One of the recurring themes of Mad Men’s early seasons is the postmodern belief that the past is fungible. George Orwell’s 1984 explored the concept on a mass scale, with Winston Smith toiling away in the bowels of the Ministry of Truth to manipulate the past, Soviet-style, to suit the current whims of his political masters. Mad Men looked at the concept from the individual point of view.
As every fan of the show already knows, Don Draper, Mad Men’s hero (or rather anti-hero) is of course, secretly Dick Whitman. Whitman is a supremely ambitious social climber, who heavily airbrushed his past growing up dirt poor in a Depression-era whorehouse, and deserting his Army service in Korea. He accomplished the latter, by switching dog tags with the commanding officer he accidentally killed — and thus assuming his name, and as he later discovered, his wife — to become Don Draper. A decade later, at the apex of the show’s first season, after a rival threatens to out Don’s past to his boss, their employer’s classic response is contained within the scene that defined Mad Men’s solipsistic philosophy:
[jwplayer config=”pjmedia_eddriscoll” mediaid=”67333″]
The climax of the first season of Mad Men, set at the dawn of the 1960s at a Madison Avenue advertising agency, is actually a brilliant anticlimax—a revelation swiftly followed by a re-veiling. Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), a clumsy striver at Sterling Cooper, attempts to topple the resident alpha dog, Don Draper (Jon Hamm), with what looks to be a career-ending disclosure: Draper, the firm’s dazzling creative director, is living under an assumed name; he’s a fraud, likely a Korean War deserter, and possibly worse. Campbell blurts it all out to the avuncular overlord, Bertram Cooper [Robert Morse], while Draper stands by silently, poker-faced, hands steady enough to light yet another cigarette. The elder statesman Cooper considers, waits an agonizing long beat, and makes a purely utilitarian reply.
“Mr. Campbell, who cares?” Cooper asks calmly, his voice burring with pity and disdain for the youngster’s naive theatrics. “This country was built and run by men with worse stories than whatever you’ve imagined here.”
“The Japanese have a saying,” Cooper continues. “‘A man is whatever room he is in’ — and right now, Donald Draper is in this room.”
Perhaps the ultimate example of this philosophy occurred in the following season. Peggy, Don’s young protégé as a secretary turned advertising copywriter abandons her baby in lieu of her career. Don shows up in the hospital shortly after she’s given birth, and given up the child for adoption, and tells her, “Peggy, listen to me, get out of here and move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.”
[jwplayer config=”pjmedia_eddriscoll” mediaid=”67334″]
But as later seasons of Mad Men illustrate, it’s impossible to permanently toss past decisions down the memory hole; they can haunt us for the rest of our lives. That’s why I have such mixed emotions about the news contained in this recent Reuters article: “California law allows kids to erase digital indiscretions:”
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California teenagers, who post photographs of themselves wearing too little clothing or having had too much to drink, will have the legal right to erase their online indiscretions under newly enacted first-in-the-nation legislation.
The so-called ‘eraser bill,’ which Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Monday, will require social media websites to allow California children under age 18 to remove their own postings as of January 2015, even as top sites already allow users to delete their own posts.
The law forces companies to provide a way for minors to delete digital skeletons – rants, postings and pictures that could harm their reputations, their chances of getting into college and their employment opportunities.
James Steyer, chief executive of Common Sense Media, a San Francisco group that pushed for the measure, called it a milestone and “a really important step forward in the discussion of kids and teen privacy….
“Kids and teens deserve the right to make mistakes without penalties for their entire lives,” Steyer told Reuters. “This is the beginning of the reframing of the privacy issue when it comes to kids and teens, to let them control their own information and correct their mistakes.”
While mainstream sites like Facebook and Twitter already allow users to delete posts, the law requires all social media sites to provide a delete button for minors.
Is this enforceable upon Websites that are out of state? In other countries? What about the Wayback Machine, located in San Francisco? The article ends with the following quote:
“Just because you post a semi-naked picture of yourself at age 15 doesn’t mean it should haunt you for the rest of your life or prevent you from getting into college, getting a job or ruin your reputation with your peers,” he said.
So you’re teaching kids that they need not have any personal responsibility, because, like Don and Peggy, they can always airbrush the past as needed to advance their careers?
Nothing wrong with teaching kids about Orwell’s 1984 at a young age; it’s fascinating that they’ll personally get to play with levers of the Memory Hole as well.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member