For Nietzsche, creativity is only possible within nihilism. It is out of the absence of all and any value that the Nietzschian Uhermensch creates new value. Unlike the "herd," who believe that values are universal, objective, and real, the Nietzschian overman sees the values against the background of nihilism and knows them to he human inventions. For Nietzsche, the role of creating value in society was in the hands of what he called the Uberrneflsch, the "overman," aka the "superman," who out of a tragic and nihilistic consciousness affirmed life and human existence by creating values where none had existed before. These values eventually are experienced by culture as integral and necessary to its existence, defining what it means to be human, setting the standards for what is morally good, aesthetically beautiful, and epistemically true. Don Draper asks Rachel Menken, the wealthy Fifth Avenue department store proprietor, why she is not married. Her reply is that she has never been in love. Draper retorts, "What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons" ("Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,¡" episode 101). If what Draper says is true, love, which many regard as the deepest and most real of human emotions, turns out to be a construct invented by the advertising industry to sell clothing. Rachel maintains that love is not just a slogan. She means that it is not just a word, but that there is a thing, an objective reality, to which the word corresponds. Rachel believes that if there were no word love, the thing, love, would nevertheless be something that people would feel; it would still exist without the word. Draper, though, says that the reason she has not felt it is because it does not exist.
The common belief is that love unites people, creates community, and binds together lovers, families, and marriages. Instead, Draper says that we are "born alone and die alone." The rules of society, that is, its customs, taboos, and values, are designed, according to Draper, to make us forget our solitary existence. He, on the other hand, "never forgets it," and lives as if there is no tomorrow . . . since," as he claims, "there is not one."
Draper believes love is a social construct. It is not a social construct. Love and affection are biological and psychological needs inherent in human beings. It is not a cultural construct but first, a biological construct on which culture builds upon and validates. Love may not exist objectively, but the need for love and affection exists in the physical wiring of humans. Ultimately if you're human, you need love, so we need to aspire for love even if it doesn't objectively exist.
Anti-foundationalism is the position that there is no unchanging and universal basis of value. Draper's life embodies anti-foundationalism, in which stable social institutions like marriage and family are fleeting and evanescent.
Marriage is a social construct and ultimately its value is relative. It is not an end, be all. But, marriage is a social construct developed over thousands of years and it has persisted in all cultures around the world, regardless the level of economic development, because usually the benefits of being in marriage outweigh the benefits of alternative lifestyles. Now, does one always need marriage? No. It is a social construct.
How necessary is nihilism for the creativity required to advance culture-transforming technologies? Nietzsche, in “The Metamorphoses of the Spirit,” a chapter from Thus Spake Zarathustra, describes the genesis of the creative spirit in three stages: the camel, the lion, and the child. The first (the camel) is the load-bearing spirit that bears the weight of the taboos of society. The lion represents the power that kills the dragon of the sacred Thou Shalts and Thou Shalt Nots—the permission and prohibition of society. The third stage of the spirit is the child, which Nietzsche calls “a new beginning” and a “self-propelled wheel,” where human consciousness is no longer burdened by the norms of society. It is able to create out of forgetting, innocence, and spontaneity. Creation and destruction are never far apart.
While developing the ad campaign for a cigarette company threatened by reports that smoking causes cancer, Don. falls asleep. Describing the essence of the creative process, Draper once advised Peggy, “Just think about it deeply, and forget it, and an idea will jump in your face”. He comes to the meeting with the Lucky Strike executives empty-handed. After an embarrassing silence, the executives begin to leave. Suddenly Draper, appearing inspired, comes up with the slogan “It’s toasted.” He does not challenge or debate the report that cigarettes are poisonous, which he earlier drops in the trash and calls “perverse.” He diverts attention toward what sounds completely affirmative. His slogan addresses the subliminal associations that surround the connotations of words. Advertising is designed, he claims, to make people feel good about themselves. It gives them the reassurance that “Whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay”. This is not deception, not lying, but the power of words to create reality. For Draper it is a reality without a past and without a future.
The report that cigarette-smoking causes cancer is only relevant if one cares about one’s health. But if you care more about feeling good, then that’s all that matters for you, with or without the cancer report. There is no Truth, only interpretations.
Cigarettes kill. So what? They’re nice and toasted.
The absence of values, other than the ones that we create, is the nihilism of Nietzsche. This is, of course, hard to accept for those who believe in truth. Roy again critiques Don: “You make the lie. . . you invent want.” Roy is assuming that there is a difference between truth and “the lie,” between natural wants and those that are artificial. Don responds by saying, “There is no big lie. There is no system. The universe is indifferent” (“The Hobo Code,” episode 108).
In Don’s life, this indifference negates a myriad of values such as loyalty, honesty, reliability; and, in this case, truth. There is nothing in the nature of things that would serve as a way of differentiating true from false, right from wrong, honest from dishonest. Don does not show the slightest qualm in telling Betty that he is leaving for work when he is on his way to spend the night with his daughter’s elementary school teacher. He lies to Betty without the apparent sense that he is violating her trust. He tells her, “Betts, I have no choice,” to which she replies dutifully, “I see how hard you’re working” (“The Color Blue”). Betty is assuming the role of the supportive wife, and clearly Don often does not have values beyond the utility of the moment.
The supreme and absolute value in technological culture is efficiency. Efficiency as an end in itself. Means trump ends. An exclusively instrumental system of values does not ask what is it all for, what end or ultimate goal is being served. Without something that has intrinsic value (that is, something valuable in itself and not as a means to an end), there is no foundation to provide a lasting support for value judgments. As Joan says to Peggy, “If you are even thinking of passing judgment, you are in the wrong business” (“5G,” episode 105). This is the ethical mantra of exclusively technological consciousness.
Don’s responsibility is to create an advertising campaign that will sell cigarettes. To consider consequences is, in Don’s words, “perverse” (“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”). The concern for final ends and foundations is ignored, provided that a means is found to solve the problem at hand. Roger Sterling praises Don for his moment of inspiration. Peter Campbell says, “I was telling them how amazing you were. I am still tingling” (“Shoot,” episode 109). Neither middle nor upper management at Sterling Cooper ever considers the morality of their actions. Why should they? The universe is indifferent and you are part of the universe.
When Peter tells Bert Cooper that Don Draper is really Dick Whitman and accuses Draper of being a “fraud, a liar, and a criminal even,” Cooper replies, like someone speaking to the moral innocence of a child, “Who cares?” Cooper draws attention back to the immediacy of the moment, telling Campbell, “A man is whatever room he is in,” adding “At this moment, Donald Draper is in this room” (“Nixon vs. Kennedy,” episode 112). So Donald Draper is no other than Donald Draper at this point in time and space. He may have been Dick Whitman in the past, and he may become someone else in the future, but he is Donald Draper here and now. Appearance is reality. Saying so makes it so. There are no meanings other than the ones we construct. This is the positive side of the claim “the universe is indifferent.” It gives us the freedom to create our own identities.
- George Teschner
