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Ayn rand essay on objectivism
Ayn rand essay on objectivism
Ayn rand essay on objectivism
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Growing up in a strict society with many rules, you realize how life should not be. For being your own individual is not a sin, but a benefit. Being your own individual is not only good for yourself, it is good for all of society. Being different benefits you and everyone around you in ways you may not even realize it. In the book Anthem, by Ayn Rand, society is nothing how it should be. The government not only controls what you do for a living, but it also controls how you speak, where you live, who you talk to, where to be and what to learn. The government does not turn Russia into a individualism country, but it turns it into a communist country. The people are to repeat “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, Indivisible and forever” (19) every time they are tempted to think different. Equality 7-2521 was raised with the mentality of all men being alike. However, his own mentality has always been different from his brothers. …show more content…
Equality 7-2521 has not only been different in the way he thinks, he’s different in the way is physically built.
Equality 7-2521 is six foot tall and was put to shame for something so natural. He too thinks it is utterly wrong because the government has always told him “There is evil your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers”(18). Equality 7-2125 has a mind so scintillating and all of his brothers have a mind so dull. Because of this, Equality 7-2521 is different from his brothers. He is eager to learn new things in the world but is limited to the knowledge he is wants to surface. Equality 7-2521 is simply trying to be his own person but the society will not allow it. For being your own individual is not a sin nor should you get punished for it. Being different creates diversity in the
world. Doing things for yourself is not a sin. All his life, Equality 7-2521 has been told “For men are forbidden to take notice of women, and women are forbidden to take notice of men” (38). If communicating at all with women is a sin, how are people ever going to find love? How are people going to create new families? How is population going to ever increase in size? Equality 7-2521 helplessly falls for Liberty 5-3000 but there’s not a thing he can do about it. If men are restrained from women in any contact, mankind will never be able to begin new families or find happiness. Doing things for yourself creates a happiness in us that cannot be found in doing for others. Equality 7-2521 was simply trying to find his own happiness doing things for himself but society restrains him from doing so. Equality 7-2521 transgressed the laws when accidentally stumbling upon a great tunnel and then using it to discover new knowledge. Equality used the tunnel as a secret hideaway to conduct his own experiments to understand more on how the world can progress. “One night, we were cutting open the body of a dead frog when we saw its leg jerking” (52). “We could not understand it. Then, after many tests, we found the answer, the frog had been hanging on by a wire of copper;and it had been the metal of our knife which had sent a strange power to the copper through the brine of the frog’s body” (52). Equality 7-2521 then later discovered a new power in a glass box that conducted light. When he discovered this, he then decided to present this to the world of scholars. The world of scholars told him “How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers? And if the councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?”(72). However, knowing more knowledge than his brothers does not make him any better. Equality 7-2521 can help progress the world forward into becoming better with his new knowledge. Having your own thoughts is not a sin, but it’s beneficial to all of society. If all men are to think the exact same things and have all the same knowledge, the world in which they live in will never progress. Restraining men from discovering new material is restraining the world from progressing. We will never learn how to move forward if we cannot have our own thoughts. With everyone’s different thoughts coming together, we can all discover and brainstorm ways to help society progress forward. The thoughts of men and women can be put together to invent or innovate ideas and make the community become better. The more different ideas have, the more knowledge they are open to. Restraining the people from thinking different will not help the people move forward, but it will keep the people in the same place. Being different is okay because it creates diversity in the community and all around the world. Doing things for yourself is not a sin because it creates happiness for oneself. Having your own thoughts is not a sin but a benefit to all of society because it helps everyone as a whole progress forward when different thoughts are put together to invent and conduct new ideas helping the world progress forward.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a world where everyone was forced to be exactly alike? Well in Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem she directly confronts this topic through the main character named Equality 7-2521. Equality 7-2521 faces challenges directly relating to the issue that the government has been trying to address for many years. Equality 7-2521 is not like his brothers, he is smarter, wiser and even taller, therefore, his brothers think that he has “evil in his bones” (Rand 18). The book Anthem is the firsthand account of how Equality 7-2521 finds the word “I” amongst the word “We”. He does not agree with these rules that the government has put into place, these are the rules that held him back for a time, but in the end, pushed him forward to be his own person.
