521 to go on his quest into the Uncharted Forest. Setting gender aside, why did Rand depict Liberty 5-3000 as a subservient follower of Equality 7-2521 that did not discover, create, work, read, or evidence any substantive contribution to the founding of Equality 7-2521's Brave New World; rather, she was depicted as a narcissistic and materialistic character that tried on clothes, sat in front of mirrors, and fell asleep in jewels? Was she self-actualized?

Now if we add gender, her role expands to a subservient sex object and baby factory; but aside from that, there was little or no self-actualization for Liberty 5-3000 --the first person to be liberated from collectivism by Equality 7-2521. She exchanged one form of servitude for another.

Was it ironic that Ayn Rand, an apparently strong woman for her time, when writing about a future world liberation in Anthem, did not depict an equally strong and contributing partner for Equality 7-2521; i.e., there was a Anthem for Equality 7-2521 and his kind, but no Anthem for Liberty 5-3000 and her kind?

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Black Swan

donegalfella wrote: »

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No, regarding Anthem "what seem to be saying" was that in a story about a future liberation from an unacceptable situation, where Rand could have used her author's license to portray an ideal, she failed by only liberating Equality 7-2521 and his kind, and not Liberty 5-3000 and her kind, exchanging one kind of servitude for another in the latter case for half the future population.

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Manic Moran

I'm going to be a little bit controversial here, but do you think it's possible to take the story at face value?

One of my great gripes with the reading of literature is that there is often an assumption that any 'Great Author' (TM) must have a behind-the-scenes commentary on the political state of the world, or environmentalism, or the evils of technology or whatever, and this is why we read things like 1984 in school and then have to write essays about it in the Leaving. (What was the commentary in 'Pride and Prejudice', then?).

Surely the other thing which makes a 'Great Author' (TM) is that they enjoy writing. Even if occasionally they do write allegories and commentaries, is it not possible for one to simply sit down and write a story for the enjoyment of others? I have read many dystopian stories, as a bit of an SF fan, and cannot believe that every one of them is a political statement shrouded as a work of fiction. Yet many of these authors are not as celebrated as Rand is. Is the implication that Rand is not as capable as these 'lesser authors' of simply sitting down, using her imagination, and just writing a story?

If so, then maybe that's why there is dispute over just what she had in mind when she wrote the story: People, using their own individual opinions, feel compelled to assign a deep meaning to something which originally had none.

NTM

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robindch

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

To what extent does Ayn Rand's short fictional novel Anthem (1938) address the fundamental philosophical problems that pertain to existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, language, gender, and social organisation, as well as the dynamics that may exist between individuality and society?

Thanks for the heads-up on this last week and apologies that it took so long to struggle to the end of such a short piece! At least I now have the honor, if that’s the right word, of being able to say that that I’ve made it to the end of something she wrote.

The brief answer is that Rand addresses none of these questions, at least not in any meaningful way. At a certain point, and a good distance before the start of Rand's story, unreality tends to become indistinguishable from self-parody. And by anchoring the story so far from the human experience of her readers and the political systems under which they live, she makes it impossible for her to deal with the problems she pretends to address, or for her readers to sympathize with the bizarre society she proposes and the wooden characters which lumber predictably about her stage.

Rand herself was, no doubt, reacting to the violent consequences of the communist revolution she and her family had experienced during her teenage years in St Petersburg. And, in 1937, while its residents were enduring the height of Stalin's terror and genuine artists like Shostakovich were producing works his deliciously counter-revolutionary Fifth Symphony, Rand was living in safety and comfort in the USA, producing her own response in a foreign language for people who, like her, failed to understand what her birth-city and -country were enduring, nor the more basic nature and psychology of totalitarianism.

Anthem's baddies -- the portentous and pretentious Councils of Whatever – gave their ideology no name and instead practice the most extreme version of the collectivism proclaimed by the Communists. But this collectivism was not, as the Communists claimed, the aim of the society, rather it was the Noble Lie they used to assert their own political and cultural supremacy. In taking the Communists at their word she failed to appreciate, or even seemingly notice, the distinction between the practice and the preaching of totalitarianism and by so doing, Rand displays the same bland naiveté as her protagonist, Equality 7-2521, the light and gift-giving hero whom she believed herself to be.

The scenes and characters Rand uses to deliver her Truth are preposterous: a prison without guards and with doors one can push open (must be a first for a totalitarian society, that one), a society which honors the development of the candle “only a hundred years ago” and which claims “fifty years” were required to gain administrative approval for it (yeah, right); the Uncharted Forest (be careful, you might be eaten by a grue!); the scholars who ran away when they saw something go red (did they never study their candles?); And so on and on to the point that it's actually quite funny in places. This really does go past the piece being a simple case of ham-fisted writing, but a full-on descent to the Bulwer–Lytton level.

Towards the end of the piece, she delivers two chapters of the most splendidly orgasmic overstatement – Rand places her Prometheus on top of his mountain, arms no doubt outstretched, eyes closed, hair whipped majestically by the wind, jaw jutting out, delivering to the passing clouds, a remarkably pompous homily on his own perfection: how he’s neither friend nor foe to his brothers (whatever happened the wimmins?), but still fired with the desire to destroy his former society; how he believes that “To be free, a man must be free of his brothers”, but still wanting to build his own little fortressed commune, united beneath his own banner, rather than somebody else’s (at this, one can’t help but think of Libertas, Declan Ganley’s weird attempt to convince the nationalists of many countries to speak with a single voice); how he’ll neither command nor obey, but still somehow manage to deliver his Teaching.

But to return to the OP. No, the piece answers no questions, because it fails to ask any hnoestly. It’s a flop on so many levels simultaneously, that it’s difficult to see how anybody could take it seriously, or even want to. The one and only conclusion to be drawn from the piece is that Ms Rand really does seem to believe that the best of all possible worlds is one filled with people like her, all

EGOMANIACS

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