Megan Draper's Choice

[If you have NOT seen last night’s Mad Men episode, be forewarned that this post contains spoilers.]

Having recently established herself as a rising star in the advertising world Megan Draper has up and quit her job. Megan did get some help from her marriage to Don Draper, but she had proven that she had real talent.

And yet, she had come to believe that she had to follow her dream and pursue an acting career. Given the choice between living her dream and selling baked beans, she chose art over commerce.

Can you blame her?

It depends on your values. If you believe that happiness consists in living your dreams, you will applaud her decision. If you believe that happiness consists in succeeding at what you are good at, you will be dismayed by her choice.

Last night Mad Men dramatized a major culture shift that occurred in America in the mid-sixties. The shift was precipitated by what appeared to be a failed war in Vietnam.

The more it looked like the American military could not hold its own against the Viet Cong, the more it felt to America’s cognoscenti that there was something seriously wrong with a culture based on martial and material values, and something serious right about Communism’s rejection of same.

For reasons that made more sense at the time, America’s value system shifted away from commerce and toward art. Many believed that creativity would save the nation from conformity.

You might ask how a more creative America would have defeated the Viet Cong. It would not have. America’s left thinking people wanted the Viet Cong to win; thus they were happy to see America’s youth give up a futile war in favor of more transcendent values.

In post-World War II America young people chose commerce over art. In Vietnam Era America young people increasingly chose art over commerce.

Last night Mad Men dramatized the culture shift brilliantly. It did so without taking sides, without telling you what to think.

Better yet, the episode brought into clear focus an issue that I have often discussed on this blog. Should a young person setting out in life do what he is good at or should he choose to live his dream?

Does happiness consist in success and achievement or does it consist in fulfilling your childhood dreams? Is success most likely when you are good at something or when you really want to do something?

Of course, some people have real talent for the arts. When they choose a career making art they are doing what they are good at. It might feel like a dream, but they are really following an old, seemingly outdated, system of values. Between us, a career as an artist is very, very hard work.

Today,many of those who feel drawn to the arts do not have enough talent to make it in a field that is extremely competitive and unforgiving. Far too many young people have been directed toward the arts because they think that it’s their dream, and that they are obliged to live it, lest they become terminally unhappy.

To Megan Draper the decision is clear. She loves the theatre; she has always wanted to act. Thus, she quits her job at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to go off chasing a dream.

To her husband and to Peggy Olson Megan’s decision does not make sense. They point out that she has a real talent for advertising. She was on a fast track to success and achievement. They are not overbearing or strident, but they express the old ethic that tells us to develop the talents we have and not pretend to have talents because we wish we did.

After all,  Megan thought up the concept that won the Heinz account—that being: Some Things Never Change. And she worked out the concept for the Cool Whip account that the firm is pursuing. She is more like the old Don Draper than is the new Don Draper.

Megan Draper is an upcoming star in the ad world. When she tried out for a new play she did receive a call back, but did not get the part.  

Perhaps she has great talent as a thespian, but as of now, it seems that she does not. She probably thinks that she will do better if she becomes a full time aspiring actor.

Megan does not care about how good she is at advertising because she thinks that it is beneath her dignity to sell baked beans. She finds something elevating, transcendent, of superior value in the world of art.

I don’t recall her putting it this way, but many members of her generation chose art over commerce because they had come to believe that commerce was superficial and that art was more “real” and more truthful.

To which Shakespeare offered the best rejoinder, from The Tempest:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.

Megan goes marching off into “that good night,” blissfully ignorant of the damage she is leaving behind.

Having gotten lost in a dream, she abandons her colleagues and abjures her responsibilities. She leaves Don staring into the abyss of an elevator shaft. Vertigo, anyone.

Megan quits, on a dime, without any real concern for the consequences. Among the consequences was the lost Cool Whip account.

Megan and Don had put together a great dialogue to pitch the Cool Whip account. When Megan’s stand-in, Peggy, tried to do the same with Don at the Cool Whip test kitchen, the routine fell flat.

Don and Megan had been a great team, a loving couple that did everything together. Last night Megan did not just walk away from her job. She walked out on her husband, leaving him alone for the evening. As a replacement she provided a Beatles album.

When Don put on the song it was not a very good one, harsh and noisy, pseudo-psychedelic.

From Megan’s beauty and intelligence to a failed Beatles song. How do you think that this is going to turn out?

Let’s not ignore the comment, made by one of the other characters, that Megan has the freedom to pursue her dreams because she married a rich man. She can indulge her childhood dreams because her husband supports her. Forget about the part about marrying rich. Shouldn't she remember the text from 1 Corinthians: " When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Megan is also walking away from her roles as wife and potential mother. The point was tossed off quickly by a numbed Don last night, but it feels strange that a newly married woman in her early 20s has already decided not to have children.

According to the value system embraced by serious intellectuals Heinz Baked Beans are vulgar. Cool Whip is even more vulgar; after all, it’s fake whipped cream.

On the other side of this moral divide, you can’t eat art.

If the wheels of commerce shut down, people will no longer have their trinkets and baubles. Unfortunately, they will also no longer have enough to eat.

This season’s Mad Men takes place in 1966, during the Cold War against Communism.

In 1966 America was getting more deeply involved in a war against Communism in Vietnam.

And, 1966 also saw the beginning of Mao Tse Tsung’s power grab, called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China.

Seven years earlier Mao Tse Tsung had tried to industrialize his nation by implementing a plan called The Great Leap Forward. The result, we now know, was a famine that killed tens of millions of people.

During its short history Communism excelled at starving people to death. Even today people are starving in Communist North Korea while South Korea counts among the world’s more prosperous nations.

You may not think that commerce and industry, free enterprise capitalism are an unalloyed good, but compared to Communism, at least it could feed people.

The success of post-Maoist China was based on agricultural reforms that introduced free enterprise in the food production business. Capitalism has succeeded in feeding China.

Megan Draper is not going to starve. She might even succeed in the acting business. She does not realize it but her willingness to check out of her life has created serious disruptions for the advertising firm and for her husband.

We all ought to understand that undermining business and commerce will make eventually make it impossible for the next group of Megan Drapers of this world to run off in pursuit of their dreams.

After college they are more likely to be moving back with their parents and getting used to being unemployed.