I was required to read Anthem by Ayn Rand for a class. I think it was one of the worst things I've ever read.
The writing style was very interesting, plural first person for the majority of the novel. However, did anybody notice that the characters didn't develop? They had no depth. They were one-dimensional masks for a political rant.
That brings me to the political part itself. I felt like Ayn Rand had one real statement she wanted to make, and she made it on the first page. And the second page. And third page. And every single page following until the end of the novel. "COLLECTIVISM!!! THIS IS WHAT I THINK!!!" screamed every sentence of every chapter.
There were very few elements to the story. The end contrasted to the beginning: extreme collectivism versus extreme individualism. And that's about it. Rand's writing left upon me a very strong impression of a child on the floor of the grocery store throwing a tantrum because "I want it! IwantitIwantitIwantit!"
The majority of the class agrees with my view of the book: What do you think?
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Eep. I very much disagree with your impression of Ayn Rand.
However, I will readily admit that Anthem is one of Rand's worst books.
Have you read Fountainhead? It's much better, and all the characters are much more fully fleshed.
To me, the scarcity of characterization in Anthem contributes to the detached mood of the book. If one lives in an extreme collectivist society all of one's life, can one even develop a real personality??
By the way, Rand's writing is often like that I think...subtlety is not her strong point, but in her longer works, the bluntness is balanced by intricate plots and complex characters.
Perhaps we should just be thankful Anthem is so short. Otherwise I don't know if I could bring myself to defend it.
I believe I've read segments of Fountainhead, but I honestly don't recall much. If you attest to it being better than Anthem (which I can wholeheartedly believe because I don't think anythign could be much worse), I'll have to give it a try. However, I've heard reviews of Fountainhead that said the way she portrayed characters and developed them was very much the same way she did in Anthem.
Yes, I'm glad Anthem is short. And if I hadn't read it on a plane because I had nothing else to do, I would request that portion of my life back.
I was also required to read this for a class, but I enjoyed it. I thought that the way it was written was very effective. As the previous comment says, it was short so it didn't seem to drag on and on. This is a very different style of writing, and not like many books that are considered great literature. However, I think the idea presented and the manner in which it is presented is what made it enjoyable. I had not thought much about that idea before I read the book, and I think the way it was written helped me to understand it better. However, we are all entitled to our opinions about what makes good literature.
~Keri~
I think I disagree mostly because I've over-philosophised about the idea she presented and it held no novelty for me. I'm very interested in politics and political ideologies, so I guess the way she portrayed things and overexaggerated the entire book didn't appeal to me.
I think I would've enjoyed the style of writing (I have to give it some merit, really) if it had been on a different topic. It was a nice change of pace from other well known works, I'll admit, but I still didn't gain anything from the book, which is why I didn't like it at all.
Thanks for your opinion!
Equality and Liberty don't develop? They progress from an internalization of the altruistic/collectivistic mentality to being individualists. They reclaimed their egoism. That's a tremendous development, the raison d'etre, the peripeteia of the book.
Nowhere between the book's two covers does a political rant appear.
A child in that situation seems spoiled and bratty, preoccupied with some trivial toy. Were the things Equality wanted trivial? Was he being ridiculous about his desires? Should he have submitted to the Council's decision? Defend your analogy.
Michael Allen Yarbrough
EDIT: Anthem's writing style is intended to make it read like a fable or an allegory, because Rand felt the conflicts in it are primordial, they've been going on for centuries. In the way of this, did anyone notice that the scene in which Liberty gives Equality water from her cupped hands resembles Eve's temptation of Adam with the forbidden fruit? Anthem runs directly opposite to the story of the Fall and to the punishment of Prometheus, archetypes that have persisted as apodictic human truths.
First, I really didn't see any development in Equality. He was individualistic. And he continued to be individualistic. The only things that changed were that he found new methods to be individualistic. He would hide away in his tunnel reading stolen books. He would make a device and want everyone else to use his idea (whether or not he got credit for it, he found his idea better than the common idea). He would run away and start his very own individualistic society... that was centered around him and his ideas.
