Anthem

In my English class, we're reading the book Anthem by Ayn Rand. We're supposed to be done with chapter two by tomorrow. I'm finished with it.

Anyhow, the book is supposed to be an advocate for Ayn Rand's philosophy Objectivism. I disagree with some rather large parts of the philosophy, but I highly enjoyed the book. I've decided that the reason for this is that whenever books are used to illustrate a certain, it's usually exaggerated. A lot.

The book, Anthem, takes place in this super socialist era, where no one has names or is allowed to stand out, and they've outlawed the word "I." It was so strange when the main character referred to himself as "we." The book basically was all about him discovering the powers of himself and his own individuality, which, you know, is a good thing. The philosophy, however, states that man "is an end to himself" and "must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work to his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life." Agreement ends here. This seems rather selfish to me. "I have found my purpose...being selfish! *exaltation ensues*" Yeah...

But that's not what I want to address. Basically, what I am trying to say is that you can make people agree with any point you have to make if you just make some society that is far out in the opposite direction. I worded that better in my head, but hopefully you get my point. If you have a crazy socialist society you make us read about, we'll all turn capitalist. If you have a crazy capitalist society you make us read about, we'll all turn socialist. Does that mean we actually agree? No. It just means we're not totalitarians, for either forms of government.

In order to really get your point across and see if people will actually agree with you, you'd have to find some way to put it in a normal society, one that we're all used to. We need to see how your point applies to us--the injustices of real life, not the injustices of a totalitarian socialist society. Of course we'll sympathize with brutalities that are totally unnatural to us.

That said, I did like the book. I agree with some of the philosophy--the capitalism and individuality and whatnot, and it really was just interesting. But it does seem a sketchy way to make us buy into Objectivism.