Anthem By Ayn Rand: Manipulating Minors

Manipulating Minors In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, the children are separated from their families in order to prevent individualistic thinking and give power to the dictator much like in real life totalitarian societies. Dictatorial leaders enforce children to live apart from their families, because they want to gain complete control over society, create a master race or an army, and influence the children’s way of thinking, which is illustrated in past totalitarian societies such as the Soviet Union under Stalin, the Spartans in ancient Greece, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and Nazi Germany under Hitler.
Totalitarian leaders have to obtain absolute dominance over the population in order to stay in power. One way leaders do this is by abducting

The child usually develops in the image of their parents and the parental role shapes what the child will value. Taking away the children from their parents will prevent the parents from planting conflicting ideologies with the government and will allow the government to mold how the child thinks. The Khmer Rouge was the communist regime in Cambodia that aimed to centralize the peasant farmer society using Chinese communist agricultural models. They encouraged children to spy on their parents and find fault in them. The leaders of the Khmer Rouge taught the children to “lead, control, manage, and destroy.” Instead of learning typical family values such as integrity, respect, and kindness, the children of Cambodia were raised differently through the intentions of the totalitarian regime. The regime took young children from their homes to live with each other so that they could indoctrinate them with their

They also, in order to spread their ideology, create elite armies with children that they believe to be superior like the Aryans in the Hitler Youth program. Finally, they separate children from their families to instill certain principles in them that will make them support the regime, for instance in Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge. Bibliography - “Agoge: The Rigorous Education and Training System of Spartans.” Historyplex, Historyplex, historyplex.com/agoge-education-training-system-of-spartans.
Friedman, Ina R. “The Other Victims of the Nazis.” National Council for the Social Studies, www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/se/5906/590606.html.
Gessen, Masha. “Taking Children from Their Parents Is a Form of State Terror.” The New Yorker, The New Yorker, 9 May 2018, www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/taking-children-from-their-parents-is-a-form-of-state-terror.
Pran, Dith. “Children of Cambodia's Killing Fields.” The New York Times, The New York Times, archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/pran-cambodia.html?mcubz=1.
“Life for German Youth in the 1930s: Education, Propaganda, Conformity, and Obedience.” Facing History and Ourselves,