Nietzsche in The Office: the aesthetic justification of capitalist realism

Abstract

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