A companion collection of essays to Ayn Rand’s dystopian novella about the end of individuality and free will.
An in-depth exploration of the timeless struggle for personal identity in the age of digital collectivism, where algorithms, social media, and mass culture threaten to erase the self.

It is fine to hate her. It is fine to think that some of her views are radical. Ayn Rand remains a deeply polarizing figure, both revered and criticized, and this is not just your perception. Her philosophical views, especially Objectivism, and her strong advocacy for rational self-interest and the moral primacy of the individual, continue to provoke strong reactions across political, academic, and cultural lines.

Rand is a champion of human potential, of the responsibility of the individual to care for oneself as the foundation of a functioning society. She is known for her fierce defense of freedom, reason, and productive ambition. She lived in a world that, many years after she published Anthem, was so vividly described by Orwell in 1984. She didn’t write about what could have been or what might happen; she wrote about what was already happening back then; and, I would argue, could happen again.

We must read Rand because in an age of AI-driven surveillance, individual freedom and identity lies at the heart of both the problem and the solution. This is not an endorsement of her entire body of work – perhaps no one deserves that.