Leo D.M.J. Aurini - November 09, 2012


Generational Themes in Breaking Bad

Hosted by
Leo D.M.J. Aurini
Mentioned
Walt Jesse Breaking Bad Will Riker Gen Z Capitalism Skyler Hitler
Spider Jerusalem's Thoughts on Voting Knowledge, Truth, and Keeping a Clean Soul

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

117.91

Word count

2,180

Sentence count

238

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

33

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Breaking Bad is a TV show that takes place in the late 80's and early 90's in a broken society. It's a time when Baby Boomers were the dominant generation and Millennials were the new kids. In this episode, I discuss the main character of the show, Walt, and how he's a Baby Boomer turned narcissist.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This is a video I've been meaning to get to for a while now and somebody just
00:00:04.440 reminded me of that so thank you. It's a review of Breaking Bad and what it
00:00:15.800 means for us men alive today in this world. The ones that have have woken up
00:00:23.440 or are waking up whose eyes aren't screwed shut to what's going on. But
00:00:29.440 before I get to the show itself, I want to talk about the book The Fourth Turning.
00:00:37.640 Now I'm currently still reading The Fourth Turning. I will probably review it when I'm
00:00:42.360 done but I can confidently tell you that this book is absolutely amazing. It's ahead
00:00:48.820 of the curve. It's ahead of history. This is a book that in the 90s predicted the
00:00:55.060 economic collapse almost to the year, not even based upon economics. It is a book of
00:01:07.980 generational dynamics. It argues that there's four cycles of generations that occur. One
00:01:17.060 one that creates a civilization, one that excels a civilization, one that tears it down, and
00:01:24.300 one that wanders through the broken ruins of the old civilization.
00:01:29.980 And they, on the surface, this seems like such a pseudo theory. It's one of those things that you
00:01:41.300 could easily plug anything, any set of data into to prove it. And yet they predicted the 2007 collapse.
00:01:51.480 And it makes a lot of sense on top of that. It's a great heuristic to use. So far, its predictions have
00:02:04.620 been pretty bang on. And it helps explain so much of the frustration we see in the world. So if we're gonna try and
00:02:18.480 jump ahead of history, this is a great tool to be using. If we're gonna try and plan for the future, the future that's
00:02:26.880 actually going to happen, not the future that the guy selling you RRSPs says is going to happen.
00:02:32.760 And that's the dynamic I'm going to be using to review this book, or sorry, this book, this TV series, which is a phenomenal,
00:02:44.700 phenomenal series. Because the characters in it are Baby Boomers and Millennials. No Gen X present whatsoever. 0.90
00:03:01.160 And it's absolutely fascinating how broken and narcissistic these Baby Boomers are. 0.97
00:03:08.860 Let's start with Skylar, Walt's wife.
00:03:18.140 Here's a woman, married to a good man, that loves her. And she's just not happy. She's living in paradise. They
00:03:27.820 have a beautiful home. They have great automobiles. They have an easy life. You know, their son is disabled.
00:03:38.780 But he's coping extremely well with it. They have an enviable life for most people throughout history.
00:03:46.860 And yet she's just not happy with it.
00:03:51.340 And so what does she do? Does she try and create a constructive solution? 1.00
00:03:56.060 No. She shits all over tradition. And cheats on her husband. Disrespects him. Treats him like garbage. 1.00
00:04:03.660 Then the series starts to move forward. 0.99
00:04:10.860 And Walt becomes the badass. He goes through that transformation. There's even words on TV tropes for it.
00:04:18.620 The bald head of evil, or the important haircut.
00:04:22.620 Because he loses his hair due to cancer.
00:04:26.980 But then keeps it that way.
00:04:30.340 Signifying his character growth.
00:04:32.540 And second of all, growing the beard.
00:04:35.540 Which is a reference to Star Trek The Next Generation.
00:04:39.240 Stopped sucking at the same time that Will Riker grew a beard.
00:04:42.800 So Walt goes from this meek, timid man to this badass alpha. 0.98
00:04:51.660 Signified by the baldness and the excellent, excellent goatee.
00:04:58.380 And Skyler, now instead of supporting him, turns against him because of the drug trade that she's benefiting from.
00:05:06.080 Meanwhile, she's helping the guy she was cheating on him with cook the books.
00:05:15.540 She does not seek constructive solutions. 0.98
00:05:19.040 She seeks selfish, bitchy solutions. 1.00
00:05:23.400 Excuses to tear Walt down. 0.98
00:05:26.280 Not to try and help build him into a better man.
00:05:29.440 But then you've got Walt himself.
00:05:34.500 And he is the classic, the classic baby boomer.
00:05:40.540 So as a young man, he was a great inventor.
00:05:44.060 And supposedly his friends stole his patent and they made a billion dollars for this company while he got kicked out.
