First Place

Daniel Higginbotham, Heritage High School, Lynchburg, VA

In Anthem, a collectivist dictatorship keeps its members subjugated by using force and constant indoctrination. The hero of Anthem, Prometheus, struggles with the ideals of the collectivist society because his values are not in accord with them. Ultimately, Prometheus is able to free himself from collectivism by understanding the falseness of its metaphysical premise.

At the crudest level, the collectivist dictatorship is able to maintain power and control over its subjects by the use of force. Disobedient members can be sent to the Palace of Corrective Detention and lashed, as is the case with Prometheus, or, for extreme infringements, can be burned alive like the Transgressor of the Unspeakable Word. The wielding of such brutal force helps the dictatorship uphold its authority.

The dictatorship also manages to keep its subjects in line through brainwashing. As Prometheus writes, “Everything which comes from the many is good. Everything which comes from the one is evil. Thus have we been taught with our first breath.” Also, as children, the ruled are forced to recite, “By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist through, by and for our brothers,” meaning that the only moral justification they have for living is service. By imbuing each subject with the moral premise that the “many” is always good and the “one” is always bad, the dictatorship manages to virtually eliminate any thought of opposition. In opposing the dictatorship, one is opposing the will of all people with one’s singular will, and thus is evil. The moral creed that the dictatorship inculcates gives it a moral sanction and opposition the mark of evil.

Every collectivist tenet rests on the idea that the many are good and the one, evil, from the law that none may have a personal preference for a type of work (“For the Council of Vocations knows … where you are needed by your brother men … And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies to the aversion towards considering one’s own body (“for it is evil to have concern for [one’s own face or body]”). It is with this doctrine that Prometheus struggles. Everything he takes pleasure in is self-serving and self-centered and therefore evil. For instance, he likes the Science of Things for the enjoyment it gives him, not for the benefits that others can derive from his studying.

At first, Prometheus completely accepts the collectivist morality and consequently struggles to subdue his desires. The heavy influence of the doctrine is shown through his profound sense of guilt at committing the Transgression of Preference and his relief and pride at being able to suffer for it as well as his constant self-chastising, which, in fact, the books opens with.

Gradually, however, Prometheus’s emotions contradict his conscious premises. As he commits more acts that he thinks to be immensely evil, like being alone and doing work for the sole reason that he wants to, he is untroubled. As he writes at the end of the first chapter, “The evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe &hellip And yet there is no shame in us and no regret.” His writing shows, however, that he still accepts the legitimacy of collectivist morality, if only consciously. Prometheus’s stance towards collectivist morality evolves from utter belief to mere conscious acceptance.

Prometheus does not begin to actually struggle against collectivist morality until he meets the Golden One. After coming to know her, he begins to feel glad to be living, writing, “If this is a vice, then we wish no virtue.” Here he still gives credence to collectivist morality but decides that he would rather not follow it if it means sacrificing his happiness.

What follows is his progressive rejection of various tenets of collectivist doctrine as they conflict with his observations and his happiness. As Prometheus becomes increasingly aware of his power, his being, and the enjoyment he can have, he loses respect for the ideas and laws that have governed his life, as when he discovers electricity, writing, “No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars … Yet we can … We forget all men, all laws, and all things … So long a road lies before us, and what care we if we must travel it alone!” Prometheus, however, never questions the validity of collectivist morality. His attitude is still like that of a precocious, rebellious child—he consciously thinks the ideas he is struggling with to be right but chooses to act on his intuitions. The last vestige of his acceptance appears at the end of chapter seven, after his flight from his community. He writes, “We have torn ourselves from the truth which is our brother men … We know [this], but we do not care.”

Prometheus is able to fully reject collectivism when he realizes the immense delight that he can have in living for himself. When he awakens the first morning in the Uncharted Forest, completely free to do as he wills, he feels the urge to frolic, to jump and roll and laugh. Then, the Golden One joins him, consummating his happiness, and in the face of such joy he says, “Let us forget their good and our evil, let us forget all things save that we are together and that there is joy as a bond between us.” This event marks Prometheus’s complete, conscious rejection of collectivism. In experiencing such profound happiness he does not attempt to sacrifice it as he originally did but embraces it, renouncing the ideals that would condemn his joy.

Nonetheless, he still struggles with collectivism, much in the way that a cured patient might attempt to find the cause of his disease. As he writes, “There is some error, one frightful error, in the thinking of men. What is that error? We do not know, but the knowledge struggles within us.” He discovers the error on understanding the word “I.”

The metaphysical basis of collectivism is, “There are no men but only the great WE.” The moral basis is, “We exist through, by and for our brothers.” The implication is that things that exist have the right to exist, and things that do not exist have no right. Since only “we” exists and not individual men, individual men do not have the right for themselves. Prometheus comes to understand, however, through the word “I” that individuals do exist, and thus have a right to live for themselves, to take pleasure in things essentially self-centered and self-serving.

The collectivist dictatorship in Anthem has a strong moral grip on its subjects. The hero Prometheus is able to break that grip through his devotion to his own happiness and finally through his recognition of the existence of individuality.