As for Liberty, she isn't quite individualistic. She takes notice of Equality, but then she really doesn't do anything on her own. She follows Equality into the forest, sure, but because she wants to obey him. She doesn't really develop because we don't know much at all about her past. And then she just submits to Equality in living in the house, having his children, and doing what he wants to do. While I'm not necessarily saying that she DIDN'T want to do those things, but she just followed Equality and did what he did. There wasn't development their, either.
The entire book was a political rant about collectivism. Ayn Rand lived in the early years of the communist regime in Russia, then came to America.
Did you read the end, when Equality was saying that he would go get his friends and have them join his cause... that his sons would fight for his cause... and that his was the best way? Some people may've been completely content with that collectivist society. In fact, some people now might want to be in a society like that. But no, Equality's idea was the best. Everyone should submit to his idea.
I already touched on his bringing electricity to the Council. As of right now, we think of electricity as superior to candles. We like them. We see that and say, "Wow, that's stupid! They should've accepted it! I mean, c'mon, electricity."
But think about the Council's defense: it took them 100 years to accept the candle as a part of their society. In a society like that, in which everyone is assigned a job and every depends on others to do their jobs, introducing something new like electricity would completely disrupt the balance. They would have to create new jobs, change the things they were teaching the people, and the perfect unchanging society would be changed and possibly damaged if the change wasn't dealt with in an appropriate manner.
As I previously said, Equality didn't think about that. He thought that his new discovery was superior and then wanted everyone to use it. Sure, they didn't have to tell people that Equality invented it, but he wanted his way to be the right way. He was still individualistic, the whole book through.
Much needed clarification...
All quoted text in this post belongs to Cerhiunnhn.
"Did you read the end, when Equality was saying that he would go get his friends and have them join his cause... that his sons would fight for his cause... and that his was the best way? Some people may've been completely content with that collectivist society. In fact, some people now might want to be in a society like that."
Miss Rand's point is that though everyone on the planet may embrace collectivism, it is *not* the proper way for man to live. She holds such ideas are not a matter of opinion, but rather are indisputable facts, derived from the nature of human beings and the requirements of human life. To "fight for" individualism in this context doesn't mean to force everyone to live as free individuals (which is a contradiction in terms anyway), but rather to fight for the right to live as individuals if they so choose, free of the coercion of living in collectivism.
"But think about the Council's defense: it took them 100 years to accept the candle as a part of their society. In a society like that, in which everyone is assigned a job and every depends on others to do their jobs, introducing something new like electricity would completely disrupt the balance."
This is exactly what Miss Rand is trying to show you: that a society in which it takes 100 years to accept something as basic as a candle is an improper society.
"They would have to create new jobs, change the things they were teaching the people, and the perfect unchanging society would be changed and possibly damaged if the change wasn't dealt with in an appropriate manner."
Again, Miss Rand is showing you that the society, though unchanging, is not perfect. Such a society lacks a huge component necessary for the proper life of a human: individual liberty. Beyond this, is inconvenience to established order a justification for continuing an oppressive dictatorial regime?
"As I previously said, Equality didn't think about that. He thought that his new discovery was superior and then wanted everyone to use it."
No, Equality did not think about that, nor should he have. Furthermore, his invention *is* superior; it is not a matter of opinion, whether his or anyone else's. Again in the sort of society that Equality advocates, people would be free to use his invention or not as they see fit. Only under a collectivist regime is one forced to use candles when one knows about electric lights.
I would agree with the other posters here that you need to investigate some of Miss Rand's other works before you conclude that she has nothing important to say. The Fountainhead is certainly recommended, but Atlas Shrugged -- her philosophical masterpiece -- is not to be overlooked.
Nevertheless, I hope this has been helpful, and wish you success in your studies.
Well, thank you for your clarification, and I'm glad you shared your opinion of the book and the author's message. However, I'm entitled to my own opinion, and I disagree with some of the things you stated.
I certainly will try reading The Fountainhead and/or Atlas Shrugged, but I can't promise I'll finish them if I feel the same way about them as I do about Anthem.