00:05:50.560 But more to the point, this is the narrative of the baby boomer thinking they have all the ideas back in the 60s. 1.00
00:06:00.620 They're stupid counterculture lovins. 1.00
00:06:04.620 They're tear down the society movement. 1.00
00:06:06.860 They had all the solutions.
00:06:08.200 Life was just golden.
00:06:10.320 Their parents had handed them wealth and civilization and happiness on a golden platter.
00:06:15.420 And the baby boomers completely screwed the whole thing up. 1.00
00:06:23.120 So you have Walt becoming a high school teacher.
00:06:27.460 Here's this man, an absolute genius, and he's stuck as a high school teacher.
00:06:33.500 Now how is that possible?
00:06:37.360 When you have this much education in chemistry, this much raw natural talent,
00:06:42.440 and yet you're stuck as a high school teacher.
00:06:46.200 And he blames the world.
00:06:47.960 He blames the Jews. 0.98
00:06:50.660 He blames his friends that stole his business. 0.97
00:06:54.000 He blames others for his own failings. 0.99
00:06:59.040 And the series begins when he finally gets the kick in the ass he needs to go do something 0.99
00:07:05.960 about improving himself and improving the world. 0.97
00:07:11.800 But does he try and create a positive contribution?
00:07:15.420 Absolutely not.
00:07:16.960 He decides to start selling meth.
00:07:21.660 And I'm sure you guys all know my stance on legalization of drugs.
00:07:26.060 But as things currently stand, meth is not sold or used responsibly.
00:07:33.380 It's sold to create addictions.
00:07:36.840 It's sold regardless of the human cost.
00:07:40.620 It's sold to make a blind, immoral profit, even if drugs be-a-be drugs are morally neutral.
00:07:49.520 So he starts selling meth.
00:07:53.900 And he becomes the badass and the family man.
00:07:57.020 But ultimately it's about his own ego.
00:07:59.620 It's not about...
00:08:01.980 It's not that he's working out, for instance, to be really strong.
00:08:08.820 He's working out to have really big muscles and impress everybody else.
00:08:13.760 To be the king.
00:08:15.760 To be in charge.
00:08:17.460 The owner of everything.
00:08:19.620 And he doesn't care how many people have to get crushed on his way there.
00:08:25.300 Him and Skylar have the most disgustingly dysfunctional relationship I've ever seen.
00:08:34.800 And it is a credit to the writers of the show that they do such a good job describing this.
00:08:42.740 Here are these two people that have shared a life together.
00:08:46.600 They have a wonderful home.
00:08:48.040 They have very opulent wealth compared to most people in most times.
00:08:53.140 But their own need to satiate their ego caused them to destroy everything beautiful that they have. 1.00
00:09:02.920 Skylar is a complete bitch. 1.00
00:09:05.720 And Walt? 1.00
00:09:07.020 Well, Walt doesn't care about his family so much as he cares about having a family, if you see the difference.
00:09:15.500 And then you get Jesse involved in this whole mix.
00:09:22.820 So here's Jesse.
00:09:24.680 A millennial.
00:09:26.180 With a couple of boomer parents that never really cared about him.
00:09:30.740 Never really reached out to him.
00:09:34.040 Probably just had him as an ornament.
00:09:35.840 As Captain Capitalism has pointed out, a lot of these breeders have kids for the sake of saying they have kids.
00:09:43.660 Rather than actually wanting to raise a person.
00:09:48.420 Jesse is cast directionless into life.
00:09:52.280 Despite the fact that he is a man with a lot of potential.
00:09:56.380 He has no guidance.
00:09:59.260 He has no motivation to do anything with himself.
00:10:02.200 But he's got a fair bit of intelligence with him.
00:10:06.500 He managed to learn how to cook this meth up to the same standards as Walt.
00:10:12.560 But with nobody to influence him. 0.97
00:10:17.200 He turns into a degenerate. 1.00
00:10:20.700 He turns into a loser. 1.00
00:10:23.520 For him, it's cooking meth and drug dealing. 0.99
00:10:25.740 For a lot of millennials, it becomes getting hammered, playing video games 24-7, having no goals or life ambition.
00:10:36.740 Just treading water and mainlining heroin.
00:10:42.200 Then Walt comes along.
00:10:44.980 And while Walt teaches him a lot about the world, Walt does not have his best interests at heart.
00:10:51.200 Walt manipulates Jesse to serve himself, even when it's not in Jesse's best interest.
00:11:00.980 Walt is fundamentally selfish, but he's the only guiding influence that Jesse can find.
00:11:07.020 But despite all of this, Jesse manages to find some catharsis, some hope.
00:11:17.080 Even though Walt certainly doesn't give him any good advice about relationships.
00:11:21.960 Jesse manages to find a warm household with his girlfriend and her kid.
00:11:29.380 Something to give some meaning to his life beyond getting the top score in Halo.
00:11:34.280 So, Walt proceeds to completely destroy this.
00:11:41.460 And then you've got the other baby boomers. 0.98
00:11:44.740 You've got Fring, of course. 0.99
00:11:46.620 Another narcissistic, violent baby boomer that doesn't care about anybody but himself. 0.99
