Ayn Rand's Anthem Essay

Words: 796
Pages: 4

In our society today, are the leaders of our country always in the right? Some people would answer that they are not sure to this question, shying away from giving an actual answer in order not to give their opinion. Many people, however, would gladly answer the question, having a strong belief in whether or not their government’s actions were for the benefit of the people. In Ayn Rand’s essay, How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Society?, she suggests that when these leaders are voted for by the people or even chosen by the existing government, most of their morals and ideas that won them the election are tossed out of their minds in favour of twisted political morals, which do not care about the people as individuals. The …show more content…
Collectivism is a practise in which the group has more priority than an individual, which is similar to the idea of communism. An example of a collectivist society in the world today would be the USSR, which practised collectivism/communism when it took ahold of many countries such as modern day Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, etc. The Soviet Union seems similar to the society in Anthem because their goal was to take away the rights of the citizens, giving them equal things such as homes, money, and education, even though people who were higher up in society secretly had it better. Equality 7-2521 begins to see this difference once his visits to the underground hideout become regular. The people who go to be in the elite and influential councils after their schooling get better lives judging by the details that Equality 7-2521 gives us on his account. Throughout the entire novel, Equality 7-2521 also discovers that the people that came before them in the Great Rebirth had given up the forbidden word, which he finds to be unfathomable. To him, the word ‘I’ is precious– almost