Thank you again. It's really nice to hear the other side of the argument.
(To be honest, I took my own opinion of the book and author and completely and wholly overexaggerated it because I wanted to hear what people really thought about the book -- not just "I liked it." "I hated it." So don't worry; I didn't hate the book that much, it's just that I didn't get much out of it as a whole.)
Yea, I toiled through the painfully dull first chapter of Fountainhead I think? Or Atlas Shrugged? What ever it was. It was pretty weak. Now Dostoyevsky! THAT Is an AWESOME Author!
What are you talking about? I think the book is great. It shows what is like to live in the world that has no sense of individuality. It's kind of similar to The Beave New World. However, I like it and enjoyed reading it.
Some questions for you...
(Again, all quotes are from Cerhiunnhn.)
"However, I'm entitled to my own opinion, and I disagree with some of the things you stated."
Yes, you are entitled to your opinion. I have not seen anyone questioning that. I am however interested in knowing with what in particular you disagree? Additionally, I asked you a question in my original post to which you failed to respond. I will restate it here: Is inconvenience to an established order a justification for continuing an opressive dictatorial regime? I would like to know your answer, if you have one.
"To be honest, I took my own opinion of the book and author and completely and wholly overexaggerated it..."
I understand and I appreciate you coming clean. In the future I would encourage you to use a more genuine approach to eliciting well-developed opinions: ask for them. A simple request such as "Would someone who enjoyed this novel please tell me what you enjoyed about it?" would probably suffice.
I'm sorry I missed your question. I certainly wasn't intending to ignore it. Please let me know if I miss another question of yours.
"Is inconvenience to an established order a justification for continuing an opressive dictatorial regime?"
Do I, personally, believe so? No, no I don't. But are there people who do believe that? Of course there are! I don't ever accept my opinion, or even the opinion of the majority to be the 'correct' opinion. For some people, it might make most sense to continue an "oppressive dicatatorial regime" for fear of inconvenience. The leaders of the society in Anthem would not only suffer an inconvenience from the introduction of the lightbulb, but possibly a completely disrupted society. If those leaders believe that the way they're running their society is truly for the good of all the people, it is only just for them to follow that belief (no matter how much we, the readers, disagree with their views) and continue their regime.
Also, I wasn't trying to imply that someone wasn't allowing me my own opinion.
The thing with which I strongly disagree is the following:
The "fact" that the invention of the lightbulb is superior. It is a matter of opinion. According to our society, the lightbulb is superior. However, along with the invention of the lightbulb, electricity would have to be furthered, and the society would be changed. The stability of that society comes from its unwavering procedures. In fact, that society would most likely be negatively impacted: we get to see the view of the few people who disagree with the collectivist society. What of all the people in that society who draw comfort from the collectivist ideal? For all the few who rebel, there are probably many who would be unhappy in any society other than the collectivist society. After all, how else would the society have come into existence if there were not people, and a lot of them, who said that collectivism is the best ideology.
I feel like most of the things the book.. well, most of the things Ayn Rand tries to present as objectively good or objectively bad turn out to have even more of a grey area than they did before reading the book.
And as for the final comment about my overexaggerating: But that's exactly what Ayn Rand did in Anthem! She showed us all her beliefs through the use of overexaggeration. Naturally, though, that's not my only excuse; I just like to antagonize people. It's entertaining, to say the least, and it makes people defend their opinions in a much more thorough way than they would if it I was seeming reasonable.
My last post...
I bear no illusions that I will sway your opinions away from your subjectivism, but for the benefit of anyone else who may be keeping up with this thread, I will make my final reply.
All quotes are yet again from Cerhiunnhn.
"The 'fact' that the invention of the lightbulb is superior. It is a matter of opinion. According to our society, the lightbulb is superior."
I'm afraid you are incorrect in this point. The purpose of a lightbulb -- especially when juxtaposed to that of a candle -- is to provide illumination. A light bulb is superior to a candle in this respect; this a measureable quality of reality. In addition to the measurement of lumens, we may also consider a lightbulb to superior to a candle in its longevity: a lightbulb will literally last thousands of hours. Finally, a lightbulb is much safer than a candle. But surely you must know all this, for you declared that you too consider a lightbulb to be superior to a candle. So why would you think the superiority of a lightbulb to be "a matter of opinion?"
