Prometheus In Ayn Rand's Anthem

The Purpose of a True Egoist
In today's world, the word "ego" is looked upon as a negative attribute. If one were to look up "ego" online, a very common definition that they would find is conceit, or self-importance. For some reason, the world has accepted synonyms such as these to mean the same as ego. The term can also be defined as "the 'I' or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought (Dictionary.com)." One can tell by this that egoism is not always a negative trait, and those with that in their personality are not always a bad influence on the direction of the world. This is shown by the character Prometheus in Ayn Rand's novella Anthem,
who breaks away from the collectivist society around him and ultimately finds his own identity and ego. By the more positive definition of the word "ego", Prometheus definitely qualifies as an egoist. This means that Prometheus is a person that is capable of thinking for himself, and that is not always an awful thing.
All of this leads to a few discussion points: what specifically defines Prometheus as an egoist, what that means and why it can be a good thing-or even possibly a bad thing-to
have a sense of individualism.
The entire idea of the Anthem is to show what effect a completely collectivist society would have on the world. In the town that Prometheus originally called home, people were no longer given names. They were born and then randomly chosen to receive some noun followed by a series of numbers. This effectively stripped each person of their individual identity. Words such as "I" and "me" were replaced with "we" and "us" so no one could think about or for themselves. They were expected to think only of and for the community as a whole. Anyone who disobeyed these laws was put to death so that the community stayed a functional, collective society. Now, those people who did think of themselves and not just of mankind would technically fall under the category of an egoist, and Prometheus is one of those people. According to a speech in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, "The Soul of an Individualist", every single inventor of some great mechanism or idea was at least a little selfish. It took some thinking for themselves to be able to come up with such miraculous inventions that still impinge the world today. Just like all of these people, Prometheus is an egoist. Prometheus could not have made the light box while thinking of others; he needed personal time to reckon for himself what he needed to do with his new-found power: electricity (Anthem, 53).
Prometheus being an egoist doesn’t mean that he always thought only about himself and what he needed; it just means that he doesn’t always focus on everyone else around him.
Though often discouraged in today's society, a little selfish thinking can really promote a lot of growth towards a certain goal in someone's life. With Prometheus, the more that he began to go down into his subway tunnel/lab, the more he began to think for himself and the more he began to discover how things around him in nature worked. He also began to realize how the setup of his society was actually holding back their people from making certain key discoveries that could advance their technological state tremendously. It was almost as if the people living in Prometheus' own home were being controlled by the government, left in a position where they could not advance without some independent thinking (which was, of course, illegal). It was almost as if the people in that area were slaves to the leaders of their city. The speaker of "The Soul of an Individualist" starts to discuss how a person that lives to serve others can be most easily compared to a slave. A slave is someone who lived to do physical work for his master; and someone who believes that every thought in their mind should be of and for others are just the same: slaves to mankind in spirit. Prometheus does not agree with this current setup, and his egoism helps him to begin to see the error of the government's
ways.
Like most things in this world, egoism can be both good and bad. While it is true that thinking about yourself can be very beneficial in some circumstances, thinking about yourself too often or all the time is most definitely a negative part of a personality. There has to be a happy medium in order for our society to operate at the highest level of functionality. If everyone lives for each other, no one will be truly happy. If everyone lives for themselves, we will struggle to work together as a race. This is why egoism cannot be defined as either a good or bad characteristic altogether. Furthermore, an egoist is an individual, someone who is not bound by the standards of life that are set around him or her. An actual egoist will not sacrifice those around him/her to get what he/she wants. "In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone... Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange... This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner (The Fountainhead)." This means that people must be willing to work together, but must have some sense of individualism and conformity in order for the transaction to completed in the best way possible for both groups of people.
The novella Anthem, is a book that clearly focuses on the idea that total conformity and altruism (the feeling that man should live for and only for others) is not the way. But neither is total individualism either. An equal amount of both traits is necessary in order for our society to function most efficiently. Prometheus was in fact an egoist, as long as the definition of ego in use is "the feelings that make someone an individual". Prometheus needed to think for himself in order to see that his society was not as great as all their leaders claimed, and this was not a bad thing. It is quite likely that because of Prometheus' rebellion, their society may be able to come closer to the utopia mankind has always wanted: a sharing of thoughts, both egoistic and altruistic, that will keep us a society and a race without stripping us of our essential identity.