Sunday, April 5, 2009

Brave new world or hopelessness?

In Ayn Rand's novel Anthem a cataclysmic "war" occurred which allowed the Councils to then set up the new society and government in such a way as to eliminate individuality completely. The most prudent way to both isolate and integrate people was to guide them from birth with no emotional contact at all. By eliminating emotion first, they then moved on to keeping the sexes strictly divided and as men and women grew to adulthood their every thought and movement was constantly monitored.

For such a drastic shift to occur in modern America, it would again have to take place following an event just as the magnitude of whatever set the stage in Rand's Anthem. The main reason it would be most difficult to perpetrate such a change would be the sheer amount of information and people in the world today. It would be necessary for only a select few to "survive"- those chosen as leaders or worthy, so to speak. Just the magnitude of curbing free will and thought on that scale now is beyond comprehensible.

On the other hand, the scenario set up in the movie version of Allan Moore's V for Vendetta has a much more plausible outcome. This is because the fascist government does not care if the people remember a time prior to their iron-fisted control, they simply remove whatever obstacles are placed in their path. In the view of the government in V for Vendetta, the people, or society, have given them a mandate by willingly relinquish their rights in return for safety- or a presumed safety- in spite of the fact that the one the people need protecting from is the government itself.

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