"The stability of that society comes from its unwavering procedures. In fact, that society would most likely be negatively impacted: we get to see the view of the few people who disagree with the collectivist society."
If by "stability" you truly mean primitive stagnation, then I would wholly agree. I would not however call abolishing collectivism in favor of individual liberty a "negative impact." On the contrary, only good can come from individual rights enforced justly.
"What of all the people in that society who draw comfort from the collectivist ideal?"
In a free society they would be free to form their own private collectivist enclaves; they just would not be free to force anyone to join at gunpoint.
"I feel like most of the things the book.. well, most of the things Ayn Rand tries to present as objectively good or objectively bad turn out to have even more of a grey area than they did before reading the book."
This is the clearest indication of your moral relativism. There are no moral grey areas if you have the right moral system.
"And as for the final comment about my overexaggerating: But that's exactly what Ayn Rand did in Anthem!"
Even were I to grant you this premise, there would still be an important distinction between her "overexaggerating" and yours: we know hers to be fiction from the start.
"Naturally, though, that's not my only excuse; I just like to antagonize people."
Now *that* I believe.
I haven't read Rand, and I don't intend to in the near future. However, I honestly believe that lightbulbs aren't necessarily better than candles. Strictly speaking, a lightbulb does not provide light. Only under very specific circumstances (electric current heating its filament) will a lightbulb provide light. Making a filament become incandescent is much harder than starting the combustion reaction that makes a candle give light. In a way, we could argue that lightbulbs don't provide light: light is provided by the lightbulb AND the source of electric current (a power plant, a generator, a battery) AND the means to bring current from the generator (which are often very complicated and expensive). On the other hand, you just need fire to light a candle, and while fire is hard to find in nature, it's much easier to find fire than to find a socket to plug in your lightbulb. In most circumstances, you're better off with a candle than with a lightbulb.
This is similar to my criticism of the bow vs. crossbow metaphor (I believe it's Malinowski's, but I can't find the quote now, I'm sorry). It basically states that no one would doubt that a crossbow is a superior implement when compared to a bow. Well, history has shown that to be untrue several times, if the circumstances are right (Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt are the examples that spring to mind).
Continuing with military examples, nobody would think that 300 soldiers could be a threat to a vastly superior force. That is, if we ignore the example of Leonidas and his spartans at Thermopylae. It is true that they were defeated, but the Phyrric victory didn't help the Persians at all.
There are plenty of examples of supposedly inferior technology proving to be useful against more "advanced" technology. The terrorist attacks of September 11th are a painful reminder of precisely that. Or the use of hydrogen baloons by the British to stop German V-1flying bombs, which were arguably the most advanced missiles of their time. The US military was objectively much better equipped than the North Vietnamese Army, and that didn't give them victory.
I think all of these historical examples show that it's hard to define wether something is objectively better than another thing. Circumstance often makes the difference.
As for moral relativism vs. objectivism, you can oppose objectivism without being a relativist. Karl Popper's critical pluralism (Lecture on Tolerance and Intellectual Responsibility, Tubingen, May 26 1981) is a good example of another position. In fact, stating a problem in terms of two alternatives is a symptom of a closed mind (or a TV political commentarist, which is pretty much the same thing).
"Relativism is the stance according to which everything, or almost everything, can be asserted, and thus nothing. Everything is true, or nothing. Truth is something meaningless. Critical pluralism is the stance according to which, in the interest of the search for truth, every theory - the more, the better - must be admitted to compete with other theories."
Truth, therefore, is objective, but always as a conjecture. The best knowledge, in Popper's words, is "a better approximation to truth", but not truth itself. We have no option but to follow Voltaire when he advocates tolerance:
"What's tolerance? Tolerance is the neccessary consequence that we're all fallible people, making mistakes is human and we all make mistakes continuously. Therefore, let us forgive each other our foolishness. This is the fundamental rule of natural law."
