Humanity In Ayn Rand's Anthem

Bittersweet To No End Humanity, the utter lack of sense, sanity and hope of ever seeing or feeling the same thing twice. Is not it? But really, was it humanity, is there a way to truly define it? Should such a thing that has stretched on for incomprehensible ages even be defined? Or is it something is just meant to be embraced rather than understood? And so, if difference is wrong then how could something as vast as humanity ever be controlled? In Ayn Rand’s book, Anthem, humanity is a colorless thing of gingerly sliced shapes. Society is a cookie cutter, to say the least, and Equality was always too much to fit their outline. The people in Equality’s world have been brainwashed into the belief that “I” is no longer a word and their brotherhood

Say, Hitler and his holocaust, or even something more recent, 9/11. By definition many people can agree that these events were horrifying to even picture, some of them might even wonder why they happened. Many reply, “because of the sick minds of men.”(McGill 2018) Is not it, though? Can humanity be evil and cruel, this point perhaps leading to the futuristic setting of Anthem and where Miss Rand sees this world going. In Anthem, the author states, “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, as if their bodies were shrinking and we wished to shrink out of sight. And a word steals into our minds, as we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear”(Rand 46). In her world everyone is exactly the same, or are attempted/encouraged to be. One must consider that such rules and expectations were put into place because of past events that made them believe that had to. On page 45 Rand also states, “It is forbidden, not to be happy. For, as it has been explained to us, we are free…” If one were free then how would they be force fed happiness? The individual human body produces it’s dopamine--the hormone that creates pleasure--for a different reason than another person’s body might. Was Equality’s government enforcing the laws for a total sense of control to

At the beginning of the story, Equality states, “I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before”(95). This is perhaps one of the most important aspect of Equality’s vision of his new world. Men are beautiful creatures, all in there own way. In his new world, Equality wants to worship the idea of individualism. For example, “For the word ‘We’ must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and as a second thought. This word must never be placed within a man’s soul, else it becomes a monster, the root of all evils on earth, and of an unspeakable lie”(47). He says specifically that ‘We’ will be allowed in this new vocabulary not only because it would be no different from their past life if it was not, but also because he wants people to be able to choose what they wish to do. Despite the hatred Equality most likely feels towards the old way, he still allows it back into his world, partly because he must. Change is not a total thing, after all. One cannot change everything without something remaining the same, it is impossible because history will leave marks on people. This is why it takes Equality so long to grasp these ideas. Equality’s thoughts when he first began to question, “Strange are the ways of evil… We are defying the will of our Council. We