In Ayn Rand’s novelette, Anthem, the citizens of a retrogressing totalitarian future state are plagued from beginning to end of their fleeting lives by regulation and indoctrination which serve to stunt their independence, aspirations, and analytical faculties. Every facet of their lives is riddled with collectivist dogma, yet one of them manages to retain a dignified, self-respecting sense of life under the veneer of succumbing to the overt convictions of his society. His name is Prometheus, and his subconscious disapproval of his condition develops into a conscious yearning for knowledge and escape from his oppressors. The hurdles his spirit leaps over are enormous, yet his unflinching devotion to the pursuit of eternal material and moral truths permits him to break out of the conformist prison.
The leaders of Anthem’s collectivist society constantly emphasize the doctrine that man’s efforts are worthless unless his “brothers,” the gray masses of the state, demand them. Young schoolchildren are forced to recite a daily creed: “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed out lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen” (21). The Council of Vocations prohibits men from recording information without its permission. The schools consider the Transgression of Preference, an attraction to one career prospect or branch of knowledge over another, to be a grievous sin. As states the philosophy of the regime, who are individuals to decide where they shall exert their efforts when their “brothers” need them elsewhere? This precept is expanded to even the most fundamental of choices, that of life or death. Prometheus comments on this: “For we matter not and it must not matter to us whether we live or die, which is to be as our brothers will it” (47). A sufficient pride in the physical prowess of one’s body and the intellectual strength of one’s mind is treated with suspicion and reprimand. Excessive questions are forbidden as early as the schools, for it is not man’s function to decide how his “brothers” wish his cognitive faculties to be applied. Because men are not permitted to act for self-amelioration, they perish from mindless self-sacrifice before the age of forty five. “At forty they are sent to the Home of the Useless, where the Old Ones live” (28). Inevitably, every person succumbing to this society becomes a state dependent who lives out his final years utterly unable to fend for himself, his capacity to fulfill his desires ruined entirely.
To maintain the power of the advocates of these depraved principles, every action must be approved by the socially ordained “authorities,” the Councils of a particular field, and, in the words of Prometheus’s friend, International 4-8188, “Everything which is not permitted by law is forbidden” (31). Unlike a free country such as the United States, where any sphere not specifically relegated to the government is left to the decisions of the individual, here one’s initiative cannot be exhibited unless validated by “the voice of all the people,” the government. For example, Prometheus, in underground isolation from his “brothers,” accomplishes a monumental feat. He re-invents the light bulb. He hopes that his transgression of solitary labor will be overlooked by the World Council of Scholars due to the immense services he anticipates the light bulb to bring his society. Yet his glowing “box” is treated with scorn, fear, and outrage by “the brightest minds of the world”. They deny the functionality of a self-evidently beneficial device by stating that “what is not thought by all men cannot be true” and “what is not done collectively cannot be good” (73). They seek to destroy the fruit of Prometheus’s labors because they fear the obsolescence it will inflict upon the dominant candle and the inconvenience it will pose to the bureaucrats required to furnish new plans for its distribution. Moreover, the leaders of this society desire to suppress the tendency of technological progress to enhance the comfort of men and reduce the necessity for their constant exertion, stating, “if this should lighten the toil of men, then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men” (74). However, the most draconian penalties are imposed upon persons discarding the shackles of collectivism and discovering a consistent philosophical defense of self-interest and self-amelioration symbolized by the word, “I”. Prometheus reveals that “there is no crime punished by death in this world, save this one crime of speaking the Unspeakable Word” (49). This is due to the fact that while one does not intend to disobey the dogma of selflessness and merely exhibits chance deviations, he can be brought back under the fold of oppression. Once, however, he becomes fully aware of the objective immorality of the regime and the material and ideological wonders of the Unmentionable Times, the individualistic and technological past, it is no longer possible for his parasitic “brothers” to thrive off his toil.
In the end, the hero of the story breaks free due to his relentless pursuit of truth in both a metaphysical and ethical context. While others languish under the ever-vigilant regulation of Prometheus’s former society, Prometheus overcomes his persecutors and salvages his glass box, fleeing with the woman he loves to the Uncharted Forest to begin life anew and create his own prosperity by his own labor. From the beginning of his childhood he loves “the Science of Things” and wishes “to know about all the things which make the earth around us” (23). He eagerly devours all the information given him (to the displeasure of his instructors) and always yearns for more. It is thus that he becomes intrigued by the secrets of the Unmentionable Times and constructs his light bulb, realizing that the world holds a far more substantive amount of potential for development and comprehension than the Council of Scholars claims. The Councils feign omniscience, while Prometheus realizes that the natural world is replete with mysteries which only individual reason can uncover. This approach implies the primacy of individual thought over submission to the limited knowledge of “the collective”. It necessitates that man depart from the herd and rely on his own cognition for his discoveries, thus gradually erecting an ethical framework validating one’s own significance. Therefore, despite his repeated attempts to assimilate into his society, the latter always brings about repulsion and resentment within him while independent explorations, although he dubs them “sinful” and “evil” during the first half of the book, bestow upon him “the first peace [he has] known for twenty years” (37). Prometheus is a healthy man both physically and mentally, and he aims both body and mind toward his individual survival in reality, not submission and self-abnegation. Therefore, it is only a matter of time before his brilliant mind discovers a healthy ideology just as it had devised functional inventions.
Society represses, but the individual triumphs. Society punishes, but the individual remains unbroken. Society seeks to deny the individual’s significance, but the individual discovers it unaided. Anthem is a masterfully written statement of the objectivity of morality, to be discovered by any man for whom the longing for the one truth overpowers the whim of the many.
