Mad Men: What actually happened?

Updated 2015/05/17: Some light editing for clarity.

The question above is one of my favourite critical techniques when approaching a story. You can spend so much time wrapped up in the subtext that you fail to notice the text. It's important to forget about interpreting events sometimes and just figure out what actually happened.

Ted goes to see his now ex partner in the hospital (soon to be simply "ex period") and talks about how he can't make Don out. His partner quotes Sun Tzu at him:

 If I wait patiently by the river, the body of my enemy will float by.

and then:

Give him the early rounds, he'll tire himself out. Go home, shower, walk back in there like you own half the place.

But that isn't what actually happens. Instead, Don gives Ted the next round by telling him that no one at Mohawk will listen to anyone but Ted now that he has flown his own plane up. Is he really as upset as he looks or is he acting? Ted has no way of knowing and neither do we. Which is the same point I made yesterday about what happens with Sylvia. (I was flattered to see that show up, uncredited of course, in the comments at other sites.)

The most important thing Ted says this episode is:

You don't want to take in the wonder of God's majesty?

Remember in episode one when Peggy is facing a crisis and Ted isn't returning any of her calls? It's because he is on a religious retreat. Ted is a religious man! That's unusual on Mad Men.

The other thing that is really jumping out at me this season (besides how awful it is) is how much this year is a mirror image of the first few seasons. The second last episode of season one was the defeat of Nixon. This year we're building up to his victory. The second-last episode of Season two ended with Don walking into the western ocean seeking redemption. This season began with him in Hawaii dreaming of redemption. The second-last episode of Season three featured the JFK assassination followed by a massive reorganization at the office spurred by an inspiration of Don's. This season featured two political assassinations and massive reorganization at the office spurred by an inspiration of Don's building up to the mid point. Finally, we get the odd replay of the conflict over Peggy between Don and another man that we saw in Season four, only Ted stands in for Duck this time.

It's almost as if we are building everything back to the starting point again. Only it's not the starting point anymore. There is a loss of innocence.

Not much commentary on the commentary this week. The writers at Slate were reliably shallow though. They were gleeful in their speculations that Ted would replace Don, that Don is yesterday's man. But do tell me, why do you think people watch this show with such earnest devotion today. It would seem that Don was actually tomorrow's man, or even the eternal man. On the other hand,

... and again my thoughts drifted to Don, a man falling swiftly out of step with the times. As you note, Hanna, Don still gets drunk at the office, still shaves off the sideburns every other man grows out, and still hearkens back to the earnest simplicity of the Depression when Ted speaks the language of dippy, high-concept sitcoms. 

Ted also says "groovy" and talks abut "rap sessions". Does Seth Stevenson  think that represents the future? The thing we're supposed to have looking at a show set in recent history is the advantage of hindsight. Too many of the people commenting on this show seem to have forgotten that history didn't work out the way earnest liberals thought it would. The summer of love is over and it's the winter of discontent. There is still Woodstock to look forward to in 1969 but there is also Altamount. And looking back from 2013, what seems like the more important cultural event: the depression or Gilligan's Island? Take your time.

The more important issue is that women hate sensitive guys with trendy facial hair. It was interesting that when Peggy asked Joan how her little boy was, Joan asked back, "How's yours?" With the possible exception of Ken Cosgrove, the new generation doesn't seem very promising and that is right because they weren't. The 1970s sensitive guy was a cultural and moral disaster.


PS: Burt Peterson was let go the first time in "Out of Town" the opening episode of Season three. Roger actually misses the meeting, walking in after the news has been broken. Burt handles it very badly. There is actually a valuable life lesson here: no matter how gracious or ungracious the people who let you go are, listen to what they have to say, say little in return and make sure that whatever you say or do is gracious. Firing him the second time has to have been the easiest thing Roger has ever had to do.

PPS: I note that while Peggy praised Dawn for being a good secretary who didn't divulge any of Don's secrets we didn't actually see Dawn. There were several scenes where Dawn plainly wasn't there and others had to do her job for her. What's up? (Perhaps they were too cheap to pay Teyonah Parris's salary?)

Mad Men: Man with a plan

First thought

I kept thinking of the stupidest rock lyric in the history:

I shouted out, "Who Killed the Kennedys?"
When after all it was you and me.

Actually, JFK was killed by a communist and Bobby Kennedy's death was an act of terrorism commited by, who else, a pro-Palestinian sympathizer named Sirhan Sirhan.

