Topic > Philosophy under a Rigid Social System in Ayn Rand's "Anthem"

Philosophy is originally a kind of life purpose, but in an extremely prosperous world, one may not have the happiness he deserves. Anthem, written by Ayn Rand, depicted such a dystopian world. It is sad that the environment has imprisoned people's fate from the beginning. In such a harsh social system, all technological progress is monitored and planned, and all people's actions and ideas must always serve the greatest collective interests. From a certain point of view it differs from the very meaning of "reason" and "mind" in philosophy. Therefore, this egoless and mechanized environment of people and this seemingly extremist slavery make the philosophy of the novel easy to cause ambiguity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay First, in terms of social mobility, Anthem builds a society that follows the system of respecting the value of the entire society. Playing satire of socialism and discontent with communism, it depicts an extreme collective world. While everyone should have their own personality, don't be limited by biased rules. The excessive unification of each person, the consumption of each individual's personality, will definitely cause many people to suffer. Just like Equality 7-2521, the protagonist of the story, uses only plural pronouns to write the story and struggles with his 'curse'. Deeply devastated by the social system, he published 'And the questions give us no respite. We don't know why our curse pushes us to search we don't know what, never, ever. But we cannot resist it." The progressive loss of human rights due to the excessive pursuit of collectivism also occurred in China during the Cultural Revolution. From May 1966 to October 1976, the Cultural Revolution witnessed the greatest setback and loss to the Party since the founding of the People's Republic of China. Nominally it was a direct dependence on the masses. In fact, he not only separated himself from the Party organization, but also brought grave disasters to the country and the Chinese people. During the Cultural Revolution, the relationship between people changed. Some relatives also fight among themselves, to delimit the boundaries between them. During this time, people not only suffered from the loss of the right to read, but also suffered betrayal from their families. Compared with the Cultural Revolution, Rand's philosophy is correct to a certain extent, but due to its extreme, it obviously causes people's egolessness. Furthermore, the results achieved are another element that makes Rand's philosophy controversial. Society itself has a high level of material civilization. Everything there is so automated that people don't have to worry about anything other than valuing society as a whole. It seems that economic prosperity and enjoyment of life have become the only philosophy and even religion in the dystopian society. Every character is too mechanized to think for themselves, except Equality 7-2521 and his friends. A life that is too insipid leads people to not have much regard for and pursuit of freedom, so that they live blindly according to social norms. This is why Equality 7-2521 states that 'The fortune of my spirit is not to be turned into copper coins and thrown to the winds as alms for the poor in spirit.' I guard my treasures: my thoughts, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom." When talking about excessive mechanization of the mind, it is difficult not to mention the collapse of the Soviet Union in history. Brezhnev (who was in power in the Union at that time.