Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Shall This Pass In "Anthem?"
How would This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles by Okay Go violate the societal norms set forth by the councils in Anthem? Looking beyond the obvious, how do the videos exhibit the antithesis of what is valued in Anthem's society?
Would Equality be pleased with Okay Go's performances, designs, and
visions for their music and art? Please include one quotation from Anthem within your response to prove your view(s). This blog response should be completed in class after we view the videos.
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Yes, Equality would be pleased. In both of these videos, the people producing them are very creative. But not only in a way that normal people are. In ways that are unrealistic and are extremely passionate about what they do. In Anthem, Equality states "We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only." This shows that Equality can solve problems and is not like others. He is clearly smarter than the scholars if he can create electricity from their scraps, and they cannot do that.
They complicated things and this video and thought for themselves in order to make a simple task more unique. In Anthem electricity isn't allowed because it's too complicated so something like this would be looked down upon. Equality would like this because it defies what is expected for a task. The creativity and unique take on simply getting pain on themselves would be looked at highly be equality. New ideas are very much not allowed as stated in this quote, “Many men in the Homes of the Scholars have had strange new ideas in the past . . . but when the majority of their brother Scholars voted against them, they abandoned their ideas, as all men must.” Unlike this video creative and new ways to look at things are prohibited.
These videos violate the councils in Anthem in many ways. In the first video, it shows teamwork and and trial and error and new ideas. In Anthem, the council doesn't take new ideas, they want everything to be safe and stay the same. In the second video, they show coordination and more teamwork. In Anthem, they're too scared to try anything new because of what happened in the past. Equality would like this video because they are trying new things and they aren't scared to make mistakes. He likes to use cooperation and teamwork.
This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles by Okay Go, violate the societal norms set forth by the councils in Anthem, because in Anthem thinking individually, and going outside the norms of what is known is known as evil and wrong. This invention, is anything but normal and is made up of true individuality. The videos exhibit antithesis of what is valued in Anthem’s society because it is the exact opposite of everything that the society in Anthem stands for. The society is built upon no individuality and values. Intelligence and originality are things that the society bans and sees as evil due to the fact that fear takes over when they are introduced to the unknown. Equality would be pleased with Okay Go’s performances, designs and visions because it goes along with everything that Equality stands for. It’s different and it involves a different form of thinking that not everyone may have. Okay Go, has much individuality and identity as Equality yearns to have and eventually does have in Anthem. “And in our heart- strange are the ways of evil!- in our heart there is the first peace we have known in twenty years.” (37)
The videos This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles violate Anthems laws in ways. First of all the man are using their songs to draw attention to themselves, and using their fun videos to distinguish themselves from other artists. Also Anthems society considers going outside of the expected and normal is considered punishable and frowned upon. These videos are all about being unique and inventive which is everything the Anthem society is agianst. Equality would relate to Okay Go in the way they both are different from their "brothers" in the way they approach and think of things. Also Equality would be excited with how they are expressing their individuality and thoughts which is what he spent his time discovering within himself. "I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom" (96)
This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles would be violating the society norms in The Anthem. In the first video, they complete a very simple task in a very unique, creative and hard way. Just to splatter paint on the four guys it all starts with a small marble and that goes through many, many obstacles finally pushing to object to spray paint on them. This took many engineer teams to make and lots of creative ideas. The second video is really cool because they do all different obstacles with dogs. I think this would violate the society’s guidelines in The Anthem because it is different. People in the society had to follow very specific rules daily, with no room for any creativity or a different view. Equality was viewed as different to the people which caused him to be pushed away but actually he was the most knowledgeable. As Equality quotes, "To be free, a man must be free of his brothers" (118). After he had run away from his society into the Uncharted Forest, he realized that he learned for the first time what freedom was and could finally let his creativity flow.
The videos, This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckle by Okay Go, violates Anthem laws because it is showing individualism. In the first video we saw that each man in the group was a different color and had diverse roles from one another leading to dissimilarities. The Council from Anthem disapproves of uniqueness from one individual, and if this type of behavior were to go on in their society major punishments would occur because of the creative things going on all around. On the other hand, Equality would have believed that this a very good thing for the society. He would be intrigued by all the music, art work, quality, and visions of both of the music videos. For example, Equality says, "We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages. We alone. Our hands. Our mind. Ours alone and only...Terror struck the men of the Council...'We have much to say to a a wretch who have broken all the laws and who boast of their infamy! How dared you think that your mind held greater wisdom than the minds of your brothers? And if the Councils had decreed that you be a Street Sweeper, how dared you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping streets?'" (Rand 59, 71 and 72)
This Too Shall Pass and White Knuckles both violate the values of Anthem's councils in a few ways. One of the ways is the creativity in the videos. Both videos have many different ideas that create diversity. Individualism showed in both of these videos which was against the beliefs of the society. I think that Equality would like these videos because of the individuality within the teamwork that was put into these videos. Equality believes that the word ´we´ ”must never be spoken, save by one's choice...” (Rand 96) This shows that Equality likes individualism. It also shows that he supports teamwork when it is voluntary.