But the liberal mythology is that the Kennedys somehow died for America's sins. I mention this so you can see how the show plays into that. You have people living their sinful lives and then, suddenly, Kennedy is dead. You didn't hear a word about Israel and the 1967 war, or the growing terrorism problem. You just see these people in America behaving in dark, dark ways and suddenly the guy's dead and you connect the two things even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

Second thought

What was Don's plan vis a vis Sylvia? Do you think it was to set her up in that hotel as his sex slave?

The show starts with him overhearing a big fight between Sylvia and Arnie. Dr. Arnie is going to Minnesota, presumably to make a pitch to the Mayo Clinic (which, if successful, will make him a colleague of my uncle who was a senior guy there at the time). Sylvia doesn't want Arnie to go. Why not? She doesn't have a job. Maybe she just loves New York. Not in 1968 she doesn't. On the other hand, she calls Don and tells him she needs him.

You can hate me for this if you want but I know what I'd feel in his place. Dread is what I'd feel. Here he has this perfectly good deal with a wife and a lover who is safely married to someone else and now she is going to be single and wanting who knows what. His first emotion is a need for containment. He he doesn't want her hoping for more from him. He can't dump her because who knows what she will do. She might run to Megan with the whole story. So he puts her in the role of sex slave.

As I say, you can hate me for this if you want, but he has nothing to lose. She'll either say "no" right away, in which case the problem is diffused. Or she'll say "yes" first, in which case he has a sex slave for a while. Special bonus: no matter whether she says "no" immediately or if she takes a while to come to her senses, it will feel like her decision to end the thing and that will sharply reduce the risk of bitter recriminations later.

It's pretty manipulative to be sure but it isn't stupid.

Third thought

The jousting between Don and Ted is different. Each is capable of standing up for himself. Ultimately, someone has to lose and someone else has to win.

From Don's perspective, the big problem is that Peggy is on Ted's side. (and we see this mirrored by Bob Benson who cleverly uses Joan to protect his job.) In that regard, I thought the most significant shot in the show was Don lying on his back in bed with all that chest hair visible. He's an old-fashioned man. Ted and Bob look like the sort of guys who sing effeminate tenor instead of manly baritone and who would consider having their hair waxed off. It's an increasingly feminized world and guys like Don are less at home in it.

In any case, notice how it is Don who tells Ted that he has won these second skirmish when he tells him that he has pulled a coup by being the guy who flew up to see Mohawk in his own plane. Again, he looks weak from the outside but it feels like he has managed to get exactly what he wants.

Final thought

I don't see much future for the Draper marriage. In this show assassinations serve to separate grown ups from children and Megan is definitely one of the children. Again, I know how I'd feel if I'd heard all those brave plans the night before only to walk in and see Megan weeping in front of the TV like that. I wouldn't be seeing a woman who can share my life but a child who needs taking care of.

Okay, I hear you say, can't she be upset at the shock of it? Sure, but the problem is that she already cast herself in the role of spoiled princess last season. Her reaction to Bobby Kennedy's death reinforces that.

I can see Don serving her the divorce papers on the set of her show the way Sinatra did to Mia Farrow.

Other than that, I didn't like the episode much. Doing these commentaries used to be a pleasure but it has felt more and more like a task I dread as this season has gone on. I don't know how much longer I'll keep it up.

A little light culture: What is normal?

Here is a sentence to ponder:

In women, narcissism manifests itself as a greater libido, and in men, a lesser one.

That sentence makes a claim about what abnormal looks like but, far more importantly, it also tells you how you should behave if you want others to regard you as "normal". It's one of those dogmatic assertions that feels like it must be true. Stated starkly like that, it feels counter-intuitive. The Last Psychiatrist, who made the claim, reinforces that sense by immediately going on to say, "You might think this is backwards, but it isn't." Well, now it feels brave to embrace the claim so you do.

But take a step back notice how utterly conventional and repressive the sexual morality behind the statement is.  It tells women who want a lot of sex that they are narcissists.  TLP has taken an old, old stereotype and dressed it up to make it feel like it's a challenging claim but it actually plays to your deepest prejudices on the matter.

Like most stereotypes, it is rooted in some truth. Does anyone think that the woman obsessed with duty and service has a great sex life? And look how it plays out in advertising. If you want to make a woman look like she is the sort who gets a lot of sex, you paint her as bathing in luxury with a look of pure self-indulgence on her face. And that's not crazy. That's what women on the way to orgasm look like and, much more importantly, if she doesn't get that look on her face, she isn't going to come.

