The Rise and Fall of
Andrew Bernard.
“His absence says
more than his presence.”
Alan W. Watts.
When Michael Scott
leaves the Office, he delivers all of his sales files to the least suspecting
and the least assuming person: Andrew Bernard. Andy replies by pointing out,
with humility devoid of pretense, that he considers himself the worst salesman
in the Office, an observation that Michael Scott corrects by saying: “You are the
BEST salesman in this Office. You sold everyone here on Andy Bernard, and that
was a product that no one wanted to buy.”
The unpopular move
on Michael’s part, true to form and in no ways devoid of mythological
significance, is a proverbial rite of passage. Michael bestows upon Andy in
effect dominion over the most jaded and least grateful workspace in television
history. And he likewise bestows upon Andy his own plight. It is not long
before Andy Bernard becomes again the Office Pariah that Dwight Kurt Schrute
called him. And it is not BEFORE Andy has proven himself a hero and a martyr.
Andy first appears
in the series as a hot-tempered, pretentious Cornell graduate who is stuck in
his college glory days, imagines himself to be in a flirtation with schizoaffective
desk jockey Karen Fillipelli (however one spells that; I won’t pretend that
using Wikipedia is a mark of scholarship rather than Attention Deficit Tabbed
Browsing Disorder) and melts down a bit when Jim puts his calculator in a block
of green gelatin, forever establishing himself as an anti-Dwight, who never
manages, despite all of his machismo and intellect, to outwit the slippery
“tuna” that is Jim Halpert. (When I say “sub” y’all say “text.” Sub!)
Andy is not the only
weirdo at the Stamford Branch of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. Karen
notwithstanding, Jim endures his first hiatus from Pam Beasley surrounded by
uptown slackers who play Call of Duty and use Karen’s thin arms to hack and
debug the faulty vending machine. You know that you are in deep water when your
only friend is Karen Fillipelli. When Stamford is downsized and several of its
occupants transfer to Scranton, they disappear, one by one, under the burden of
Michael Scott’s well-meaning hazing, and for exceedingly absurd reasons, from
stage fright tied to fat acceptance culture to a prideful criminal record
(neither of which Dwight Schrute would approve of). Only Andy remains.
At first, it is easy
to see Andy as a villain. I must myself confess that he reminded me of some
upstarts that I knew to whom I then imagined saying, “don’t be an Andy”. But
that’s mean. After all: the ladder-climbing temp worker that I’m thinking of in
particular has an other name: Ryan Howard. And even Ryan is complex and
nebulous. But what do we know? We only see what the cameras see, and as the
show breaks the fourth wall more and more (and engages our emotions to an even
greater extent) it is easy to imagine that the events actually happened, and
that there is an unseen side to the story. Certainly the actors must have felt
it. And without a doubt the audience does.
What Happens in
Stamford.
Andrew is not
without his endearing qualities, which appear tantamount to heroic in
retrospect. Back in Stamford, he is one of three overtime employees who must
stay up late to finish a project. The other two are Jim and Karen. Seated at
the front of the row, no longer grudging of the people he has reason to suspect
of turning his number cruncher into an electronic colloid, the Nard Dog busts
out a bottle of Whiskey and three shot glasses. In a manner characteristic of
Michael Scott, save for the fact that rose-tinted glasses are replaced by a
turned back, Andy leads Jim and Karen through a simulation of a fraternity
outing, and as Karen, seated at the very back, maintains both her sobriety and
the semblance of participation, Andy unwittingly facilitates the budding of
their romance, as Jim must ultimately rely on Karen to drive him home. Jim puts
himself in this situation when he chooses drunken bicycling over the spare
inflatable mattress that Andrew Bernard himself supplies. That’s right: Andy is
one of those guys who sleeps in the Office overnight. What happens in Stamford
stays in Stamford, I guess; the only sleeping over that happens at the Scranton
Branch is usually between a man and a woman, and most often when the woman is
engaged to an other man.
This is charming to
consider in the context of the fact that Andy LIKES Karen. It’s all so
important to note that Jim and Karen don’t let him off easily after the gelatin
incident. When Jim gives Karen the unwanted chair that squeaks, Karen annoys
Jim by squeaking it repeatedly on purpose, to which Jim retaliates by singing
“Lovefool” by the Cardigans. Only Andy preserves the demeanour of innocence,
singing along and praising the long-lost Swedish one-hit wonder. He would
reprise this schtick when proposing to Angela by singing an a’capella version
of “Take a Chance on Me” by the somewhat more prolific Band of Swedes ABBA.
Ultimately, a
compromise is reached between Jim and Karen, as an unsuspecting Andy discovers
that his own chair is squeaking. Karen switched, apparently, whilst Andy was
not looking.
The Nard-Dog and the
Cat Bitch.
Scranton is not much
kinder to the Underdog than was Stamford. Dwight sums this up when he calls
Andy Bernard the office “pariah”, and he demonstrates this in a brutal display
of alpha male competition.
Michael Scott thinks
little of Andy at first. Andy has made his success entirely by sycophantic and
manipulative means that are typical of corporate salespeople but that tempt us
towards scapegoating when they are themselves mirrored back to us by the guy
who all ways mirrors people. This is most hilariously demonstrated when Andy
first meets Dwight, and neither of them has the humility to break off the
handshake first.
It is not long
before Jim, inspired by Pam and empowered by Karen, gives pranking Andy an
other go. Jim represents the Popular Consensus, as most bullies do, and so it’s
no weight on his heart when he places Andy’s cell phone in the ceiling.
What no one expects,
not even Andy himself, is that the Nard Dog will punch a hole in the wall more
gaping than Michael Scott’s naivete about New York City (especially when
Michael calls Sbarro a hole-in-the-wall restaurant). Andy is sent to (Anger)
Management Training, which he finishes in half the estimated time by using the
same techniques as he uses in Sales. Yet even though he grows into the show’s
second or third most lovable character in the wake of that disappearance, one
in a line of disappearances that apparently come with adjusting from
Connecticut to Pennsylvania, he has not yet sold himself into anything but
servitude and humiliation. I guess it’s family karma.
Having been steered
away from yet an other adorable girl by a jealous Jim Halpert, and having had
his hopes with Karen dashed by the same man (whom Andy never once blames for
anything, I think, in the entire series, further reinforcing his identity as
anti-Dwight and as Scott’s protégé) Andy sees something in Angela that no one
sees: Sweetness. Even Dwight is not so generous to his paramour, who is only as
attractive to Dwight as she is cruel (MIRRORING his own sadistic power drives).
