Technology In Ayn Rand's Anthem

Technology can only take a generation so far; it is the imagination and creativity of an individual that will take the world they live in to a level that technology can only build; a world where highways of a person’s thoughts makes the world thrive. In the 19th century it was believed technology had been exhausted, and then individuals, such as Einstein, Planck, and Fleming, took science on their backs and brought their own ideas to life. A generation can thrive together as one, but only through the minds of lone thinkers, who alone can move a generation out of one era and into another. Anthem, a novella written by Ayn Rand, talks of a time where the minds of individuals were eradicated, and a community of clone-like minds replaced creativity

Equality 7-2521 knew that technology was something that could be used for greatness, “This has never been done before, but neither has such a gift as ours ever been offered to men,”(61) but for the world he lived in, technology was an atrocity. Technology was considered to be a creative invention of an individual, something that was considered the vilest of offenses. Equality 7-2521, or self-declared Prometheus, was certain that if he showed the council how amazing the concept of technology, of light, that he could change the way his world saw technology and creativity. He believed that with the creations of his seclusion he would aspire to greatness, but in the world he lives in has clones of men who believe that what he did was a monstrosity. With the degeneration of technology, the world in which Equality 7-2521 lived in was able to suppress the thirst for knowledge in nearly all of the inhabitants. It only took one mind with a hunger for knowledge and learning to destroy an entire

In a novella by Ayn Rand named Anthem, creativity was a sin, punishable by lashes or, if severe enough, death. Curiosity, because it is one of the branches of creativity, was also a great wrongdoing. In the beginning, Equality 7-2521 talked of his sins and that the curse he has that causes his curiosity “is our wonder and our secret fear, that we know and do not resist” (18). Technology, although incredibly mindboggling, was the reason he feared the repercussions of his thought-crimes. It was the thought of one; a one that expanded to all of man, that caused the horror that caused him to hide inside of himself, and not with his brothers. Technology may build empires, but the right thoughts placed in the right minds, can topple kingdoms, which was not unknown to the Council of Scholars. When a man in solitary came to the Council giving them his “ power to the sky” (71), they were threatened. They were threatened that the curiosity of a sole man could topple their