But forget about women for a moment and think about men thinking about women. There is a long history of portraying men who pursue women with a strong interest in sex as selfish men who neglect their duties and responsibilities to the community. Think of Paris and Helen of Troy. That narrative isn't meant to discourage women from being beautiful and sexually desirable like Helen of Troy. Quite the opposite. The point of the narrative is keep your hands off the other man's wife. Think about Dido, the queen of Carthage. What is the behaviour that story was meant to reinforce? That a man's duty and destiny were more important than the attractions of young widows. For better or for worse, our society doesn't really worry about sex-starved women but instead worries about about men pursuing them. (Notice, by the way, how bizarre it is that men are encouraged to seek adventure in foreign lands but not women next door. Well, bizarre until you think how damaging the second option is to the local social order. That tells you that it isn't really a moral issue but a political one.)

Let's look at the flipside for a second. Why does TLP insist the narcissistic man has a low libido?

Well, the problem with his libido isn't how hot she is.   He's a narcissist: the problem is [sic, I think he means "with"] his libido is that it depends on how hot he is.

It's what women used to go through.  He looks in the mirror, sees a gut-- he doesn't feel sexy, he can't imagine she would find him sexy, so the libido falls.

The internal logic in that narrative is airtight. But step outside it for a second and you can see the problem. For that is a credible narrative for the paunchy narcissist but what about the narcissist who is slim, muscular, good looking and well-hung? He is hot so ... so no problem. Right?

And flip it around and imagine the guy who isn't limited by his own lack of hotness. He's short, fat and bald but it doesn't bother him because all that matters to him is his enjoyment of his partner. This guy also sounds untroubled. What he doesn't sound like is the opposite of narcissism.

And what's the point of telling men that narcissists have low libido? It's to shame them into not being narcissists because no man wants to admit he has a low libido.  Yeah, that will work.

Gentleman, put your hands together for the sex-starved wife

TLP's claim came up at the start of a discussion about the a book called The Sex Starved Wife. Someone wrote a book about it, Time did a cover story on it and TLP commented on it. The fascinating thing is that neither Time nor TLP questioned the book. They simply took it for granted that the phenomena was real.

And that is the first question to ask: is there a real issue hiding behind this? I'm sure there are sex-starved wives but that isn't the issue. The book is only interesting if this is a new phenomena. Then you can blame men, or porn, or feminism or our work-obsessed culture. If it has always been the case that some women have wanted more sex than their husbands were able or willing to give them, you can't do that. It isn't enough that this book be a useful guide to the small but steady percentage of women who, in every generation since the flood, have had stronger sex drives than the man they married. No, we need a new (and worrisome!) social trend.

That's why TLP needs to insist that narcissistic men have a lower libido. It's a rare slip on his part, he is usually very perceptive about these things.

Let's go back a few steps and we can see how this works out.

1. There is no evidence that there is a growing number of sex-starved wives out there. The book is the excuse for thinking this without evidence.
2. There is lots of evidence that there are sex-starved marriages, particularly couples where the woman works full time. 
3. But it has to be the man's fault. That is a consistent theme with TLP. When sex goes bad, it's because the man is a narcissist. (Someone in the comments to a post a while ago argued that this is proof that TLP is a woman. I'd argue the opposite. TLP is driven by the sorts of sexual stereotypes typical of men not women.)

Here's another narrative for your consideration. Sex reduced sharply in Joe and Teresa's marriage. She even buys herself a copy of The Sex-starved Wife. She keeps the book hidden in her car because she doesn't want Joe to see it and be hurt. Joe, meanwhile, has a substantial collection of porn, most of which is based around lonely, horny wives whose husbands don't or can't satisfy them. He masturbates five times a day to this stuff. He's even heard of The Sex-starved Wife because it comes up a lot in Internet discussion groups where he and like-minded guys share fantasies about lonely, horny wives whose husbands don't or can't satisfy them.

I just made that up but can you see the problem? Joe and Teresa don't have marital problems because they have a lousy sex life. It would be closer to the truth to say they have a lousy sex life because they have lost any real marital connection but that isn't quite right either. Why isn't it quite right? Because sex is the most important way husbands and wives have to connect.

And here I quote my favourite bit of advice from the Iron Duke, "It seems to me that you've gotten yourself into a dashed difficult situation and now you must work dashed hard to get out of it." Joe needs to spend a whole lot more time and effort pursuing Teresa and Teresa needs to put a whole lot more time and effort into sexually enticing Joe*.