The video is like the the society in Anthem because they had so many parts to make it work and there was a certain way that everything will work good. I think that Equality would be proud of what they did in the video because of all the different parts that they used would show an advancement in technology. “I is like a god” I chose that quote because all the people in the video had to work together but also be individuals.
These violate the social norms set by the council because these people are both part of a team but still are a single person. In Anthem the council had set in certain rules for all of the people by assigning them jobs and choosing their lives. Everyone in this society was just part of a team and didn’t have any unique qualities to make them and individuals. This is sort of similar to these videos because to make these videos happen they had to work together and do things that would benefit everyone. These videos are also different from Anthem because each person was an individual and had to do individual things that didn’t always benefit the team. I don’t think that Equality would would like this performance because he is trying to get away from society and do things for himself. At the end of Anthem Equality has chosen a new name and is trying to reinvent himself as a unique individual. In doing this he wants to complete things for himself and when he does something that it could just help him and not everyone around him. Once he were to see this performance he would see the team aspect and see that these people aren’t doing things for themselves. I think then that Equality wouldn’t enjoy the performance and it would be better if it was each individual. These videos by Okay Go and the story Anthem have some similarities but are still very different.
Equality from Anthem by Ayn Rand would be pleased and angered at the collaboration and teamwork taken from all different skills used to make the contraption in “Shall This Pass In”. Yet, although Equality would enjoy the independence and individuality that each person carved into the creation as their own personal touch, he would doubt the real intent in collaboration and the use of the word “we” to describe how they built their art. In Anthem’s society, the people believed that they must always be accompanied by someone else for their own individual thoughts could bring about destruction. To Equality, the absurdity of this idea came to him when he discovered the god “I”. He began to believe that “the word ‘We’ must never be spoken, save by one’s choice and as a second thought...” because “the word ‘We’” allows “the depraved to steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages” (Rand 97). The idea that all these people created something as complex and beautiful as this excites Equality but the idea that they worked together as a “We” may not excite Equality as much because of the bias he holds in the words heavy meaning that takes away from the self.
The videos “This Too Shall Pass” and “White Knuckle” by Okay Go, violate the rules of being creative and being different. Throughout the videos, new things are happening and they are creating new ideas. Another rule that they are breaking is the rule of thinking individually. They all have different parts and in Anthem by Ayn Rand, that wouldn’t be allowed. Equality would enjoy the risk taking and independence that the two videos have to offer. He would think that it is good to try something new and expand your horizons and try new things. He would also think that it is good to discover yourself as you learn new things. Equality says “I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom" (96) showing that he would also like that they are letting nobody tell them what to do and using their freedom to max.
In the book The Anthem, creativity isn’t really something that is influenced in their society. The video “This Too Shall Pass” shows something super complexed when it could’ve been done in seconds. I think that Equality would be pleased because they are looking beyond the rules that were given to them. He would be glad that these people are thinking individually. Later on in the book Equality learns to think for himself and doesn’t think about equality. He would only be pleased with the people in the same mindset, like the Golden One did. Towards the end he says, “I am. I think. I will. My hands . . . My spirit . . . My sky . . . My forest . . . This earth of mine. . . . “ (94) And the people in the video started off with individual thoughts but then came together as a group and put it all together. Overall, Equality would be pleased because even though they all worked together as one, they all came up with different ideas.
The social norms set by the council in "Anthem" by Ayn Rand are that everyone is equal and there is to be not differences among people. They get straight to the point and make everyone as efficient as possible, so they believe. Nobody in that society has the right to chose their path, as the council has already prepared that for them. These videos show creativity and individualism because they are unique and use ways to complete a task that are very inefficient such as setting off a chain of events that lasts several minutes in order to spray paint on themselves which could be easily accomplished in a short amount of time if they had done it a different way. I believe that Equality would enjoy these videos because they show the art of innovation at its finest which he thoroughly enjoys. Equality would also like the music because they only music he has heard was the hymns specially crafted by the council and he hadn't had the chance to experience different musical styles. "But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the earth around us. We asked so many questions that the Teachers forbade it. (1.21)" States Equality, further proving his yearning to learn and experience new events and ideas.
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