But the mind must be left free to think and to act on its findings, which is the deepest principle lying at the heart of this story. In a free society, an original thinker like Equality 7-2521 is free to experiment and research, to invent and innovate, and to make scientific breakthroughs and technological advances. This concept is why the world’s freest countries have made so many discoveries and have achieved such a high standard of living. Science and progress require intellectual freedom. A totalitarian state stifles the freedom of mind that such progress depends on. A worldwide totalitarian state, as depicted in Anthem, leaves the mind with no refuge. Thinkers like Equality 7-2521 have no place to go. They are trapped in a system that stifles freethinking. Rand argues that a society in which the mind is stifled will not merely fail to progress, it will regress, losing all the advances that .freer men have achieved, just as accomplishments of ancient Greek society were lost in the Dark Ages.
In defending the freedom of the mind as a necessity of human survival and prosperity, Anthem is a precursor to Ayn Rand’s major novels, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. All of these works feature some aspect of this theme. Anthem shows the collapse into Dark-Age barbarism that results when the mind is stifled. The Fountainhead shows that the independent minds responsible for progress and prosperity are generally opposed by their societies, those most likely to benefit from innovation. Atlas Shrugged shows that the rational mind is humankind’s survival instrument, as well as what happens to the world when its best thinkers go on strike. All of her subsequent fiction presents heroes such as Equality 7-2521, persons of unswerving loyalty to their independent judgment.
One final point is necessary to help us understand Anthem: the The characters depicted—both those who think and those who unquestioningly obey—have free will, that is, they make choices. This free will is clearest in the heroic characters. Equality 7-2521 has a choice to go into the ancient subway tunnel or not, to report it or not, to steal away and study science or not, to flee into the Uncharted Forest or accept his fate, and so on. International 4-8818 similarly has a choice to report Equality 7-2521’s actions or stand by his friend. The Golden One (Liberty 5-3000) has the choice to follow her heart or the dictates of society, which prohibit her from speaking to Equality 7-2521. The Saint of the Pyre chooses not to repent his “crime” of uttering the Unspeakable Word, but instead picks out of the crowd the young Equality 7-2521 as his heir.
Further, the more passive characters also make choices; mindless obedience is not forced on them. The Council of Scholars, for example, must choose when Equality 7-2521 places before them the newly rediscovered electric light and pleads for its ability to rid human habitations of darkness. Much earlier, the Council of Vocations choose a profession for the clear-eyed young man who stands before it, and the members choose Street Sweeper. Finally, Equality 7-2521’s fellow citizens—unlike him—do not choose to challenge the propaganda meted out by society, but simply accept passively. This choice is not forced on them. The citizens are not lashed into submission with whips. They are not brainwashed by means of drugs, deprivation, and torture. The streets do not crawl with secret police to report on those who question the state. Rather, the citizens voluntarily obey, because to do so is much easier than to face the wracking questions that a thinker like Equality 7-2521 confronts.
Students often think that the citizens of Anthem are mindless puppets, brainwashed and controlled by the state. This is not so. The citizens retain their capacity to think and to choose. Equality 7-2521’s plan, at the end, depends on this free will—for when he creates a different kind of society, he fully expects the best among humankind to recognize the society’s merit and flock to its banner. They will choose freedom over tyranny. The mind may lie dormant, but never extinct; no dictatorship can kill the human capacity to choose liberty.