Pam discourages Andy initially, but the forthcoming gentleman points out that
his White Anglo-Saxon Protestant background is compatible with Angela’s
Christian idealism, and Pam tentatively reconsiders her own position. (Probably
contributing therefore to her romance with Jim.) Andy sees only the best in
Angela, whose idealism is betrayed by her ongoing affair with Dwight, who
maintains a physical relationship with her even after she broke up with him for
putting one of her cats in a freezer (and leaving him to die in there,
pa[ren]thetically).
When news gets out
(read: when Phyllis gets tired of blackmailing Angela) Andy does what by this
point only lovebird Jim has been able to do: outwit Dwight. Not only does the
cuckolded Andy, who is engaged to Angela by this point, demonstrate his moral
superiority to Jim, who kissed Pam when she was still engaged to Roy. He all so
demonstrates a surprising degree of intellectual acuity and wile by pandering
to Dwight’s narcissism and then proceeding to run him over with a slow-moving
car. It is only when Dwight discovers that Angela had all so slept with Andy,
shattering one of her many flattering lies, that both relationships end, and
Dwight and Andy become friends.
Their friendship
proves sturdy when Pam leaves the company and a new Receptionist occupies her
old desk, and Dwight surrenders her to a doting Andy. But it is not long before
the Loving Underdog has his heart broken again, as his puppy love with Erin is
demolished by the aftermath of his ordeal with the Office Cat Lady Angela
Bernard-Schrute.
The Nicest Person
that He Ever Met.
I don’t need to tell
you for a second time that Erin is perfect. But as Carl Jung said (I hope
hyperbolically): no one can live with a saint. Erin and Andy hit it off
immediately, though neither of the two lovebirds has the language and tenacity
necessary to consummate their love for quite some time. Their romance across
the Receptionist’s Counter begins to mirror Jim and Pam, except that where Pam’s
engagement and Jim’s diplomacy held Everyone’s Favourite Cheaters apart, in the
case of Erin and Andy: it’s just innocence. They fall in love as kids do. And
the question becomes: can the eternal boy and the perfect girl survive the
years of growth they have ahead of them?
Considering how
swiftly one can watch the story told when one is binge-watching it, it becomes
surprising to remember that Andy was around since the first third of the
series, and Erin came along as early as halfway through, when we HOPED she
would become More, only because she felt so pure and angelic. (Not to mention:
mysterious and naïve.) But then one remembers that they were in love for YEARS,
not days. And the only reason that it feels like days is because most of that
time was off-camera.
Andy does it all
right. His blunders are perpetually redeemed by his triumphs. When Christmas
rolls around and he is chosen to be Erin’s Secret Santa, the Nard Dog brings
out Erin’s willful side when she shows up to work with a torn cheek; the milieu
of exotic birds that her True Love Gave to Her throughout the consecutive Days
of Christmas had decided to take out their aggression on her. But it all pays
off when she is greeted in the Parking Lot by an entire Marching Band whose
lead cymbalist is Andy Bernard.
Finally, he gets the
guts to ask her out. Initially he does so in the context of a campy Southern
Mystery Game that Michael Scott brings in and that, as a good omen in the Nard
Dog’s favour, catches on in popularity despite its initial reception as a
ridiculous waste of time. But he backs out when he is led to believe that the
date was only part of the game. It is at this moment that Erin confesses to the
cameras that she was hoping that it was a date in Actuality. This may very well
have been her first interview.
Erin and Andy end up
kissing in a junkyard, of all places, when another of Michael’s poetically just
foibles brings the two nicest people in the Office out in search of that
ever-present mythological grail: the Client Folders. Their kiss is monumental, and it serves as a
centerpiece to the entire story, eccentric as it might have been in every sense
(since we are probably past the True Middle of the series by this point). Here
they stand: the only hope we have in a World of Refuse. Even Andy’s hero the
Bard could not have told it more fantastically.
But then Erin learns
about the engagement to Angela. Angela was put from Andy’s mind by Erin
herself. But when Andy persuades Michael to take Erin out to eat at her
favourite restaurant, defending his new girlfriend’s honour when a hesitant
Scott calls her a “rube”, things end poorly for the loving puppies. (I do not
belabor this metaphor any more so than the show itself does.) Erin learns about
the engagement to Angela, throws a screaming fit as she covers her face in her
own hair, and tells Andy that she wants to be alone for a while. She does not
formally “break up with” him, so technically what follows when she starts to
date Gabe in the following season is an extramarital affair. But we let this
slide because it’s Erin. Even I did not notice the informality of the breakup
until she drew attention to this habit in Season Nine. The ambiguity: yes. The
informality: no.
As the result of
this same outing that Andrew Bernard had arranged (before an Outing with the
Boss would mean a date with the Nard Dog Himself) Michael and Erin develop a
sweet Father-Daughter dynamic. When Erin and Gabe break up and Erin considers
dating Andy “again”, he gently advises her against it, only to preserve her
autonomy in a manner that fathers often do with what Marie-Louise von Franz
called incestuous underpinnings. By the point that Phyllis uses her own
maternal relationship with the foster girl to nudge Erin in the right direction,
(under what Phyllis has at this point discovered to be false auspices, and as
she has all so neglected to mention to Erin) Andy is all ready operating under
the burden put upon him by Gabe. Although Gabe’s confrontation with Andy in the
men’s restroom seems inconsequential, Gabe’s eventual disappearance from the
Office and his ongoing influence in absentia (Absence: a theme I shall expound
upon shortly, for it was in defense of this same ideal that I was moved to stop
watching after Episode Fifteen of Season Nine, so as to be able to write) proves
that the confrontation had one principal function: to frighten Andy into a
state of abstinence. Gabe won by stalemate, which is really all that one can
hope for in games so evenly matched in both sport and sportsmanship.
We are made to
suffer then through Erin’s Unrequited Love, as Andy, despite personal feelings
for Erin that endure, pulls a Jim and starts to date an other woman. Erin owns
part of her repressed vixen at a party when the World’s Creepiest C.E.O.
invites her to try alcohol for what appears to be the first time. She
oscillates betwixt loving support for Andy and his new belle and seething,
murderous and outspoken drunken contempt. In short: she would give Nancy
Wheeler a run for her money; I.N.F.P’s are notoriously cuter drunks than
E.N.F.P’s. Andy berates his spited lover by using the same line on her that he
used on Michael Scott: “that’s my GIRLfriend.” But what appears to be hypocrisy
at first, reducing women to their marital status in respect to one’s self, in
retrospect could pass for nothing more or less than Chivalry at its Finest.