In effect, tolerance finds its limit in intolerance. We can't tolerate intolerance, because that's the effective suicide of tolerance. In this regard, Popper provides the example of the Weimar republic. Which brings us back to a criticism of relativism.
In short: Yes, we should allow as many interpretations of truth as possible, and they need not be uniform. But there are some of them that should NOT be tolerated, so that the fundamental idea of the system stands.
(By the way, I must apologize for the quotes. They are translated from Spanish, which is the only version I have available.)
I agree with Rob Reynolds, Cerhiunnhn, and he clearly knows what the hell he's talking about. I would've replied with something similar, but I was mostly confused about your severe subjectivism, and didn't devote the time. But read him; I might write some more if I see the need.
Michael Allen Yarbrough
I have not read Anthem yet and am debating whether I should risk my admiration for Ayn Rand since it seems to be poorly received. I will say this though, about every two years I re-read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged because it renews my hope that people can overcome the stupidity and politics that surround them if they simply adhere to their principles. Of course, that is dependent on their principles being worthwhile, but overall, both books provide me with a sense of courage to adhere to my ideals and restores my faith in the human race - even if it is just fictional characters.
The novels you read are not always favorably accepted, so you may still like Anthem. I do; I once was searching for a quotation and became so captivated that I read it through in one sitting, neglecting schoolwork and sleep. It's a more stylized than the longer novels.
Anyways, I'd like to know who you and Rob Reynolds are. It's too rare that people who write sentences like you two find themselves in one place. PM me?
Michael Allen Yarbrough
Finally, 'guest', what would your admiration be if you didn't know everything about her?
Sorry - I did not realize that I could just type in my name instead of logging in as "Guest". I am not Rob Reynolds, I assure you. Honestly, I do not know much about Ayn Rand (only the jacket blurbs and bios) and have only read the 2 books. I read do them frequently, however. I do this, because for the short term, while I am reading them and shortly thereafter, I am so charged with convictions and strive to be a better person and make the most of who I am. It does not last as long as I would like, LOL, but while I have that desire to be a person of solid ideals I feel wonderful. A renewed faith in myself and the ability of the thinking mind, particularly mine. I am full of re-energized goals and desire. Wish those feelings stayed permanently.
What does "PM me" mean?
Yeah, I don't think Anthem would let you down. A PM is a private message; I asked if one of you would like to message me, though I'm not sure guests can do that. If not and you don't want to register, my contacts are in my profile (click on my username).
those feelings are supposed to last as you integrate them into your thought processes. Well, I can't really say any more without more information. talk to me if you want.
Michael Allen Yarbrough
I got to this page by searching for Ayn Rand at news.google.com. Every article I find is always interesting.
One thing I love about many objectivist's threads is how reasoned thier arguments are. Jean your retorts were extremely well written and your logic sound.
I am reading Atlas Shrugged and its a bit of a struggle. It doesn't help that I know the ending. I did read "For the New Intellectual : The Philosophy of Ayn Rand " and it help me find a philosphical core for many views I had found self evident. She really help me put a strong foundation to many beliefs I had and she shredded some others I held.
Cerhiunnhn, you would do well to read some of her non-fiction if simply to challenge your own views. Its always good to think critically and you can only strengthen your own beliefs or perhaps find others more logical. Good luck to you.
I have not yet read Anthem, but I disagree with your thoughts about Ayn Rand's writing. In the Fountainhead, she delves into people's minds and shows how corrupted the majority of society's minds are. She is intolerant of mindless drones that don't think for themselves and her novel stays on track with that thought. I, for one, enjoy a novel that sticks to a theme rather than jumping rampidly from one theme to the next with no real direction. Her characters are simple, yet complex. I love her honesty and her ability to say what she wants without being scared of offending people.
Quite frankly, and simply put, I must disagree.
Personally, Anthem is one of my favorite books.
If you didn't like Anthem, I really suggest you try reading another Ayn Rand book.
But not everyone can enjoy the same books, right?