The narrator, Equality 7-2521, struggles to conform even as he defies such rules: “We strive to be like all our brother men, for all men must be alike.” But he is not.Īt six feet, Equality 7-2521 towers over other boys.

Only the “Council of Vocations” can approve such writing. And well we know that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. In this world, there is no “I,” only the collective “we,” which has become synonymous with good. “Our Name is Equality 7-2521”Īnthem opens by foregrounding the triumph of the collective through the narrator’s struggle to express and justify his thoughts. What Anthem clarifies is the real significance of collectivist ideals and language, which undermine not only our rights but our ability to articulate them. If, as Jen Maffessanti observes, dystopian fiction helps us understand the dangers we face, then none is more relevant to this moment than Rand’s novella. Now everyone is equal: equally poor, equally housed, equally limited in what they can say and do and think. In this dystopian novella, collectivists achieve their ideal by burning cities and books, then implementing central planning. There will be reform or else, Hawk Newsome warns, “we will burn down this system and replace it.”įor a preview of these glories, we have only to open Ayn Rand’s Anthem. No longer will some groups have a different education from others. No longer will some groups have a different lifestyle from others. Recent legislators, activists, and education reformers have promised to lead us into a new world of equity.

Ayn rand dystopia