Finally, Erin does
the only thing she can do: she disappears. Without warning, she moves down to
Florida and gets a job. Andy expects her to return, but he learns in a Skype
call that that is not in the cards. So he does what any rational man would do
in that situation: he abandons post, driving all the way down the coast to win
Erin back. Along the way he must win her over despite the hazing that her
employers, with whom she lives, treat him. She runs after him and shares their
first kiss in years. They do not kiss again until after they pay a visit to his
current girlfriend, who is hosting a bachelorette party. When his lie that he
is a homosexual (which they are not alarmed to “learn”, as he himself
questioned his own heterosexuality under pressure by suggestion) falls flat and
casts post-modern doubt on his honesty with Erin, he returns to break up with
his most recent ex with dignity. As tends so often to be the case, the Policy
of Truth is met with disdain by those who cannot handle it, and Erin and Andy
barely escape the spiteful pity-party unscathed.
The Moral Middle
Man. (And the Oscar Goes to…)
When Andy returns,
he finds that his job as Regional Manager was stolen by one of his former business
rivals from the interviews: Nellie. During a very temporary and Romantic leave,
a sort of Spiritual Emergency worthy of both the Orient and the Occident, (and
spanning no more or less than the American East Coast) Andy has been usurped by
a neurotic and manipulative nymphomaniac with an English Accent. And his C.E.O,
an other former rival for the same position, cannot move past her sexual
cajoling to the point that he would rob her of the seat of power.
Andy only triumphs
by persuading David Wallace, a recent multi-millionaire with an equally troubled
fall from corporate grace, to buy back the company from the psychotic printer
salesmen that took it over and made all of this possible. When Nellie quoth
Shakespeare, playing the “Bard Card” as Andy calls it in a plea for corporate
mercy, the Nard Dog yields to his rival, however grudgingly. Season Nine finds
him struggling to get her to quit, for just as he had reason to regret his
reflexive kindness when Gabe asks politely for permission to date Erin, Andy
Bernard feels justifiably uncomfortable sharing an Office with a woman who
usurped him while he was winning back his Light of Love. Pushed, Nellie lies
about Andy’s ancestry. Alienated from his superficial parents, Andy requests a
genealogy report, which gives Nellie something to Actually DO around the
Office. Of course: Andy’s Heroic Quest to uncover and transcend his past looks
unprofessional and narcissistic to the public eye, though in fact it is simply
self-absorbed in a healthy, Jungian way. Nellie pretends that Andy is related
to Michelle Obama, and the Nard Dog rejoices to be related to the First Lady,
devoid of ethnic prejudice. But this cannot be said of Oscar Martinez, the
token Democrat who illustrates everything wrong with neo-Liberal “morality”
(completing the satire of Corporate Culture as beautifully and with as much
folly as does the Vonnegut character who tells the narrator of Cat’s Cradle
what a pissant is and sums up Republicanism.). Oscar RUNS WITH Nellie’s lie,
presuming several things:
1.
Andy’s ancestors were slave owners.
(Precluding all possible undocumented interracial romances that were NOT rape.)
2.
Andy’s at fault for being born into a
life of physical comfort and psychological distress and neglect.
3.
Andy owes everyone in the Office
something.
4.
This should affect Andy’s leadership style.
5.
This overshadows Andy’s own
enthusiasm to be related to a successful black woman.
6.
This dirt stinks worse than any dirt
that Nellie could dig up on everybody else within the Office.
7.
Nellie is not a damned bitch who lies,
cheats, and steals.
8.
This is all a more tangible evil than
Oscar’s homosexual affair with the husband of Angela, a Christian woman who had
all so cheated on Andy but who would go so far as to hire a hitman to remove
Oscar’s kneecaps when she learns about her husband’s infidelity. And it does
not matter that Oscar repeatedly mocked Angela for dating a politician who was
“not a real Senator”, but who ended up using both Angela and Oscar for
political reasons. And who was actually gay, which should make you wonder just
how much Oscar should get away with just for being part of that minority.
The immediate
consequence of this is that Andy, ever the accountable golden boy that he wants
his parents to love him for being, calls his parents up in front of the entire
Office, spurred by the moment. He discovers, with total transparency and to
both his personal embarrassment and public humiliation, that while his
ancestors never OWNED slaves, some of them did work on the sailing vessels that
transported them. Of course, a rational man’s first response would be this:
this disproves Oscar’s theory and casts doubt on Nellie’s finding; even if you
COULD and WANTED to rape human cargo, who would possibly keep a record of that
incident that might survive throughout the pregnancy, the birth, and SEVERAL HUNDRED
YEARS up to the point that an expatriated English woman could look it up on an
American computer??
But people suck. Of
course.
Andy forgives his
family instantly (a trying feat in his position that perhaps only recipients of
the Cis-White-Male Award truly can fathom) and covers for them with such candor
that even HE might be talked into believing he is doing it to save himself, for
it is without any apparent planning or contrivance. He simply speaks THE TRUTH:
1.
His family was entitled, as all
families are, to the pursuit of happiness (which remains relevant even when
“property” is shamed). And that is to say nothing of their own survival and the
survival of their children. As Ryan Howard says: a toast to the troops on BOTH
sides. And only someone so far down the neo-Liberal rabbit hole that he would
sequester slavery from pacifism would deny the relevance of Ryan’s diplomatic
toast.
2.
His ancestors were “moral middle
men”, literally, no more at fault for the establishment of the African Slave
Trade (which has operated since the Ancient Egyptians used Jews to build the
Pyramids) than the German People remain at fault for the Holocaust. And they
were almost certainly more civil than Oscar, who could just as easily be blamed
for “homophobia” because he is a member of the L.G.B.T.Q. which formalized the
term and made justifiable the condition. (Even Foucault himself would have to
admit that there can be no “homophobia” until someone coins the term.) They did
not OWN slaves. They simply did their jobs. Any one working for a Corporation
is equally at fault by default.
The Black Andy.
Daryll does not
agree, though he is much too passive aggressive and self-pitying to engage Andy
in direct discussion about it. At one point, Daryll from the Warehouse is the
only Voice of Reason in the midst of all the chaos. He is truly the Salt of the
Earth, working daily to provide for himself and I am guessing to pay child
support for his daughter whom he can only see when her Mother permits it and
when the girl herself considers him a fun guy. He all so serves the added
function of being Michael Scott’s chief African American consultant, using this
authority to teach the latter slang terms of his own device so as to add to
Michael’s all ready ludicrous street credibility. A warm and blunt working man,
Daryll is all the things that Michael wishes of Stanley Hudson, and he is the
closest thing to Uncle Iroh that this entire Paper Company has seen.
