Key Aspects of Totalitarian Society

948 Words2 Pages

The key aspects of a totalitarian society are that the government holds power and enforces ideas, a concept initially created to treat everyone equally. Russia, Germany, and China before the World Wars are examples of such governments. The fictional society depicted on Any Rand’s novella Anthem displays a similar society which separates individuals from families. The author envisioned the motif to create a collectivist society setting in the novella from her background living in Soviet Union. Collectivism suppresses individual thoughts and freedom. To perform the job successfully, leaders break down families to inject new ideas and educate the young in ways the government can spend a lifetime controlling their citizens. Eventually, strong unity of ideas builds up and prevent rebellions.
The totalitarian leaders detach children from their families to suppress new ideas in the interest of them wanting nobody to have surpassing knowledge than the government requires. Parents are solely responsible for the rudimentary development of a child’s characteristics and emotion through careful nurture. On this account, the method of separation is adequate since it inhibits children from having new ideas outside group members don’t own. A family oriented education will differentiate the levels and content of materials each child gets. Thus, it is impossible to deny this would result in unique personality formation. Especially for the young, how they develop traits are greatly influenced by the family setting, such as, religious beliefs or perspectives, which again emphasizes the importance of separation. Any Rand failed to endure own life under repression, so her desire to get unlimited education and liberty induced her to immigrate to US and ...

... middle of paper ...

... Otherwise, the Japanese totalitarian society will face revolution and it DID!.
The collectivist societies established by leaders from separation are maintained by the way of suppressing new ideas, forming unity, and prevention of rebellion. Anthem and history proved those ways are freedom oppressing, causing it impossible not to deny re appearance of such unpleasant incidents. Collectivist should be denied no matter what, in order to not see same situation happening again. Anthem is the author’s message telling to reject them. Any Rand moved to US while searching for individualism, similar to Prometheus escaping to Uncharted Forest to free himself. Actions of freedom searching was the greatest action that enlightened them into new world of individualism, which everyone should follow and never forget.

Works Cited

Rand, Ayn. Anthem. New York: Plume, 1999. Print.

Open Document