Okay, but what's the point? Well, the point is that normal has disappeared as a consideration. Did you notice that? TLP starts with the unspoken assumption that something abnormal is happening and that is what needs to be explained. But the more we think about the problem in terms of individual couples, the more "normal" disappears. It gets replaced with what they want and what they have to do to get it.

And that should have occurred to TLP because to invoke notions of "normal" is to  invoke shame. If you want to manipulate a narcissist, you use shame to get what you want because narcissists don't feel guilt, they only feel shame. If you think we live in a narcissistic culture (and we do) suggesting that something out of normal is happening with the sex lives of married couples is a great way to get Time to do a cover story on your shoddy self-help book. It isn't, however, a very good way to shake people out of narcissistic behaviour patterns. It will have the exact opposite effect.




* Notice, before you condemn me for sexism, that we don't exactly live in a society where women are under less pressure to be sexually enticing than has been the case in the past. If anything, the exact opposite is the case. What has changed is that it is no longer acceptable to suggest that a woman make this effort for a particular man. That is held to be oppressive. If a woman wants to be beautiful and sexually enticing, she is encouraged to do so "for herself"; she is encouraged to do so in order to feel more confident and better about herself. In fact, she actually does so because she is under tremendous competitive forces and peer pressure from other women. (All of which is narcissistic.)

Teaching women to be stupid

Why is it that "experts" who advise women assume that women are stupid, shallow and in denial?

Consider, for example, "The Real Reason Older Men Like to Date Younger Women". This isn't a challenging question; the answer is, because they are younger women. The thing that actually needs explaining is why is it that so many younger women like to date older men. But thinking about that is kind of threatening for other women.

The author of the piece, who signs herself, "Kim Oliver", probably knows this. She isn't stupid. But modern women expect to be flattered and sheltered from reality so, whatever the answer is, it has to be mens' fault! She gives us two options: 1) the conventional wisdom and then 2) the "real answer". The important thing is not what makes the two answers different but the astounding similarity that both answers assume men men are jerks.

Answer 1

Admit it, when you see an older man who's dating a much younger woman, you assume it's because he must be going through some sort of mid-life crisis. His more youthful female companion may be more sexually attractive to him (making him feel younger in the process) and she probably doesn't call him out on his issues like an older woman might. After all, young women are fun, free-spirited, energetic and have a zest for life. This youthful energy is attractive to an older man who may be feeling his mortality.

Strip away the gesturing, and that's just a long version of my answer from above. Men date younger women because they are younger women. The extra length is necessary to explain everything in terms of things supposedly lacking in the man so single women don't have to seriously ask themselves what they have to offer a man and why a man might choose a younger woman over them if given the choice. So, he has "a mid-life crisis", he needs to feel younger, he hates being called out on his "issues"and he is scared of dying.

And notice the fudging, "His more youthful female companion may be more sexually attractive to him." Yeah, she just might be. What is this crap? Of course she is more attractive sexually to him. Walk around and look at younger and older women. Which do you think are more sexually attractive? This isn't hard to figure out. (BTW: how hard is it to figure out that you should stop calling "him on his issues" or, to put it in plain language, that you should stop being a whining bitch?)

Answer 2

The second answer is actually brilliant, the problem is that it doesn't answer the question Oliver claims to be answering. The following is actually a brilliant explanation of why younger women are attracted to older men:

This [the need for connection] is a need that is different for men and women at different stages in their lives. Young adult women typically have more of a need for connection. While they will create careers, they also want to eventually create a family. On the other hand, young adult men are more focused on the need for significance. They have relationships and start families, but their primary focus is figuring out a way to make it in the world. In young adult relationships, these needs are often in conflict, as the woman wants more intimacy and the man is focused on building his career. Older men and younger women share that same need for connection.

Now, if we keep in mind the obvious fact that the appeal of younger women needs no explanation, we can see how things work out the way they do. The younger woman would, ideally, prefer a young man but younger men don't necessarily want to satisfy her need for connection. A lot of young men are only looking for sexual thrills only and the relatively few good ones who are looking for more than just that get snapped up pretty quickly. As a young woman, she has no trouble getting sex; her challenge is getting it on the terms she wants. And here is an older man who wants her and wants connection. And the only serious competition for his attention is a bunch of bitter women a decade older than her!

And it's not like couples in which the man is older are a rarity. The overwhelming number of successful couples tend to be those where the man is at least three years older than the woman. The thing that needs explaining is why so few couples go the other way. Again, the answer to this question is not going to be congenial reading for women who've grown up believing they can have it all.