But Daryll is all so
a bitch. He uses his influence over Michael to pressure Scott into acting as a
spokesperson for Daryll’s burgeoning Workers’ Union. Michael is forced to
confront Jan Levinson about it, driving somewhat of a wedge between the two
that is painful to pull out. (And no: it’s not for the best that Michael and
Jan keep their professional distance. Michael loves Jan. All of their interpersonal
difficulties result from power struggles the likes of which Daryll produces:
between what she deems best and what he is forced to consider right.)
Daryll’s games don’t
end there. Among the Warehouse workers he is a Leader and an Authority who
makes Michael look ridiculous whenever Scott tries to do any thing remotely hands-on
downstairs. (No innuendo intended, though Jan does go down there when Michael
comes up on Women’s Day.) Upstairs, he is the token black, especially when
Stanley Hudson does everything in his own power to blend in. No one is more
sympathetic to his plight, perhaps, than Toby, the Human Resources Manager. Yet
when Dwight buys a bulk load of popular Unicorn-girl dolls and sells his last
one to Daryll, Daryll profits off of Toby’s desperation. Toby, a divorcee with
a somewhat estranged daughter and an abusive ex-wife, is in an even worse
situation than Daryll, who at least gets to see his baby girl on a regular
basis. (The daughter. Not the mother.) But Daryll does not GIVE the toy to Toby
in a generous holiday Spirit. He sells it, and when Toby is disappointed to
discover that the doll is dark he eyes the miserable pushover sternly. Sure:
Dwight made the real profit. But he bought in bulk; what was he supposed to do?
Someone has to counterbalance Michael Scott and Andy Bernard.
Toby forgives
Daryll, of course. When Michael Scott demands Daryll’s respect in front of
Toby, Daryll complains about the fact that Michael never promoted him or
encouraged his ascent. Daryll is Scarface, and the analogy is no prejudiced
parallel; Daryll himself cites that as an influence. He finally gets an Office
upstairs, and as far as anyone is aware he does and accomplished ABSOLUTELY
NOTHING. Yet as he deteriorates in existential importance he excels in status.
Daryll goes so far as to apply for Regional Manager, hoping to use only his
reputation and Black Privilege. He spaces on the Interview, for which he has
taken no pains to prepare. But eventually he lands Assistant to the Regional
Manager, which is Dwight’s old title. Andy conscripts Daryll to back him up
during the witch-hunt that Oscar is heading. But when Andy fails time and time
again to assert his equality to a group of liberals led by a Gay Hispanic Man,
Daryll abandons Andy. Resolving himself to self-pity and misery, he manages to
win a place in Jim’s new company, encouraging Jim to spend more time away from
Pam as the two of them become situated in Philadelphia. Again, he botches the
interview, but when he is assured that his job as a warehouse worker is equal
to that of a lawyer or business owner he gets the gig. His new employers even
let it slide that he ended his interview by tossing a basketball at an angle
that missed a hoop (adorning the Headquarters for the Athletic Equipment
Company) and knocked a lamp overlooking a fishbowl into the bowl, electrocuting
all the fish within. But no one’s perfect. And I’m not making this up.
Daryll’s rise to the
top is achieved by a combination of laziness, self-entitlement, manipulation,
and stereotype. Along the way, he has an affair with a coworker, who all so
happens to be black and whose boyfriend is black as well. His ambitions leave
him with all of the pretensions of a ghetto criminal but without the loyalty. When
his old homies downstairs win the lottery, he does not rejoice, but simply
gripes and considers unemployment. His bosses persuade him to get back on his
feet, but he takes them for granted. When Dwight tries to arrange a fun outing
to persuade Daryll to stay, Daryll only suspects Dwight of trying to clip his
wings for profit (even though it was Dwight who sold Daryll that toy, and
without Dwight it would not have been in supply. All so Daryll has Dwight’s old
job). When Dwight tries to level with Daryll by pulling a prank and tossing a
shake back through the drive-through window from the window of the company
truck, Daryll steals the keys from him, so that Dwight has to suffer the
consequences of not only his own actions but of Daryll’s disloyalty. Daryll’s
sympathy for the working class is narcissistic; whereas Dwight knows that food
service is a SERVICE and that customers have the moral right to DO that, Daryll
only thinks of the EMPLOYEE. Dwight is made to clean the mess, and in the
process he falls victim to the same prank, made more embarrassing because the
pranksters get away with it. This is not justice; their intent was no different
than Dwight’s. But Daryll treats it like it’s karma. Enjoying the fruits of his
disloyalty, he sits in his office at the end of the episode, watching a YouTube
video of Dwight’s humiliation. Such is the case with people who start Unions: they
would rather watch their close friends suffer from afar than to laugh with them
from the passenger’s side.
I entitled this
chapter “The Black Andy” to be ironical on purpose. Daryll is NOTHING like
Andy. He simply serves as the Ideal character foil. As Daryll rises in status
and deteriorates in character, Andy falls lower and lower. Even as Manager,
Andy eventually has neither power nor respect. He even loses the Love of his
Life. And no part of it is his own fault.
And all so Daryll
proves that so many as three of Andy’s competitors for the position of Manager
have betrayed him. It may seem a little ridiculous that I would go so far as to
call Toby Daryll’s moral superior, so as to defend him in his oppression,
whilst I defend Andy’s equality in the face of American History. But it is a
LOT easier for a TRUE Liberal to sympathize with a man who uses his money
chiefly in the service of Others than it is for me to sympathize with someone
who exploits desperation. Even Dwight does not exploit his fellows; he simply
BELIEVES that he is doing so, as Han Solo would. Maybe Toby Flenderson is not a
philanthropist. But Toby remains a victim. And Andy remains a philanthropic
martyr. And Daryll was never either.
Andy does not have
to worry about White Privilege for long. It is as fleeting as the memory of his
own oppression on its behalf. When his Father steals the family wealth and runs
off with a paramour, the Bernards go broke. For once, Pam notices Andy
transforming into something formidable. His office hours are spent managing his
family’s finances. Erin (bless her Soul) is the most supportive girlfriend you
would not dare to ask for. When he is forced to sell the Family Boat, she
consoles him and defends him. Daryll is less sympathetic; all he ever did when
he was young was work at Jiffy Lube. But Daryll’s lower-income grandeur is
promptly stripped of its gilding. When Erin tries to level by saying that
Daryll probably would not trade that Jiffy Lube for all the money in the World,
he corrects her that he would.
Can we just stop now
and say “nigger”? I feel really uncomfortable not saying it. I feel like I’ve
been saying “black” too much. It’s very anglocentric of me to use that term. I
would much rather employ the term that is of Latin origin and that retains that
hard “r” sound that Spanish is known for and that set the original blacks, the
Irish, apart from those who spoke the Queen’s English. With all due respect.
