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Reflection: This book describes the totalitarian society of OneState, through the diary notes of the protagonist called D-503. OneState is a society built on extreme rationalism, surveillance and conformity, where everyone lives in glass houses, is identified by numbers rather than names and are dictated by the Table of Hours. It is a society that idolizes mathematical order, logic and predictability at the cost of individuality, imagination and freedom.
The story follows D-503, an influential figure in OneState and a devoted believer in mathematics, rationality, and the Benefactor. His life changes when he meets the rebellious woman I-330, who introduces him to alcohol, smoking, and the dangerous power of imagination. Through her, he develops what he calls a "soul", an illness he both fears and secretly enjoys. Torn between loyalty to the State and his new desires, he struggles with growing inner conflict until the State invents the Great Operation, a surgery that removes imagination and enforces perfect obedience. In the end, D-503 betrays I-330, undergoes the operation, loses his emotions and soul, and returns to being a loyal subject, watching her being tortured without feeling.
The philosophy of the Benefactor is central to the story. At its core is absolute rationalism, built on the axiom that mathematics = truth = morality. Individual freedom is seen as chaotic, irrational, and therefore evil. From this view, the ideal society is one where every action is predictable and controlled, like a mathematical equation.
He also argues that true happiness comes from the absence of freedom. Freedom, he claims, only leads to anxiety, mistakes, and suffering. This reverses the usual liberal idea that freedom is essential to happiness. For the Benefactor, happiness means its elimination. True happiness is being a cog in the machine.
Alongside this is utilitarian absolutism. Everything is justified to maintain the collective good, as he defines it. Individual desires matter only if they serve the harmony of the whole. Violence is even framed as mercy, since eliminating rebels prevents the "disease" of freedom from spreading. This is the logic of totalitarianism: kill a few to preserve the system that "benefits" the many.
Yevgeny Zamyatin (much like Aldous Huxley after him) argues that absolute utilitarianism is unnatural. In the spirit of Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog, the novel suggests it is deeply unnatural to force individuals to abandon imagination and personal ambition, and in this story it is literally unnatural, since surgery is required.
But to me this raises the following question. If imagination truly is the source of unrest, and its removal leads to universal contentment, then what exactly is the problem with this?
This touches on the classic critique of hedonism. If happiness is only the absence of pain or the presence of pleasure, then even life as a cog in the machine would count as "good". From a utilitarian perspective, overall happiness does increase, yet the novel insists that something essential to being human has been sacrificed.
I am not entirely convinced by this critique. Perhaps the Benefactor is right on this point, but I do not condone the steps required to get there. Overall a great book that made me think about the limits of utilitarianism.