Tag: Anthem

As I announced in the podcast Monday, I am no longer going to have an introductory post for my Friday reviews maybe I should do away with the conclusion post as well. Not today however. I am going to keep it this way for now, It is just that the last three chapters are only about 20 short pages.

We now that Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 have found an empty, yet inhabitable house in the middle of the woods. As a result of reading different books they decide to rename themselves “Prometheus” and “Gaea”. Furthermore, they go through more self-exploration and hatch a plan go back to the city and bring their friends back to the woods and start life over.

Those familiar with Rand would definitely identify the concepts in Part 12. It sounded like a carbon copy of the values espoused in Atlas Shrugged. Man should live for themselves, fight for what they have, collectivism is evil, etc. You know that I buy into all those things and I respect Rand for being so upfront with this as well. In fact, good on her for being consistent and deliberate in her beliefs.

The only thing that I really don’t necessarily agree with is the the last couple of sentences. (Spoiler Alert) “The word which can never die on this earth, for the heart of it, and the meaning and the glory. The sacred word: Ego”. This is Prometheus’ belief as the key to humanity and happiness. I don’t agree with Rand on this.

Of course, I have had my own struggles with happiness but if I could have it my way it would be the ability to pursue your passion. I suppose that it may be whether you take the Freud position or the first definition. I cannot say. 1) The self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves. 2) In Psychoanalysis, the division of the psyche that is conscious, most immediately controls thought and behavior and is most in touch with external reality.

I am getting all kinds of curmudgeonly lately in my reviews. I like Prometheus’ spirit here but have you considered how difficult it is to persuade brainwashed people to take a leap of faith that is 180 degrees of their whole lives. Just like his naivete with the light bulb, to think he is going to march into the lion’s den and covert a bunch of his friends unscathed seems pretty far out.

I think another flag is the house itself. I am pretty sure whatever conflict that occurred was well before the lives of Gaea and Prometheus. Time and weather is not kind to structures and material goods. There is reference to cloth that disintegrated but most things were perfectly serviceable.

I have a thing for this, but have you seen picture of the Sarajevo Olympic grounds from the 1980s? There are trees growing through the venues. Granted the characters are only twenty at most, but I think it is fantasy to think that they are going to find perfectly preserved shelters and live happily ever after. I think it would be more like the tunnels from earlier in the book minus the active electrical power.

So, I am already bordering on next weeks analysis of the book overall. It’s hard to believe that given all of the superstition and primitive technology, that there would be any risk of the former state coming after them or even find them let alone defeat or subjugate them.

End Your Programming Routine: There is a quote that I like from Jack Spirko. “Never attribute to malice that can be explained by incompetence”. I will let you noodle that out but it basically puts a dagger in a lot of conspiracy theories. I am not saying that the candlemakers are bumbling idiots, but they may not be the scholars that they proport.

These three chapters are the heart of the book. I suppose it is serendipitous that I chose to break the book up in this way. So, let’s get into it.

Chapter seven begins with Equality 7-2521 marching into the World Counsel of Scholars with his lightbulb. It went exactly how I expected that it would. In fear for his life, Equality escapes the city into the forest where he is sure no one will ever come after him. After surviving the night, he understands that he will never be able to return. The next day, who shows up in the woods out of the blue but the Golden One. Apparently, she has pretty good tracking ability.

It is pretty easy pickings to figure out what to talk about with this session. It is the sunk cost fallacy and the Council of Scholars. First of all, to be in the conversation you have to be part of the group. “A Street Sweeper! A Street Sweeper walking in upon the World Counsel of Scholars! It is not to be believed! It is against all the rules and all the laws!”. The first level of security is only having conversations with those initiated and approved.

There is now a closed feedback loop for any ideas. Once Equality connected the lightbulb, now there was sheer terror in the room. For some unknown reason, the light scared the scholars. But, then the next tool that is used is the power play. “How dare you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the mind of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you should be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than sweeping the street?”