And why does M.S.
Word not recognize the term “Anglocentric”? That’s racist.
The truth is that
there is no Politically Correct way of describing Daryll. He is an animal. He
lives an animalistic existence. There’s no way around it. Joe Campbell said
that the caveman became a human being when he first started hoarding precious
stones. Am I the only one here who still understands the inalienable quality of
a Family Hierloom? It’s only comparable to a Jiffy Lube when Erin is so
generous as to portray it that way. And even that’s too much for Daryll. Which
is not to say that he does not hoard things. He simply seems to have no
sentimental attachments to them.
He is probably, on
second thought, a sociopath. So when he tells Michael about all the gangs that
he was in, including notoriously rival gangs, I am sort of inclined to believe
him. He certainly seems like a Double Agent. And I am only using “nigger”
because it is literally every other word in contemporary hip-hop. I do not
pretend that anglicizing it further by dropping the “r” in the way that the
British Royalty did to set themselves apart helps the matter.
Ain’t No Sunshine.
Andy sells the boat.
But it is not before Erin cheers Andy up. During his lunch break, she enters
his Office and persuades him to take the boat out for a spin of the wheel. It
was in this same Office, of course, that Andy himself persuaded Michael Scott
to take Erin out on that fateful Lunch Date. And plans go South just as
swiftly.
Andy all ways lived
in the shadow of his brother. Despite being portrayed by Josh Groban, Walter
Jr. (no relation) is a pretty decent singer. Of course, he’s not as good as
Andy, but that does not stop the parents from idealizing him at Andy’s expense.
And in front of friends, coworkers, and superiors.
Andy was supposed to
steer the boat as a rite of passage into Manhood. But atonement with the father
does not come, for better or for worse. Still: it is worth a heroic effort. The
boat is due to arrive in the Bahamas in three weeks, and Andy has all ready
handed it over to the skipper. But Erin convinces Andy that Andy is himself the
Captain of the boat. In one scene he does what even Michael Scott, his Father
Figure, could not do in an entire episode: relieve the skipper of duty. It is
at this moment that he discovers his brother, who had famously developed a
drinking problem in the wake of their parents’ divorce, hiding out in the wine
cellar.
The two brothers set
sail for one last voyage, leaving the audience with Erin on the dock.
I won’t deny it: I
was surprised that Erin left him behind. I thought that she might be a source
of tremendous comfort for him. But I can only suppose that he gave that up for
her own safety and for the integrity of the Quest. This was a thing that the
Brothers had to do Together, and Alone. Erin is not yet Family, and how can
Andy know that he is ready for such a commitment if he has not yet Become a
Man?
When He’s Gone.
Erin regrets it. And
we feel for her. But at what cost? Erin deserves the best. But Andy deserves a
break. He knows this. Stripped of pretense, he does what he all ways needed to
do: he TAKES TIME OFF. Chasing Erin down to Florida does not count. For perhaps
the first time in his Entire Life, the Nard Dog walks the thorny path of the
Lone Wolf.
In his absence, the
company prospers. Dwight bypasses regulation and secures a sale with the
hardest sell imaginable: Jan Levinson. He even achieves this by prostituting
his protégé, a kid of college age who is known around the Office as Kid Dwight
or something to that effect. Jan eats Kid Dwight up.
Meanwhile, Kid Jim
begins a flirtation across the Receptionist’s Desk that is eerily and
pathologically reminiscent of a young Jim hitting on Pam. We begin to wonder if
Andy will ever turn into a Roy. As Roy finally gets married and reveals himself
to be a talented musician, it’s hard to tell them apart. If Roy can be
redeemed, can the Nard Dog be corrupted? Both are rock stars with bad tempers.
Must Andy lose Erin permanently in order to become again Good? Or is Goodness
more than simply a state of being Impressive?
Then one remembers
all that Andy did for Erin. White Privilege only means a lucky belle where a
true gentleman and scholar is concerned. Sure: the turtle doves might have been
much. But who could forget the Drummer Boys?
Nellie knows that
she’s been mean to Andy since before she met him. She knows she deserves the
full force of his mocking, and that he deserves none of the blame. She
remembers his act of mercy and chivalry to her at a moment when she was most
unabashedly vulnerable. She knows that most men would turn a cold, corporate
cheek in his place. And she knows what it is like to be the pariah. She knows
how hard it is to be in charge. She knows what loss feels like.
As one of her few
functions at work, Nellie forms a committee comprised of only Erin and Kid Jim.
But when she catches wind of their flirtation, she takes steps to eradicate it.
But you can’t expect the woman who got Daryll back together with his paramour
(against his secret wishes) to turn all she touches into gold, exactly. And
even when she does she’s just as tragic as King Midas.
Under the urging of
Toby, who has finally lived up to what Michael all ways knew about him, and who
is deluded by his own feelings for Nellie, (To the point that our beloved Human
Resources Expert criticizes Andy in order to make himself look good by
contrast) Nellie puts the committee back together, doing so in such a way that
no one would blame Erin for her blaring disloyalty to Andy. The effect of this
is that Erin only feels that much closer to Kid Jim. All most like it’s a Real
Thing.
The Real Jim,
meanwhile, strains his own marriage. Perhaps if Life is, as the Buddhists
posited, a cyclical wheel of torture, then Kid Jim will marry Erin only to see
her suffer when time comes for him to grow up and to take time apart. But I
shudder at even the inkling of it.
Distance puts the
two cutest couples on the Office to the test as an Absurd narrative unfolds.
When one of the cameramen breaks character to defend Pam from a degenerate
vandal from Daryll’s old workplace, he breaks the Fourth Wall in a manner
reminiscent of Andy Bernard punching a hole in the wall. Twice.
The Prodigal Son
Returns.
Andrew Bernard takes
a lot of abuse. The contents of this essay only scratch the surface. The
contents of the SERIES only scratch the surface. I’ve not even mentioned yet
that he had his own buttocks tattooed because it was the only way that he could
incentivize his employees to work twice as hard, so as to impress the C.E.O.
who would eventually give his job away to Nellie. Andy is not an Individualist.
He is a Team Player. He is so much so that he is made INTO an Individual. When
he invites the latest generation of his college a’capella group to perform for
the Office, and Erin persuades them to do a rendition of his classic solo
“Faith” (As he is dressed as George Michael, whom none of the new guys
recognize) his solo is stolen by Broccoli Rob, his fellow alumnus (Portrayed by
some wretched comic) who is slowly taking over the identity and legacy of Boner
Champ. Erin loses respect for Andy at this moment, citing sagely the Truth that
we know we truly love someone when we lose respect for that person. What makes
this loss of respect ironical is that it is at the moment that Andy appears
petty to Erin that the audience notices this about him: he is a Team Player.
