Anthem

Anthem is another of Ayn Rand’s works. One of her early works, in fact. Read it today in no time, in e-book form. That’s something that would have made her furious, had she been alive. She was unable to get past the notion that words are property.

I don’t believe in IP, as you may have guessed by now. It’s one of the three major flaws in Ayn Rand’s philosophy, the others being her position on anarchy and her abdication of her principle of consistency in answering how governments can exist and be financed in a free society.  

That apart, Anthem was a wonderful read. If Atlas Shrugged is awesome, Anthem is beyond awesome. Nowhere else, in my entire reading, have I come across a greater defense of ego and “I” than in Anthem. It transported me into a different world, as a good work of fiction should. Contemplating the philosophy in that book, I realized that I have a confession to make.

It has been gnawing me for quite a while, ever since I started to think, to reason. Throughout schooling, I have been taught to think in terms of “we” instead of “I”.

“We want to play.”

“We would like it if you could explain this concept again.”

“We wish you all the best.”

It was the same even in college.

Very recently, someone phrased a question to a professor inside the classroom the same way.

“We would like to know if...”

So many times, I’ve been subjected to this “we”.

“We feel that...”

“We would like you to...”

Numerous times I’ve been frustrated with this word, and felt disgusted with myself for thinking, and sometimes, inadvertently, talking in such terms.

Now I know its origins, the evil behind it, and what it seeks to do. Words have meaning; they have the power to help one in reasoning, in conceptualization. Destruction of words can destroy one’s ability to understand the concept represented by that word. I don’t want to engage in concept destruction by having a faulty vocabulary. And that is why it matters whether one has a good command of the language or not. It shows the power of that person’s reasoning mind. The surest way to destroy a mind is through the destruction of concepts, of words that embody that concept. 1984, a novel by George Orwell, is supposedly on that.

The more I read, the more knowledge I gain, the more my eyes open, the better I understand reality. The more I write, the better the sinking in of the concepts I’ve grasped, the better my articulation of what I’ve understood. It is to this end that I write, it is that end which this blog, as an outlet for my writings, serves.