Equality 7-2521 is rebellious. If a person is rebellious, he shows a desire to resist authority. This authority is most commonly a government that runs its territory in a way which the rebellious person does not support. Rebellious people argue for changing or replacing this authority because they often view it as corrupt or ineffective. Due to their desire for change, these people are often the most dangerous to governments that wish to retain power and control. Equality 7-2521 shows this desire to defy authority in Anthem. The society that he lives in forbids writing unless it is first approved by the Council of Vocations. However, he has done exactly
A society where people lack individualism and the government has suppressive control, ultimately restrains its citizens. Those who rebel from oppressive authority and redefine themselves are those who remain unconquered. To be unconquered is to be uncontrollable, undefined, and in no form abide by social normality. In the poem, “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley, and the novella Anthem, by Ayn Rand both protagonist, Invictus and Equality portray determination and vigor.
Equality 7-2521 aspires to be a self-proclaimed individual. In the novella, Anthem, Ayn Rand discusses of a dystopian society in which every man and women are set equal to each other. Equality is damned by the World Council after a discovery of light and electricity, and a contradictory belief in individualism. Freedom is an essential factor in the happiness of man. Equality is scorned for his different looks, mental competence, and independent beliefs but laughs when he recognizes that he should be glorified for understanding that his perception of life leads to contentment.
Many people seem to get entangled into society's customs. In the novel Anthem, the protagonist, Equality 7-2521, lives a period of his life as a follower. However, Equality eventually, tries to distant himself from his society. He is shaped to be a follower, but eventually emerges in to an individual and a leader. On his journey, he discovers the past remains of his community. Ayn Rand uses Equality's discoveries of self to represent the importance of individuality in a functional society.
In the novel, Anthem, written by Ayn Rand takes place when mankind has entered another dark age. A man named Equality 7-2521 lives in a society where he struggles to live equal within the brotherhood. In the world he lives in people are told they exist only for the sake of serving society, and have no other purpose. Therefore, each individual is assigned a vocation as a permanent life career which determines who they socialize and live with. However, Equality being very different from his brothers, believes in individualism and rejects the collectivism society around him. The concept of individualism vs collectivism is portrayed in the story because individuality is unknown to the people where no one is unique or excellent in any way. The people
Equality deserves the right to be motivated in his own way, and the people in the world today would or would not benefit from being motivated in all the same ways. Firstly, the main character was creating electricity to finally be added into the House of Scholars. Next, he deserves the right to be motivated in this way because he is his own person. Finally, in today’s world if everyone was motivated in the same way we would not be our own person anymore. In conclusion, every man has his own
At the start of Anthem, Equality is a collectivist who knows there is something wrong with the world he lives in. This allows him to evolve into an individualist. Equality says , “It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own” (Rand 17). Equality admits he has committed a transgression and hopes to be forgiven. Equality, at this moment, is living to the standards of others because he lives in a society where no man is to think differently than another. This contradicts Rand’s philosophy because she says that a man is entitled to his own happiness and that you are in charge of it, but since Equality is living to the rules of his society, he cannot find his own happiness, for he is almost forbidden to do so. Likewise, it states in the text, “I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet” (Rand 96). Equality realizes that he is not to live nor commit himself to the standards of others. He has come to the understanding, as Ayn Rand says in her interview, “That he cannot demand that others give up their lives to make him happy, nor should he wish to sacrifice himself for the happiness of others.” Equality finds his own happiness because he has found himself, and he has learned that he cannot put his happiness in the hands of others nor put the happiness of others in his own hands. This allowed him to find himself, and to find
In Anthem there are so many rules and controls, yet there is one that truly rises above it all. And that word is “I”. There is no “I” only “We”, for the great “We” is what they follow. And they are one not individual, they are one. And poor Equality can’t seem to understand that the rules are rules, but in a way he’s making his own rules. And he is mistreated for his looks and appearance and dosen’t seem really one with his brothers. And he’s curious and most don’t even question life, and he notices the little things, “Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder. The heads of our brothers are bowed. The eyes of our brothers are dull, and never do they look one another in the eyes. The shoulders of our brothers are hunched, and their muscles are drawn, as if their bodies were shrinking and wished to shrink out of sight. And a word steals into our mind, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear.”(Rand 46). He has a wanting to learn and build his knowledge, but the rules don’t permit his decisions.