Oh, but why? “Then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles. The candle is a great boon to mankind, as approved by all men. Therefore it cannot be destroyed by the whim of one man.” So, this is the real problem. I don’t know if they were shocked that someone found something that they were not supposed to or that they were scared of the technology, both are possible.

How many times have we seen something surpassed by better technology? Using the automobile, it is clear that the 2023 version is highly superior (in most aspects) to the 1963 version. I can state this empirically because looking at studies, the average age of a vehicle on the road is 12 years old. In 1963, vehicles were lucky to make it to 100,000 miles. In fact, some vehicles in the 1970s were lucky to survive more than a handful of years.

On the other hand, how many times have we seen government prevent innovation by doing things for our own good. Let us just use the minimum square footage building requirement. This is strictly to protect tax base. Look at old houses that are one bedroom and one bathroom. The way this is effecting innovation is that it is not rewarding good design. It is also wastes resources via utilities, heating, cooling and lighting unused space. I don’t think that we suffer from houses that are too small, we suffer from poorly designed houses. If there is limitless space, there is no incentive to build better structures from an ergonomics standpoint.

Finally, there are forces in the industrial military complex that desperately want to replace the A-10. But, then there are greater forces that do not see the need. Why replace something that does the job effectively. This is the final insight, money of course. If something perpetually did the job and did it well, it negatively impacts someone’s ability to profit on the change. But then again, there is always the opposite perspective of someone supporting the status quo.

End Your Programming Routine: I am resisting the urge to jump ahead since I have already finished the book at this point. But, I am controlling myself. I don’t really understand the fear of the woods outside of the city. I don’t rationalize how they travel or even have a network of other cities if they are so contained to the space. But, I guess those are questions that won’t get answered. For now, I will settle on fighting the status quo head to head is bound to be nearly impossible.

This was three quick chapters and in many ways not much has gone on. How could it, there are not many pages? If we try hard enough, then we can probably sift something out of this. That is what I am going to try and do.

I am not going to try and make something that it is not. Part 4 is and interaction between Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000. She is now calling him the ‘Unconquerable’. Part 5 has him discovering how a lightbulb works and keeping a secret and Part 6 is about Equality 7-2521 getting punished for staying in his secret lair too long. Unwilling to divulge the reason, he is beat severely. This causes him to have a plan and reveal the lightbulb at the Counsel of the Scholars who will meet shortly.

Suspending disbelief for a minute, how is it that this society has no modern utilities and yet somehow there is live power available for Equality 7-2521 to power a light bulb? When I was first reading the book, I thought that maybe he found a flashlight or something. To my knowledge, power needs continuous generation capability as well as infrastructure to deliver. Maybe some hydro-electric dam is generating power being used by the elites somewhere. At this point, we just don’t know.

So it is dystopian science fiction… alright then the bigger concept in these chapters is the ignorant messiah. Equality 7-2521 really believes that he is going to change the world by showing the Scholars what he has rediscovered. I think that we can see the foreshadowing of trouble ahead.

This reminds me of the famous historical figure Galileo Galilei. Today, he is a big name in science, particularly Astronomy, Physics and Math. We are probably all aware of his fate. Galileo promoted the idea of heliocentrism or better known as the planets revolve around the sun. This of course was labelled as anti-biblical and his ultimate fate was imprisonment until death.

I want to point out that many of these ideas were theories based on empirical observation. You see this is how science works. Perform an observation and then design an experiment to see if you can prove that your hypothesis is true or not. Galileo and other peers such as Brahe who worked to perform the mathematic supporting the observation. That was not quite good enough to keep him in the good graces of the church.

If you are going to play politics, then what side you are on is really more important than the truth. Galileo had a habit of backing the opposite side of who was in power. That really didn’t work out too well for him. Truth is not quite powerful enough when going against the state. The Catholic church has now changed it’s tune on on Galilei but who wants to be honored post-mortem, especially considering when a person was right all along?

I really don’t think that Equality 7-2521 is Ayn Rand’s Galilei but I suspect that his fate is going to end the same way. The establishment is going to come down on him like a house of cards and crush him. I suspect that some of these secrets like electricity are known by those that control society. Whether they use is or not is a different question, but don’t be surprised. Remember the mask mandates (you didnt think that was coming back did you).