Flattering and sheltering her female audience to the end, Oliver has to paint the older man dating a younger woman as a failure.

At some point, an older man will realize he's squandered his youth on the pursuit of power and may have neglected his family in the process. 

 Gee, what a loser. He's squandered his youth. It's almost enough to make you forget the hot young woman looking at him adoringly. If he's squandered his youth, how come he's in a relationship and you're single and bitterly asking yourself what older men can possibly see in younger women?

And if the woman reading this expert advice is so much better than him, why is she spending her middle age competing with younger, hotter women for the few good men still available? That sounds more like the wages of squandering your youth to me.

Required reading for anyone who doubts that we live in a narcissitic age

"Being Amanda Berry" is the current headline on the piece Emily Bazelon has written in response to the astounding events in Cleveland. The article itself is even more irritating than the headline.

I think it's the third headline to appear on the piece since yesterday. Headlines can be incendiary items and often make a reasonable article look bad. In this case, we see the opposite phenomenon. The headlines keep getting changed in an attempt to make the monstrous self involvement of the piece underneath seem reasonable.

After three paragraphs rehearsing the facts of this and similar cases, Bazelon gets down to the real issue: Emily Bazelon and how the story makes her feel. From there she goes into how the movie The Silence of the Lambs made her feel. (I'm not making this up.)

I could easily imagine myself as that naive, trusting girl. The movie terrified me so much that I turned down a summer job I’d wanted as a caretaker on a stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Suddenly I couldn’t handle the idea of being alone and exposed.

Does Bazelon think she is the only one who sometimes fantasizes about bad things happening to her? Or is the problem rather that she thinks she should be served up with narratives that make her life meaningful?  I ask that because the very next line in her piece is this:

This is the opposite of empowering

That's true, it isn't empowering. Was it supposed to be? Are women owed empowerment? There are other stories that are empowering for women. Isn't it inevitable, given the existence of evil in the world, that there will be stories that are the opposite of empowerment? Think how ridiculous a man would sound if he claimed that some type of news story wasn't empowering for him.

Most of all, note the corrupting power of journalism. Notice how very often journalists convince themselves that the story is really about them. It's rarely as extreme as this case but it happens all the time.

Mad Men metacommentary: Oh Hanna

Hanna Rosin never disappoints:

This episode, being all about cars, was structured loosely like a road movie, in which the characters get to shift the frame by changing locations. “Throw the map out the window, hit the road Jack,” Ted tells Don in a classic road movie scenario: In a strange bar in a strange town, the two buddies figure out the so-crazy-it-just-might-work solution to their problems. But road movies are traditionally for dudes. The women have to stay behind, tend the hearth, and take their mothers out to lunch because as they keep reminding the men it’s Mother’s Day. (That’s why in Thelma & Louise the two girlfriends get punished for breaking the rules with DEATH.)

Those poor women, they get shafted every time.  This isn't just a miserably bad interpretation of last night's show, it also gets Thelma & Louise wrong. Watch that ending again. Whatever it is, that isn't punishment.

Hanna isn't alone in seeing nothing but women getting the rough end,  again, sigh, in this episode. Margaret Lyons saw things similarly. I wonder if it's difficult maintaining that level of cynical bitterness all the time. Well, no, of course it isn't. The thing about being an unhappy bitch all the time is that it's painfully easy to do so.

There is not much more to say on that point except perhaps to contrast what Margaret and  Hanna saw with what some others saw:

Watching “For Immediate Release” is like riding a rickety old wooden roller coaster that thrills you with its seemingly unsafe twists and turns and leaves you feeling sore for a couple of days. That’s a compliment, by the way.

And

Ah, there’s the Mad Men we’ve been missing.

And

When Mad Men is slow, it's really slow. Then when it gets moving but good, it's like Ocean's Eleven, with the jazzy score and the jaunty angles and the wisecracking.

And

And

I liked the overall energy, the jazzy vibe of the episode. I think we all enjoy Mad Men more when Don is on his game and crushing life.  

Turn up the testosterone, and everyone loves the show and everyone loves Don. Except they don't like to admit it because that would be to admit that the pre-boomer men were more manly and more interesting and generally more admirable than boomer and post-boomer men have been. It's not the fact of the matter that troubles them—everyone knows that men have changed for the worst—they just don't like admitting it.

