Nietzsche in The Office: the aesthetic justification of capitalist realism

Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 82 (3):290-301 (2024)
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Abstract

ABSTRACT In this paper, I provide an interpretation of the American mockumentary-styled sitcom, The Office (2005–2013), as an instance of what Nietzsche calls an “aesthetic justification” of life. The Office offers an aesthetic justification of the life of lower-tiered North American white-collar workers under neoliberalism. The Office performs this function via an implicit endorsement of what Mark Fisher (2009) calls capitalist realism, or the idea that “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” I focus on an illuminating scene in episode 16 of Season 3, “Business School” (2007), that exemplifies this especially well. The argument is that The Office orchestrates an aesthetic justification of those aspects of our existence that cannot be justified morally under capitalism, for example, precarity, ruthless competition, and so on. In Section I, I outline Nietzsche’s conception of aesthetic justification. In Section II, I discuss the major themes of The Office, highlighting their resonance with the concerns and experiences of the workforce. In Section III, I bring these together in a Nietzschean analysis of the “Business School” scene. Finally, in Section IV, I close by offering some open-ended but critical reflections on this analysis via Adorno and the Frankfurt School.

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Tom Hanauer
Tel Aviv University

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References found in this work

Aesthetic Theory.Theodor W. Adorno, Gretel Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann & C. Lenhardt - 1986 - Journal of Philosophy 83 (12):732-741.
Outside Ethics.Raymond Geuss - 2007 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 69 (1):169-171.
The Truth Is Terrible.Brian Leiter - 2018 - Journal of Nietzsche Studies 49 (2):151-173.

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