5 ms·

This is a great insight. I think it's also worth mentioning that TV is an imperfect representation of our moral reality. TV shows are primarily meant to enterta

This is a great insight. I think it's also worth mentioning that TV is an imperfect representation of our moral reality. TV shows are primarily meant to entertain and keep us watching. Their budgets, production and writing are often slapdash. The shows are absolutely packed with value judgements, though often the creators are not fully in control of the message and the lessons are either contradictory or downright fantastical. We are the TV people. As I get older I realize more and more that TV raised everybody. I watch us act out the screen dramas in our real lives. I learned professional etiquette from office dramas and sitcoms, and so did everyone else. I re-watched TNG recently and realized it's not a show about aliens on military spaceships, it's a show about people from the late 80's and early 90's aspiring to a better and more inclusive office culture filled with universally competent co-workers who do not harass each other. It is a vision of a world that will never exist. The author of the article maybe has it all a bit confused. He is not binging on prestige TV to learn more about his upper class peers. His upper class peers learned to be themselves by binging on prestige TV. He had gone right to the source. Jean Baudrillard would agree. Life imitates art imitating art and so on.

082349872349872 6y ago
This mimetic dynamic is exactly why I believe Brave New World and 1984 both have more to say about the large changes in anglophone society between 1910 and 1930 than an orthodox facile dismissal as science fiction dystopias would lead one to believe. (my hobby: guessing not when costume dramas are set, but when they were shot.) Bonus branding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect#/media/File:Droste_cacao_100gr_blikje,_foto_02.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect#/media/File:Dros... Edit: as to whether "his upper class peers" are upper or not I will leave to those of you who are nearer to them to discuss.
- dougmwne 6y ago
  I'm no authority, but as far as it goes the author probably encountered plenty of actual upper class americans at ivy league schools. I was inspired to watch a few episodes of the West Wing to see if I could sus out what he was talking about. I could pretty easily tell that Aaron Sorkin wrote it from a middle class perspective that fetishized and idealized wealth, education and power that he did not himself possess. I can see why ivy leaguers would like it, since it flatters them at every chance.

082349872349872 6y ago

This mimetic dynamic is exactly why I believe Brave New World and 1984 both have more to say about the large changes in anglophone society between 1910 and 1930 than an orthodox facile dismissal as science fiction dystopias would lead one to believe. (my hobby: guessing not when costume dramas are set, but when they were shot.) Bonus branding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect#/media/File:Droste_cacao_100gr_blikje,_foto_02.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect#/media/File:Dros... Edit: as to whether "his upper class peers" are upper or not I will leave to those of you who are nearer to them to discuss.

dougmwne 6y ago
I'm no authority, but as far as it goes the author probably encountered plenty of actual upper class americans at ivy league schools. I was inspired to watch a few episodes of the West Wing to see if I could sus out what he was talking about. I could pretty easily tell that Aaron Sorkin wrote it from a middle class perspective that fetishized and idealized wealth, education and power that he did not himself possess. I can see why ivy leaguers would like it, since it flatters them at every chance.