Equality 7-2521’s innocent confidence that the Scholars will understand and support his invention of the light is misplaced. Equality 7-2521’s commitment to research, to science, and to the independent mind causes him to admire humans, to respect the “rational animal.” He still expects humans to be rational. He is a Humanist, one who holds that human life and well-being is the highest value on earth. Despite the horrors of life in his society, he still believes that the authorities are committed to human life. He thinks that the collectivists are sincere in their claims to love humankind. Because the benefit to society that is represented by the electric light is very clear, he expects the Scholars to recognize and support it. He does not yet understand the evil of the collectivists. His interview with the Scholars is a turning point in his thinking.
Ayn Rand shows that the collectivist authorities do not care about the light or the benefits it will bring; they desire neither inventions nor prosperity. What they do desire is obedience. Earlier, as Equality 7-2521 worked on harnessing electricity, he had realized that the Scholars do not know the things he knows. But at that time, he still believed that they cared. He believed that when laid before them, they would recognize the great benefit the light represents. Now he sees them reject the light. Clearly, the scholars know that the light is real, not a fantasy; it works. They know the power is harnessed and under control, not a raging threat. They recognize the light’s potential. They all but concede that it will put the candle out of business. Rather, they do not want the light. They do not want the light because they fear its source: the independent mind. They fundamentally repudiate a man who thinks for himself and who refuses to conform to society.
To maintain the dictatorship, everyone must unquestioningly obey the Councils. Those who refuse to obey are a threat. Independent thinkers are a danger to this repressive society.
More important than the technological upheaval is the political one. Independent thinkers ask questions of humanity, as well as of nature. They want to understand the moral basis of a tyrant’s regime as fully as they seek to comprehend the power of electricity. Great minds are not turned off when they leave the laboratory. They continue to ask questions and to seek truth. They question the moral legitimacy of the state.
Equality 7-2521 already has disturbing questions. He wonders about the Unspeakable Word, the lost secrets of the Unmentionable Times, why his brothers cry out in the night, and more. If the collectivists permit him to act on his own thinking, he will be more than an individual troublemaker; he will be an example to others. Other individuals who seek to think for themselves—such as the Golden One, who breaks the laws by speaking to Equality 7-2521, and International 4-8818, who draws on walls in defiance of the rules—will be encouraged to do so. If Equality 7-2521 is permitted to escape harsh punishment for his “crimes,” much less be accepted as a great inventor, then the iron grip that the collectivists hold on society will be gravely undermined. The authorities recognize this, and cannot permit it to happen. Worse for them, in this scene Equality 7-2521 begins to recognize it, too.
He does not yet know what is the proper political system for men, nor does he explicitly understand the deeper causes of the collectivists’ evil. But he knows that they reject the light, and that there is no place for him in such a society. He fully expects to die in the forest. But even that is preferable to life as an unthinking slave in the city.