End Your Programming Routine: It’s nice having a quick and short book to read. I am getting behind on my other reading and trying to catch up, this helps. Ignorance has its pluses and minuses and without it sometimes we don’t have heroes or huge scientific break throughs. WIth it, we often have martyrs.

I didn’t realize this when I picked this book up after “We”. But it almost feels like we are in the same universe. The characters have amorphous names and the language is strange (more on that later). Like We, the characters do not pick their career destinations and small talk is deemed subversive and deviant. There is no unstructured fraternizing and no individualism.

Maybe I am going to drag this out too long. Reading the first three parts puts us almost halfway through the book. I may speed up if it seems like there is nothing unique about my arbitrary divisions. That I will take as I go. There is some good nuggets in this book.

The story’s main character is named Equality 7-2521. Like all citizens, he is born into institutionalism. He is raised until the age of fifteen where he finds his ultimate assignment which is to be a street sweeper. This part seems a a lot like Brave New World. On the job, Equality 7-2521 finds an old tunnel, maybe a subway tunnel. This becomes a sacred space from which he writes his journal i.e. this story.

On the way to his job, Equality 7-2521 sees a girl, Liberty 5-3000 which he nicknamed the “Golden One” and falls in love with without meeting. Because his work is in the same area every day, he passes by her on his way to his job daily. Apparently, women of childbearing age are sent to reproduce at some point in their lives. We know how this civilization sustains itself by descriptions in chapter 2.

The big bang in this section is the dream that Equality 7-2521 has after seeing the Golden One. He dreams about the Unmentionable Times which sounds like some sort of revolution or pre-revolution. A character called the Transgressor is burned at the stake for using the word ‘I’ instead of all the plural pronouns that are used in the rest of the book. Apparently, that is the only crime that carries the death penalty.

Reading this book, it sometimes seems like I am reading a long soliloquy of Golem or Yoda or something. Maybe I got the analogy wrong, but anyway, all of the pronouns are plural. So, if I am not paying close attention to the words, I start to get confused about what is going on because the language is just too confusing.

Now, let us get to the heart of the matter, pronouns. How is it that a person writing 90 years ago understood that by undermining identity, undermines society? I guess maybe the better question is how is it that it is understood and it is still happening? It has to be either stupidity or ignorance.

I shouldn’t have to qualify that you should know that I have a live and let live attitude. But, I think that there is a problem that goes part and parcel with that is today’s pronoun fluidity. I will ignore what I consider normal. I can even kind of understand a he wanting to be called a she and vice versa. It is the they/them that makes no sense to me whatsoever.

I was listening to a podcast about gender identity in the “Art of Manliness” a few weeks ago. I don’t want to turn this into a review of that but the crux of it was that in the 1980s the ratio of males to females in college was roughly equal. Now is about 60% female to male. Corresponding to that, the number of people that identified as LBGQ etc was about 2% in the 1980s. Meanwhile, it is now more like 20%. The point was the feminization of the education system is corresponding to increasing gender turbidity.

I don’t want to get bogged down in analysis of that conclusion. I think that there were some poignant theories and definitely worth a listen. I cannot tell if this is a chicken or an egg scenario and it may be some of both. But, the reality is that this change is effecting ‘maleness’. They are increasingly not exceling in school and in proxy, life. ‘He’, the single, 40 year old living in the parents basement playing video games is a product of failing to thrive in a ‘they/them’ world.

Just like all great, uniformity activities, you have to break the old to build the new. The military does it, politics and cults do it as well. And these are all organizations that put some kind of objective ahead of the individual. Removing individualism and blurred identity are sure tickets to extended manipulation.

End Your Programming Routine: This seems like a good place to end. It also seems like Rand has created another strong work that we have just flat out ignored. But that is OK because it is illegal to be unhappy. And we all want to be good citizens don’t we. As long as authority tells me the right path, then everything is going to be good and I will be happy.