His solo is his solo. But that is because that was the ROLE that he had ON THE
TEAM. He did so much FOR the Team that he DESERVES the recognition. But as per
usual, someone else takes all the credit FOR him, blatantly stealing his
identity to his face. As the old Persona is detained, perhaps never to be
retrieved, Andy’s Isolation grows, even from his prospective spouse.
And this is only a
sample of what happens when he returns from his Spirit Quest in the Bahamas.
Nobody THANKS Andy
for his absenteeism. David Wallace, who does not know about the vacation, rewards
Andy with a raise for the success of the Branch during the Quarter. Yet when
Andy collects his weekly paychecks from Angela, he notices that she holds onto
one. Angela announces the raise, and he demands it with near silence. She
acquiesces. But that does not stop his neighbours from eying him with disdain.
It’s true: they were
most successful in his absence. They might EVEN have been most successful
BECAUSE of it.
And that check
belongs to him. And he knows it.
British-American
Theologian and Comparative Mythologist Alan Watts said in a lecture on Being Vague that the absence of the wandering
monk, expressed in the Japanese word “sabi”, says more than his presence. He
cites the Zen poem, which I shall recite here without reference to any external
device:
I asked the boy
beneath the pines.
He said: the
Master’s Gone Alone,
Herb-gathering.
Somewhere on
The Mountain.
Cloud-hidden,
Whereabouts unknown.
Alan Watts insisted
that this was essential to the sanity of any person so as not to become a
rubber stamp. A rubber stamp is a tool used to formalize documents. Just as
Dwight pretends to sign off on several illegitimate sales, one may use a rubber
stamper to grant something the formal appearance of approval, even if one is
not formally AUTHORIZED to do so. It is less than signature in Individuality.
When Andy left, he
was a rubber stamper. When he returns, he is a bloody John Hancock.
Andy does not take
crud from anyone. Bearded and sunburnt, he looks like Watts himself. Before
long, he cleans up, just as his associates are gossiping about how his hippie
countenance will hurt his reputation even if they do not rat him out. Upon
return, he calls everyone a loafer for showing up late. He criticizes Jim and
Pam for taking an extended lunch. Oscar tries to passive aggressively attract
attention to the fact that Andy’s last lunch break took a quarter of a year. It
is as though Oscar were in any position to point the finger, especially that
finger that means to appoint someone to hypocrisy. (Next to the finger that
turns Christians into homophobes.) Andy does not make any mention or take any
apparent notice of the Irony. This is wise; there are layers of which Oscar
himself in his infinite wisdom is unaware. At that very moment Jim and Pam
discover that the cameraman that saved Pam had feelings for her. Oscar defends
Jim in order to berate Andy, but not without defending a man whose absenteeism
has all so produced some degree of suffering.
Yet is it not a
reflection upon our Culture, Oscar, that a Man can’t go out and find himself?
To improve his station? To seek, as Andy professed when you grilled him for the
plight of a previous century, a better life for his Family? Perhaps ANY Life,
considering that he works in a Failing Industry?
It seems the first
to turn on Andy is Dwight. When Andy learns that Dwight went behind Andy’s back
to secure a deal with Jan, Andy does the only responsible thing that a boss can
do: he troubleshoots. The rules are the rules; were they merely guidelines, we
would not follow them. Captain Jack Sparrow (no relation.) learned that in the
Caribbean. And so did Captain Andrew Bernard, that scurvy dog.
Andy loses Dwight’s
client within a minute on the line with her. He shrugs it off; Policy is
Policy. When rules can be supplanted by preferences, they BECOME preferences,
and as such they are a gateway for abuse. When everyone around you is breaking
the rules and you blow the whistle, you are the furthest from blame. It is the
crowd that is selfish, and they are capable of greater evil as a mob than you
will ever be capable of as an Individual.
Andy knows this.
Because he is nearing Enlightenment. And the uninitiated can only misconstrue
this as Entitlement.
No one acknowledges
this fact: that if any causality exists in this world, Andy set everyone up to
succeed upon his departure. He only needed to be far enough away to keep an eye
on them occasionally. All of them kept their jobs. Even Nellie did. Without him
and his initiative with Wallace, at the moment when their earlier leaders had
turned on him, they might not even HAVE jobs; surely the Swindler whom they were
working for would not have been so altruistic or accountable. When he was in
charge, they put up with condescension and corporate narcissism just so long as
he flattered them. Daryll was not the only Socialist among them.
It was at this
moment that I felt most strongly for the Nard Dog.
I had served on the
Debate Team of Palomar College. When I first joined the team there would be
horror stories about a girl named Sarah Nemuri. When finally I met her, I could
not believe that this was the same person that Awilda Parada was talking about.
Don’t worry, Awilda: I did not use your current name.
Sarah was a
Christian. She was innocent. And she was suicidally depressed. She did not
drink. She did not copulate. And she followed every team rule. When her team-mates
abused the rules, she told the professors. She did everything right. And Awilda
hated her for expressing that which Intellectual Debate is intended to uncover
as its solitary purpose: THE TRUTH. Awilda had no right to hate her. Awilda had
been in the wrong. They All Were. But there is a certain variation of hominid,
in semblance human but lacking conscience, that cannot understand the
distinction between selfishness and integrity. It understands that an
individual might be wrong to compromise a group of people who are in the right.
But it FAILS to comprehend a situation wherein everyone ELSE is wrong.
Selfishness is not up to the GROUP to decide. Conscience is an Individual
Quest. Andy knows this. And so did Sarah.
Whatever Sarah’s
motives, she could never be Selfish. If she was defending herself, she was all
so defending the very VALUES that had come to DEFINE herself and to give her
life MEANING. These were the values to which all of the members of the Team
pledged themselves. These Values are higher than any one Human Life. And by
acting in accordance with them she preserved the right to her OWN Life. Awilda
cannot take that from her. She would do so only out of envy, for she has lost
the right towards her own.
There is an other
anecdote that crossed my mind upon watching the Mob deride Andy, with
conformist perversion, for his absentee success, presuming upon Presence as
being somehow superior to Absence like so many macho phallogocentric rapists:
When I lost a woman
whom I loved to a traitor, I coped by starting a sub-team. I spent hours upon
days over the following months training Daniel Mendez in the Art of Kritik
Debating. We were going to be partners. But the bureaucratic process was a
tightrope walk. And I had to get my G.P.A. up. I had cleared my absence from
the team with the coaches. Dewi Hokett did not complain that I was off their
radar; Brandan Whearty told me that it’s “perfectly understandable” that I
would focus on my schoolwork. As he all ways reminded us: School. Comes. First.
