The Unclad Soul

The recent presidential election has left people stunned and many frightened and worried. I have friends telling me how alarmed they are and wondering what is going to happen to all of us. Especially, what will happen to women, to immigrants, to minorities? What will the Supreme Court turn into? And what damage will an unbalanced Court in favor of extreme Republicans do to women’s rights, to the LGBT community, to freedom of speech and other Constitutional rights? Will the police turn even more brutal, completely unleashed to commit crimes against the innocent, without any restraints or punishment? People are angry, panicky, despondent. I think of Hamlet’s gloomy speech where he despairs of earth and people and life: “This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent cong...

I am making my way through the AMC Mad Men series. I saw the original series when it first came out almost ten years ago. Now I’m watching it again on Netflix. I knew what I was in for. Since the presidential election I have been trying to better understand myself, others, and my country. The ugly bitterness of the election left me emotionally exhausted, and frankly, disappointed in people in general. I didn’t follow the chaos on Twitter, but Facebook was a primeval jungle of crude squabbling, angry rants, malicious name calling, and endless acts of blocking and unfriending people. Some of them relatives and close friends. So after all of that, I decided to wander into Mad Men, the perfect setting for seeing the absolute worst in human hurt, pettiness, jealously, manipulation and betrayal. I thought that there, I might get some understanding of why, in certain circumstances, we sink, almost unconsciously and hopelessly, into such abysmal and damaging behavior. Don Draper, ...