6/21/2023 0 Comments Anthem by Ayn Rand![]() ![]() Before going to bed, men chant, “we are nothing. Presumably to contribute to a collectivist ethos, no member of society can have a conventional name, and everyone is instead assigned a numbered platitude like “Freedom” or “Equality”-an indication of the words’ lack of “concrete meaning” that Rand criticizes in her foreword. Noble goals, like equality and fairness, are distorted into justifying ludicrously oppressive living conditions. ![]() To demonstrate this point, the society that Equality 7-2521 is born into is a sinister caricature of collectivist ideals. In the foreword to Anthem, Rand writes that “the greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of that which they are accepting the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word the people who believe that the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one's eyes shut.” ![]() Naturally, the flipside of Rand’s passionate advocacy of individualism is her vehement condemnation of collectivism, which is a broad term for any sociopolitical ideology that bases itself on the belief that all humans must depend on one another. ![]()
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