Even Hosfield told us not to fall into the addiction that he himself had fallen
into. Spoken like a true Scorpio.
But there was ONE
Scorpio on the team who did not understand that. Rafael Romasanta joined forces
with Daniel. I did not mind. I coached them. He would drive me to tournaments.
I would help them prepare. I did not like to be around debaters, out of
uniform. But it was worth it for the cause. For MY Cause. And by calling it
mine I praise the Cause as much as I praise myself.
Rafael wanted to
join forces. At a Team Meeting I proposed that the three of us should be put in
a three-person team. Rafael did not object. But later he found the audacity to
deride me for speaking up in front of the entire team, without his permission.
I have some news for
you. I do not need your permission. It would have been shameful had I lied to
you, even by omission. The exact opposite was achieved by assertion publically
of the TRUTH. There is never a basis for an individual who upholds this Moral
Universal to even have his motives called into Question. Virtue is its own
reward. And it is not a choice.
But this sticks out
the most: that when he criticized me for having been in absentia throughout
most of the semester, I told him that I put school first. I even pointed out
that our coaches KNEW that. And to that he replied in a manner I can scarcely
stomach: “When you say that you’re putting school first, it means you are putting school first.” He did what
Kresten, who’d betrayed me for Alanna, used to do: to repeat something in an inflection
as though that changed a god damned thing. “The trouble with anecdotal evidence
is that it’s anecdotal.”
SO WHAT? WHAT IS
YOUR POINT?
Pardon me, reader:
certain crimes against Human Reason are triggering. Such is verbal abuse.
Of COURSE I had been
in absentia. I was SUPPOSED TO BE.
It’s like Chris Rock
says when he criticizes the African American community. His fellows brag about
all the bad things they DON’T do. And Chris yells: YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO.
Andy Bernard did
every thing right. And yet like Michael before him he has everybody turn on
him. Dwight lies to him about a Warehouse Fire. When David tells Andy that
there was no fire, Andy covers with candor and creativity. But that does not
entirely save him. And Dwight SHAMELESSLY grins at Andy for the LIE.
It’s not as though
Andy lied to David. He simply omitted the Truth. And given that his absence had
benefited the Branch, it was hardly lying by omission, because it was not
NECESSARY that David learn about Andy’s new methods. There was no one to be
punished. Well, all most no one.
Narcissists and
sociopaths are known for being demeaning. It is embarrassing to imagine that
they believe that they can get away with blaming their own victims. If we could
not stand up for ourselves without becoming oppressors, all distinction of
right and wrong would vanish, because it is the prevention and treatment of
victimhood that is the basis for ethical conduct and virtue. This dissolution
of boundaries would not be a good trip. It would be Hell. If enforcers could
not defend themselves in their own victimhood, but they had all to be martyrs,
and any attempt at self-assertion was an abuse of power, then villains would
simply kill off all the enforcers. Anecdotal evidence is the only kind of evidence.
There is no “biased” reading of Andy’s story; there are only moral, immoral,
and amoral readings. All conviction implies ego; one rejoices when one’s sense
of justice is appeased. If one can extend a hand in defending an other, one
MUST contract the same hand to defend one’s self, lest one become a hypocrite
who allows injustice to happen before his very eyes. All wants are needs, and
all needs aim at participation in a common harmony. If I cannot relate Art to
my own Life, then I will have no respect for the sufferings of the characters.
If my own experience did not matter, how could I empathize with the underdog?
If my life had no meaning, how could I assert Individuality in ANY form? If I
had no Inalienable Human Rights, how could I ever BE right without feeling
alienated? How could I be HUMAN? The only selfless man is the amoral man. He
has no manhood. He has no humanity. Conscience is a faculty of ego. It can be
studied. It can even be manipulated. But it must never be compromised. It is a
Will of God. When I broke up my old band with Kresten and began a new project
with Daniel, I was acting out of Conscience. And it was just as conscientiously
that I persuaded Alanna, for some short time, to distance herself from the
vermin that had betrayed us both. Nothing can justify that sort of Evil.
Certainly once a man has done that he ceases to be a man, and then any
selfishness that he projects upon the victim is a testament to his own lack of
moral discernment. And I am obligated to assert my rights, for to have rights
is to DO what is right, and it is right to love, even if there is no guarantee
of reciprocity. And I know that it was right for Alanna to love me, though I
could never enforce this, and as a lover I forgave her time and time again.
Such is to be Human. And I’ve drained enough of my humanity in martyrdom to see
through anyone who pretends to it or who pretends to the Universality of its
opposite: Narcissism. Not all people are intrinsically narcissistic. And it
should be easy to weed out the evil from the Good. But we live in dark times.
When Erin tells Andy
that she does not love him any more, Andy persuades her to think otherwise. He
does not do this pretentiously. Inferior virtue, as the Taoists say, knows that
it is Virtue. Admittedly, all Taoists, myself included, have some conception of
Virtue. But what sets the conception apart from the perversion that the
conception points to is this: Natural Intuition. And that you can only get once
you have been truly Alone.
Andy does not
sugar-coat. He simply expounds. He tells Erin that they’ll be okay. He wants
her to pretend to love him. That way: he’ll be happy. And in time his happiness
will make her, perhaps, fall in love with him again. His parents lasted this
long. And they have a lot of time ahead to fall out of love. He invites her to
look past his sunburnt skin. Sure: he will age like a prune. But what of it? At
least she won’t feel embarrassed to age as well. Or so I’m guessing is the
point. It’s true, at any rate. And it is REAL. It lays all her pretensions to
shame.
At the start of the
episode we want Erin to break up with him. He’s been gone long enough for us to
figure that he’s found paradise without her. Good for him. Now let her take a
step in her own direction. Let her for ONCE do something Mean.
But of course: we
should know better. We know that Erin has been mean before. She broke up with
Gabe. And she certainly botched that. Most temperamentally nice people do. Guilty.
One can’t live with a saint.
Erin succeeds in so
far as she does not go through with it, initially. But when she tells her new
beau Kid Jim in the parking lot about what happened, he lays all of Andy’s
poetry to rest with one simple phrase:
I just want you to
be happy.