In a year that remains undefined beneath a small city lit only by candles, a young man is working. He works without the council to guide him and without his brothers beside him. He works for his own purposes, for his own desires, for the dreams that were born in his own steady heart and bright mind. In his society, this is the greatest transgression. To stand alone is to stand groping in the dark, and to act alone is to be shamed by one’s own selfishness. The elegantly simple society that Ayn Rand has created in the novel Anthem has erased all segregation and discrimination by making every man one and the same with those around him; only Equality 7-2521 defies the norm with his ruthless
Ayn Rand, a contentious woman, the new favorite author to multiple people’s list. People who have read her magnificent book, Anthem, understand how exquisite and meaningful her words are. Books like Anthem are worth reading because it gives the reader more knowledge about controversial topics and it takes the reader to experience new places and new adventures. Equality, the main character, is a symbol. He represents many people today, living in countries like his society. Equality has to find his true identity first before helping the others. People are not allowed to believe in individualism, they should not have a identity of their own. Each person has a monotone routine to follow every single day of their lives. Each step a person takes
Ayn Rand’s Anthem is a politically satirical novel set in a future society that is so highly collectivized that the word “I” has been banned. The world is governed by various councils who believe that man’s sole reason for existence is to enforce the Great Truth “that all men are one and that there is no will save the will of all men together” (Rand, 20). Any indication of an individual’s independent spirit is swiftly and brutally put down, with the transgressors being punished with severe prison sentences or even death. It is this dysfunctional world that Equality 7-2521 is born into. The novel begins with Equality 7-2521 alone in a dark tunnel, transcribing his story.
Equality 7-2521 embodies this essential idea throughout the story because of his eternal struggle with not quite being able to conform to society’s expectations. He is physically different from the others (Rand, 1946, p. 2) as well as mentally different as he disagreed with others even as a child (p. 4) and was smarter than the rest (p. 5), and this mental sharpness is carried into adulthood as he is able to discern the feelings of oppression and fear that weigh over all men in this time (Rand, 1946, p. 30). Rather than acting as a machine, he feels preferences and desires within himself. Equality 7-2521 enjoys science, dreams of being a Scholar, likes a pretty girl, and wonders about himself. Since these things are not shared by all, they are forbidden, and despite how simple they may be, they define
Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers who are the State. Amen’” (Rand 21). This chant repeated by all men has influenced the thoughts of all within the society. Changing the thoughts to say you are not unique but you live only for your brothers. Language has influenced the men and women to not think for themselves but only for the society itself. “’You are not one of our brothers, Equality 7-2521, for we do not wish you to be. …nor are you one of our sisters’” (Rand 43). Equality and Liberty have both just changed how they are thinking and see that neither one is like the others. They both see past the ways they were taught to think and have started to think for themselves and see the changes in each other. Within a society of “We” these two people have found the “I” within themselves but have yet to find the real
If it was my opinion, Equality 7-2521 would not include all of the rules in his society he is imagining at the ending of the book. Especially the no loving someone rule. I think the reason I think Equality 7-2521 would not make a society like that is because he takes his invention to show the World Council of Scholars he was made an idiot because he is a street sweeper and he invented something. It made him upset because he only wanted to be a scholar but he was picked by them thebe a street sweeper. That upset him so then he ran into the Uncharted Forests. The Council of Vocations picks what jobs you have to do, you can not even change what you do. It makes no sense to me, Equality has already broke so many rules and that’s exactly why I