Mad Men or the Denouement of the Ideology of the New America 1945-2008:

“I do what I want. I want what I see. I’m free.”—Lou Reed

Let’s face it. We all watch Mad Men because there’s something there that is no longer here. 

Of course, what “that” could be depends on who you are.

For those firmly on the left, it is often a self-congratulatory pat on the back on “how far we have come.”

For those situated on the right, it tends to be a gnawing, self-righteous feeling of “how far we have fallen.”

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle.

Speaking for the “left”, equality before the law and increasing social economic opportunities for blacks, Hispanics, women, Jews, Native Americans and other hitherto excluded minorities has been a relatively recent historical triumph of American Democracy.

Speaking for the “right”, the dizzying fracturing of family, the decline of crucial moral values underpinning sustainable economic growth and dynamic political consensus, the “normalizing” of dysfunctional behavior and personality disorders of all kinds, the legitimizing of drugs, and the celebration of a culture of “turn on and tune out” has been an unequivocal social and economic disaster.  

So what’s the lesson?

Unfortunately, there isn’t any.

All we can do is eagerly watch Don Draper as he balances between these two broad American near-future trends. His historically unique combination of hard-working, wrought-iron-warped morality leading him towards a fabulous no-where and an agonizing self-awareness of roads less traveled or never traveled. His rise from those dark impoverished badlands of Depression, Agony, and Wrath soon to be opened up by American highways promising unending promiscuity while coyly obscuring the grotesque Pyrrhic victories that will more than pay for the ride.