The amoral
assertion, neither good nor bad, triggers something irrational in Erin. In a
fit of sudden reactionary narcissism that made me throw my Wii remote at the
floor, exclaiming “bitch!!”, and I assure you that the narcissism was not my
own, as should be obvious, Erin pounces on Kid Jim’s face with a kiss. The late
adolescent, who had moments ago told her that he was ambivalent to their
relationship, smiles as though he had secretly believed himself to be the
Entitled One all along. And this no man or woman can pardon: that someone who
is TOTALLY AMBIVALENT to his crush’s choice could somehow act totally pleased
at her verdict. That a BOY, devoid of Manhood, who cannot even produce anything
more than an arbitrary and emotive assertion, would smile at the loss of a Man
that surpasses him in every Virtue and in Pain and Need.
I know about this
line. Because it’s what Alanna all ways bitched about. Kresten made her so
HAPPY. Not when they were having sex, of course. But when they were doing
drugs, surely. When he fed her cocaine addiction. It was weird when he ignored
her. But she did not care. And when I told him on my authority, as someone who
DID care, to stay the fuck away from her, for she had broken her promise to
stay away from him, he had the nerve to BRAG TO ME about his own antipathy. I
have produced entire PLAYS singing my own praises and bewailing my own woe. All
just to prove myself worthy. There was no shortage of arguments in my defense.
There was no stone unturned and no stop unpulled. I could not afford a dozen
drummer boys. But I could do every god damned thing in my Human Power to
protect my beloved from Death, even if it meant I had to tell her she was
WRONG. I’d promised her the Truth, and I expected her to value that more than
Happiness or Self-Respect. And the Truth was that she had to be with me. There
was no way around it. I loved her, as Andy loved Erin.
Happiness was what
killed her. Alanna was suicidal when I met her. And she was when she died.
Cocaine addiction coupled with narcissistic abuse syndrome, brought on by
neglect and loneliness, had robbed her of any will or purpose to live.
I have to ask this:
Since when did
HAPPINESS become a Value?
Was this why I was
hospitalized against my Will?
Because I was not
HAPPY enough? And I had to be Happy for my own Good?
What does HAPPINESS
have to do with BEING RIGHT?!
Pardon my emotion.
She all ways taught me to be expressive and direct in sentiment, even if she
could not handle it. It was not her fault.
Brandan Whearty once
told us that Happiness is mutually exclusive. But I only thought that
Righteousness and Meaning would be enough. What more could one desire??
Again: Pardon my
sentiment. It’s just that next to Season Two, Episode Twelve of Breaking Bad,
this has to be the second-most-traumatizing television episode I’ve ever seen.
It triggers me. And had I not lived it, it would have terrified me. It is like
the song “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac. It gains dimension as it attains
personal, anecdotal relevance. It transcends Reason. And it enflames Passion.
It has to be written. And it can barely tolerate its own fulfillment.
Erin storms back
into the Office. She tells Andy that she’s breaking up with him. She complains
that he was gone for all of three months, as though that were any substantial
portion of time, and that she was afraid he’d died. There seem at this point to
be only two people who don’t get what the big deal is: Andy and me. Three
months is less than a blink in the eye of Shiva. And besides: I’m
binge-watching. They were in love for THREE YEARS. Small help is it to him that
she was so afraid he’d died that she would punish him for it. She storms out.
And it turns out that David Wallace, who was on speakerphone when she ran back
in, still dressed in her sultry brown skirt and blouse, a typically mean
break-up outfit, heard the entire tirade.
Erin had of course
not planned it to go this way. She was not expecting Andy back a day early. But
then: it WAS Valentine’s Day. And he had brought her many exotic gifts. And she
would not even hug him. At some point I suppose in human history it became
permissible to make decisions in your partner’s absence and to hold the very
conditions for your betrayal against him. At some point, Erin fell from Grace.
Had I not provided
for Alanna and Kresten, I would not have had to watch her die over the course
of two and a half years. Had Andy not provided for the entire Office, they
would not have had a rope with which to hang him. In effect they hung
themselves and blamed the easy target. And as is the case for the Hanged Man,
he pretends that the rope he tied for himself is a terrible burden and not a
position of power. Andy did not hang himself. He simply supplied the rope with
which they hung him. And they treated it as a burden.
Apotheosis: Anger
and Innocence.
Now: don’t get me
wrong. I am not blaming Erin. Nor am I blaming Andy. I’m not even blaming
DWIGHT. I never blamed Alanna. Kresten was a sociopath, so no one really NEEDS
to blame him, if you catch my drift.
Most of the problems
both inside and outside of the Office can be ascribed to what Alasdair
MacIntyre called Emotivism: the tendency for people in a society to make
decisions not based on virtue but on feeling. The effect of this is that
society itself is reduced to a projection. We do not HAVE a society. We have
instead what an other Capricorn named Alan Watts called a Mob.
Yet feelings are
facts, even if they do not of themselves dictate ethics. Emotions are powerful,
and they are ends in and of themselves. The goal is not to eliminate or to deny
them. But they must be expressed in the context of a moral framework which is
Universal rather than Relative. And we must be careful not to abuse the
LANGUAGE of Morality, as Oscar does, in its actual absence. This might all so
require us to regress and to withdraw into Nature, where the conscious thought
of virtue disappears and only the felt presence of morality endures. Andrew
Bernard grows up. He sheds his pretense, and he becomes a Man of Tao. His fellows remain entrenched in merely the
symbolic expression of desires. Even at his most poetic and quixotic one cannot
help but to FEEL that He Means It. It’s not easy to speak the Truth. It IS easy
to flatter.
What will redeem him
is what first condemned him: his Anger. If the story is a tale of samsara then Andy
Bernard will be redeemed by its cyclical narrative as surely as the water cycle
purifies our water. Sure: he may remain acidic. But we might yet play in the
rain. When it starts raining dogs again.
Andy’s anger is his
repressed Virtue. When he first punches a hole in the Office wall, it is
because he stands up for himself against Jim and Pam, as well as the entire
crowd of naysayers whom he has fair reason to suspect. When he punches the same
wall towards the end of Season Eight, he stands up to the corrupt leadership
that he does his best not to become whilst still attempting to emulate its
example. It is only in the wake of that rage that he manages to surmount his
infertility and to satisfy his girlfriend Erin. If that is not sufficient to
illustrate the Virtue of Masculinity, what is?
Erin’s virtue is her
Innocence. It works against her when she lives in blissful ignorance of Human
Nature in the status quo. It threatens her most intimate relationships when she
receives too much information and stops short of hearing the entire story. Erin
lives then in an existential haze. She is a moral middle man. She is at that
point too disillusioned to return to her previous incarnation. Yet she is too
wary and weary to follow the discomforting facts down to their final
destination: the redemption of those whom we ought to love but whom we love to
hate.
Dm.A.A.
