Anthem (1946)Equality 7-2521 is a street sweeper in a dystopic future where: We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the
grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist
But Equality 7-2521 has a problem; he doesn't believe in the things that his brothers do. He has questions, which can not even be asked, that he wants answered. He has a friend (International 4-8818), which is forbidden, and then he falls in love with a woman he calls "The Golden One" (Liberty 5-3000). And as if all these crimes weren't bad enough, he's started to do experiments in an abandoned culvert and he's figured out electricity. But he's willing to accept the consequences for his crimes because he's certain that his discovery is so important to Mankind as to absolve him of all blame. He is, of course, wrong. Because in this society, it is not a good thing for an individual to discover new knowledge: "This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them." So Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 escape into the wilderness surrounding the city and, after renaming each other Prometheus and Gaea, begin to work out a philosophy where the self, the individual, is important. Prometheus realizes: At first, man was enslaved by the gods. But
he broke the chains. Then he was enslaved by the
But then he gave up all he had won, and fell lower than his savage beginning. What brought it to pass? What disaster took
their reason away from men? What whip lashed them
... Perhaps in those days, there were a few among men,
a few of clear sight and clean soul, who
Theirs is the banner in my hand. And I wish
I had the power to tell them that the despair of their
Ayn Rand espoused a hard line capitalist philosophy which she called Objectivism--'the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity and reason as his only absolute.' During a period of years when one type of Collectivism or another (Socialism, Fascism, Communism) was regnant in virtually every nation in the West, she courageously swam against the tide of her time and demanded recognition of the primacy of the individual and of self interest as a force for good. As a result, she has been ignored by the arts establishment, by philosophers and by political scientists, but she has a strong cult following and nearly every young person has, at least, a flirtation with her ideas. There are legions of us who first read her in college and developed a ferocious intellectual crush on her for her iconoclasm and for the pure ferocity of her rhetoric. Here, at last, was someone telling us that the liberal pabulum we had been spoon fed for the first 18 years of life was moral poison. What a glorious moment when you discover that there are other people who, like you, think that individuals matter, that personal excellence should be celebrated, that anything that limits the rights and the abilities of individuals is evil. One of the most telling indicators of the dichotomy between critics and the common folk is to compare her absence from the Modern Library Top 100 novels of the 20th Century list to the lofty placement of her novels on the lists where readers voted (i.e., Radcliffe's 100 Best Novels, Modern Library Readers' List & Koen Books Top 100) The critics may not respect her much, but we of the hoi polloi sure seem to like her. And, of course, Ms Rand has gotten the final laugh as it is her philosophy that has triumphed and, along with the careful tending of her acolyte and former boy toy Alan Greenspan, given the world a period of unprecedented economic growth and political freedom. The continued refusal of the intelligentsia to acknowledge her, merely serves to make her accomplishment all the more remarkable. When the dust has settled, a few decades or centuries from now, one assumes (okay, one hopes) that Keynes and Galbraith, Marx and Rawls, Dreiser and Lewis and Sinclair--all of the thinkers and writers of the failed Left--will have been consigned to oblivion and the names that are honored will be Hayek, Popper, Friedman, Orwell and Rand. . The sheer length of her two masterworks, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, makes rereading them a pretty daunting prospect. They tend to be a little too hysterical, a little too repetitive and, with the end of the Cold War, they've lost a little of their edge. But her essential message is still as important and timely today as it was fifty years ago--freedom and human progress requires that the State stand back and allow the individual to act in his own interest. Every attempt to make one person work for another's benefit erodes all of our liberty and retards our progress as a society and a species -- charity needs to come about as a function of faith, not government mandate. So I highly recommend that you return to these shorter works and The Fountainhead stands up pretty well. It also looks, from the reviews below, like her collected letters and journals make for rewarding reading. This fine short novel is an excellent introduction to her passionate political philosophy and her emotional polemical style. (Reviewed:) Grade: (A) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Ayn Rand - -ESSAY: Ayn Rand in Our Day The mixed literary, philosophical, and political legacy of the author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, forty years after her death. (CATHY YOUNG, MARCH 6, 2022, The Bulwark) -ESSAY: Unlearning Ayn Rand’s relentless individualism: Ideas surrounding Randian autonomy tend to draw young readers, but many phases of human life illustrate our natural dependence on one another. (Josh Herring, Oct 28, 2021, MercatorNet) -REVIEW: of We the Living (John Gray, New Statesman) -ARTICLE: Scandals lead execs to 'Atlas Shrugged' (Del Jones, 09/24/2002, USA TODAY) -REVIEW: of Mean Girl: Ayn Rand and the Culture of Greed, by Lisa Duggan (Andrew Koppelman, New Rambler) -REVIEW: of Out of a Gray Fog by Claudia Franziska Brühwiler (Kai Weiss, Law & Liberty) -REVIEW: of AYN RAND AND THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENTSIA: The origins of an icon of the American right by Derek Offord (Bryan Karetnyk, TLS) -REVIEW: of Ayn Rand: Writing a Gospel of Success by Alexandra Popoff (Gary Saul Morson, Jewish Review of Books) - Book-related and General Links: -Ayn Rand (1905-1982) - original name Alice (in some sources Alissa) Rosenbaum (kirjasto) -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : Your search: "ayn rand". -INTERVIEW : with Ayn Rand (Alvin Toffler, Playboy Interview, 1964) -Objectivism: the Philosophy of Ayn Rand -The Ayn Rand Institute (is the center for the advancement of Objectivism) -The Objectivist Center (an open community for those interested in Ayn Rand and Objectivism) -The Intellectual Activist: an Objectivist Review -The Daily Objectivist -Capitalism Magazine -Full Context (newsletter, forum for Objectivist debates) -Objectivism - The Philosophy of Reason -TCNJ Ayn Rand Society: a student organization at The College of New Jersey -Philosophy: The Integrating Science (examines philosophy from an Objectivist viewpoint) -Sciabarra's Dialectics and Liberty site -The Capitalism Site -Ayn Rand, Objectivism Online Resource Directories (Free Market Net) -Ayn Rand (1905-1982) ( Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. , Friesian.com) -Objectivism and Ayn Rand (Full Context) -The Jefferson School of Philosophy, Economics, and Psychology (THE INTELLECTUAL VOICE OF CAPITALISM ON THE INTERNET) -The Unofficial Web Site for the Journals of Ayn Rand -Living On Earth: An Objectivist Collection -Objectivism and Ayn Rand: A Cultural Reference Archive (newspaper and magazine articles) -Objectivist Links Plus (Objectivist Center) -The Egoist Archive -Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand -ARTICLE: Ayn Rand Has Finally Caught the Attention of Scholars (JEFF SHARLET, Chronicle of Higher Education) -ARTICLE: Alan's bubble Edward Chancellor Alan Greenspan, the second most powerful man in the US, adheres to the "radical capitalism" of Ayn Rand (Edward Chancellor, Prospect) -ESSAY: AYN RAND: NOVELIST WITH A MESSAGE; An Appreciation (EDWIN McDOWELL, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism, and the Fundamental Principle of Morality (after Kant and Nelson)(Kelly Ross, History of Philosophy) -ESSAY: Liberals and Ayn Rand (James Fallows, The Atlantic) -ESSAY : THE HEIRS OF AYN RAND : HAS OBJECTIVISM GONE SUBJECTIVE? (SCOTT MCLEMEE, Lingua Franca) -ESSAY: Master Builder (Lorine Pruette, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY: WHY I AM NOT AN OBJECTIVIST Michael Huemer -ESSAY : The (Five) Objectivist Ethics (Ari Armstrong) -ESSAY : Three Objections to Ayn Rand's Objectivist Ethics (Digital Chicken, 23 January 2000) -ESSAY : Critique of "The Objectivist Ethics" -ESSAY : Notes on The Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand -ESSAY : The Rights (and Wrongs) of Ayn Rand (Robert Bass) -ESSAY : THE UNLIKELIEST CULT IN HISTORY (MICHAEL SHERMER, Skeptics Society) -ESSAY : Rand's work: style and quality (Gary Merril) -ESSAY : Some Problems with Ayn Rand's Derivation of Ought from Is (David Friedman) -ESSAY: Facts, Values and Moral Sanctions: An Open Letter To Objectivists (Robert J. Bidinotto) -ESSAY : What Conservatives Owe Ayn Rand (Gord Gekko, Enter Stage Right) -INTERVIEW: PRC Forum: Barbara Branden author of "The Passion of Ayn Rand (Idea Channel) -LINKS : Objectivism and Ayn Rand : A Cultural Reference Archive -LINKS : Criticisms of Objectivism (or Ayn Rand) -LINKS : Directory - Objectivism -LINKS : Directory - Essays Against Objectivism (Beebware) -LINKS : Ayn Rand (1905 - 1982) (The Internet Public Library, Online Literary Criticism Collection) -LINKS : Ayn Rand Links (2Think) -ARCHIVES : "ayn rand" (NY Review of Books) -REVIEW : of The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (Lorine Pruette, NY Times, May 16, 1943) -REVIEW : of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Whittaker Chambers, National Review, 12/28/57) -REVIEW : of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Rob Slade, Internet Review Project) -REVIEW: of THE PASSION OF AYN RAND By Barbara Branden (Peter L. Berger, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of LETTERS OF AYN RAND Edited by Michael S. Berliner (CHRISTOPHER COX, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of LETTERS OF AYN RAND Edited by Michael S. Berliner (Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Reason) -REVIEW: of Journals of Ayn Rand Edited by David Harriman (David Brooks, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of Journals of Ayn Rand, edited by David Harriman, foreword by Leonard Peikoff (Walter Olson, Reason) -REVIEW : of Objectivism : The Philosophy of Ayn Rand by Leonard Peikoff (Harry Binswanger, Intellectual Activist) -REVIEW : of Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand, edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra (Cathy Young, Reason) -REVIEW : of PASSIONATE MINDS Women Rewriting the World. By Claudia Roth Pierpont (Morris Dickstein, NY times Book Review) -REVIEW : of THE ART OF NONFICTION: A GUIDE FOR WRITERS AND READERS By Ayn Rand Edited by Robert Mayhew Introduction by Peter Schwartz (Harry Bruce, National Post) |
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