Without doubt, the most strikingly original feature of the book is its use of language. In the society depicted in the story, the process of collectivization has been completed at a level far deeper than the political. This society has successfully brainwashed its citizens to believe that only toil for others is good, and that they should exist utterly bereft of a personal life. The collectivist masters have also succeeded in radically altering the thought patterns of its citizens. Leaders have obliterated all concepts of individuality from human minds. Concepts such as "I," "me," or any other individualistic, first-person references have been extirpated from language and from human thinking. Only collectivist thought and speech is are permitted. Individuals think and speak of themselves only as "we."
The state has succeeded in collectivizing society not only in political practice but also at the deepest level of thought. The situation is reminiscent of Hitler's claim that National Socialism was more effectively collectivist than Communism because, as he put it, "The Communists nationalize banks and industries, whereas we [the Nazis] nationalize bankers and industrialists," that is, humans.
Another memorable aspect of this story is the depiction of a collectivist society as regressing into scientific, technological, and industrial collapse. In Anthem, Ayn Rand portrays a Dark Age of the future. Her vision of a collectivized society stands in sharp contrast to that of George Orwell as presented in his novel, 1984. Orwell and Rand agree about the moral horrors of such a society — the utter lack of individual rights, the slave labor, the indoctrination, the inability to think or speak freely, the terror, and the oppressive sense of futility under these conditions. But Orwell projects a totalitarian state of scientific and technological advance. In 1984, spectacular progress in the hard sciences has created the ability to engage in thought control. Anthem, on the other hand, shows that a prohibition of freedom results in a decline into primitive subsistence. What is the fundamental philosophical conviction that leads Rand to the belief that a collectivist society is doomed to Dark Age backwardness? Her theory that progress and scientific knowledge are products of independent minds.
