August 9, 2010

Time’s take on Mad Men and Philosophy and the Philosophy series

Don Draper, meet Friedrich Nietzsche. You might not think that the fictional ad exec from the critically acclaimed AMC drama Mad Men and the German philosopher have much in common, but consider this: Nietzsche believed happiness requires that a person forget the past in order to act boldly in the present — a methodology that Draper, who has denied his past by stealing a dead man’s identity, seems to embrace.

That allusion, and more, come from Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing Is as It Seems — a book of essays that examines the show through a philosophical lens. In it, philosophy professors reference classic works of philosophy by the likes of John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Simone de Beauvoir to explore topics like Draper’s identity crisis, the ethical lapses of the advertising business and the burgeoning feminism of the 1960s. For readers of a bloodier bent, there’s also a companion to HBO’s Southern Gothic vampire series, called — Freudian primal instincts, anyone? — True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things with You, which examines, for example, whether John Locke’s theories on an individual’s right to life, liberty and property should be expanded to include the undead.

Read the full article at Time.com

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