Even poor Hanna gets wet when Don takes charge, as he did just a few weeks ago:

My favorite scene was the one between Don and Sylvia at the restaurant, because it reminded us that Don’s power comes from his ability to see through other people’s codes. Left alone with her lover at a restaurant, without sex to distract her, Sylvia’s Catholic guilt starts to press in. But Don calls her on it right away. “You want to feel shitty right until the point when I take your dress off. Because I am going to do that. If you want to skip dinner, fine, but don’t pretend.” Now that’s a line that can raise the temperature.

This is what Hanna wants: a world in which men are praised for being masterful about sex (but only when they correctly read a woman's mind) and hated for their efforts to be masterful anywhere else (particularly when they succeed and women fail).

The history that isn't

I commented in the last post about the alternative history so beloved of progressives. Here's a related thought to leave you with: Did you ever notice how little impact the big events of boomer mythology have on characters of the show? Martin Luther King was assassinated last episode and nobody even mentioned it this time. The JFK assassination was a big couple of episodes but can you point at one single thing about the show that suggests that it had any long-term impact on the characters or the culture they live in? Neither can I.

Now, we might say, "That's because it's a show and it simply forgets to connect all the dots." Perhaps, but notice how easily we all accept it when the show does these things. That history is something you study in books, especially when you take courses on late 20th century history or pop culture at university but it doesn't match up very well with what you experience when you look outside the textbooks. The big events but life goes on.

That should trouble us a whole lot. It suggests that the show has blundered into a truth worth taking a deep look at.

Mad Men: A longer, slower release

High finance and low sex

For starters, partners don't call in underwriters without consulting the other partners. It just doesn't happen. For seconds, the underwriter's accountants don't do the math in front of you (there is a team of them, not one guy, and they take all your papers, and there are huge piles of them, into a room you provide and spend days going over them). Finally they never but never complement the person who keeps the books as a "chef" as analogies between accounting and cooking are very much verboten.

I know, I know, if I want realistic accounts of how business works, I came to the wrong place if I have come to television or movies.

But did you notice that Trudy, who has been the opposite of sexy so far this year, is suddenly making efforts to look very good now that she is denying Pete sex? That was very believable.

And just in case we think that was an accident, Marie later tells Megan that the problem is that she is dressing like to much a wife and not enough like a woman who wants to be wanted. Pete, meanwhile, responds to Trudy by foolishly telling her that he is about to become big. Why didn't dictate this directly to her lawyer and cut out the middleman?

And we have Roger using sex to get leads on clients and getting a big one that way.

Finally, we have Peggy who is losing interest in Abe because he isn't much good at actually making things happen and is attracted to Ted who can. They have a lovely mismatch when she fails to realize that he needs to be told he is strong and he, grateful that she inadvertently does tell him this, kisses her.

And it all ends with Peggy realizing, with a jolt, that Don is a better seducer than she is and that he got to Ted before she had a chance. It ends with Peggy off typing the press release, under instructions to make the new entity sound like the sort of company she'd like to work for. Always a bridesmaid ...

I can't wait to read Hanna Rosin on this episode. I will disappointed if the feminist clichés don't flow freely.

Romance

Perhaps because it is an unrealistic show, it is telling when it reaches points that even it cannot fudge.  (Historical drama of the Hollywood type always gets the costumes right and the behaviours of the people who wear them wrong.) And one of the big things that even an unrealistic show like this has to get right is the romantic account of the 1960s favoured by progressives. This is a view that history is on the side of progressivism and if things went other than what they had hoped, then it was because history made a wrong turn. Thus Abe sets out the view that either Clean Gene or Bobby Kennedy will become president and the war will end.

It's all dramatic irony because we know that none of these things will happen. Even when the war ended it didn't end and we are still living with the consequences of it now. But in the progressive view these things should have happened because this is the way history was supposed to have gone. This romantic view then is not a dead dream to mourn but the actual path that they will always try to drag history back to. This alternative root remains, for progressives, more real than what actually did happen. That Nixon actually got elected is, to them, an accident that deflected history from the place it was really supposed to go.

I could go on at some length about this but the short version is that I don't think it's an accident that Abe is looking more and more like Meathead from All in the Family with every passing episode of Mad Men.

(It's a very nice touch that Peggy imagines Ted reading Something by Ralph Waldo Emerson when she fantasizes about him. It's a realistic touch because she wouldn't have actually read anything by Emerson and neither would Abe have. Prep school boys read Emerson: Roger, Bert and Pete would all be able to converse on the subject quite intelligently. As would, of course, Ted. But not Peggy.)