00:11:53.240 He is completely unable. 0.98
00:11:55.240 The inability of Fring and Walt to come to an agreement in the last couple seasons is because they're both narcissistic baby boomers. 1.00
00:12:05.700 The thing is, their interests align.
00:12:08.540 They make far better friends and partners than they do enemies.
00:12:12.640 But each of them has this knee-jerk desire to put the other one down.
00:12:21.660 You can see this when the video cameras are installed in the cookhouse.
00:12:26.160 How Walt takes this as a personal insult.
00:12:29.600 As anybody would.
00:12:30.420 And it's actually that camera system that really drives him to go kill Fring.
00:12:37.320 Then you've got the ex-cop.
00:12:47.680 Who's a bit older.
00:12:51.400 He's possibly even one of the GI generations.
00:12:54.940 Given his personality.
00:12:56.500 Or an early baby boomer.
00:12:58.680 Where his whole life went to hell.
00:13:01.820 He's divorced.
00:13:02.900 He's not happy.
00:13:03.660 He got kicked off the department for corruption.
00:13:07.340 But at least he acknowledges his sins.
00:13:10.720 He tries to give Jesse good advice.
00:13:12.560 But he can't speak Jesse's language.
00:13:15.300 He doesn't know how to give Jesse good advice. 0.99
00:13:19.940 And ultimately he's just as screwed up as Walt is. 0.94
00:13:23.400 That both he and Walt feel a need to achieve victory over the other person. 0.98
00:13:29.840 And are completely unable to work together.
00:13:33.660 And the element that's missing is Generation X in all of this.
00:13:45.880 As I've said before.
00:13:47.020 Generation X.
00:13:48.980 We remember the GI generation. 0.75
00:13:53.600 Right before the ex-cop.
00:13:55.620 When the ex-cop without getting divorced.
00:13:58.400 Because overall he's pretty GI.
00:14:00.100 But he's screwed up the way that baby boomers always are. 1.00
00:14:04.920 We remember what that used to be like.
00:14:07.980 We got to touch and see and smell that society.
00:14:11.780 Before completely vanished.
00:14:13.920 And we are the wanderer generation that have seen our parents get divorced. 1.00
00:14:20.700 Usually for stupid reasons. 0.99
00:14:22.840 And seen how most divorces end in misery for all parties. 1.00
00:14:27.060 And bitterness and hatred.
00:14:30.460 And ironically the generation that coined the term don't trust anyone over 30.
00:14:34.980 Is the generation we absolutely cannot trust. 0.98
00:14:37.500 We know that they're Walt.
00:14:40.580 That they're Fring.
00:14:42.060 That they use people.
00:14:44.460 And they're not going to care about anything after their deaths.
00:14:48.700 Look at how the GI generation invested in their children. 0.98
00:14:54.420 Versus how the baby boomers are investing in their children. 0.71
00:14:59.400 Their main goal is to eat up all their money.
00:15:01.820 And leave family heirlooms to their children.
00:15:04.440 Who don't have the same economic opportunities that they did.
00:15:12.160 Millennials are hopeful. 0.93
00:15:13.280 The millennials are accustomed to growing up in this shitty broken environment. 0.94
00:15:21.320 They didn't see it breaking in front of them. 0.96
00:15:25.220 And so they're overly optimistic.
00:15:29.440 When you see something beautiful fall apart.
00:15:33.980 It creates the Gen X cynicism. 0.96
00:15:37.480 When it's already fallen apart and it's what you're used to.
00:15:39.660 You get a more natural sort of hope for the future.
00:15:44.420 Which is what we see in the millennials.
00:15:50.760 And yet to understand how everything went wrong.
00:15:55.840 To understand that the BS you see in Disney movies.
00:16:01.280 In Hollywood.
00:16:02.440 The constant stream of baby boomer advice.
00:16:06.680 Even though this advice destroyed them.
00:16:08.200 To see through that.
00:16:10.280 That's where the Gen X perspective comes from.
00:16:16.020 Guys like myself and Captain Capitalism.
00:16:19.060 And we're on the far cusp of Gen X.
00:16:22.800 We're the ones that it's our, what we need to do.
00:16:30.180 People in our situation.
00:16:31.680 Rather than try and subscribe to this baby boomer mythos.
00:16:35.600 To try and enter, you know, that corporate, you know, rat race world. 0.67
00:16:40.280 Where we're all out for ourselves.
00:16:41.920 To have the biggest cookie cutter house in a cookie cutter neighborhood.
00:16:44.640 It's up to us to understand what went wrong.
00:16:49.080 To document it.
00:16:50.080 And we might seem cynical, but to explain it to the millennials.
00:16:55.800 Because it's going to be the millennials that one way or another create the next society. 0.97
00:17:02.900 I've seen some indications of a very nasty police state coming soon.
00:17:10.780 I'll link you down below.
00:17:12.080 So, we have, the Americans have their own Hitler youth now. 0.76
00:17:16.780 Department of Homeland Security.
00:17:19.120 Lovely.
00:17:21.380 And these kids, bright eyed and bushy tailed, are going to create a wonderful baby boomer dystopia.
00:17:27.720 Then we've got the alt-right, the counter-culture, the counter-counter-culture movement.
00:17:37.640 The social critics who are the, the opposite of the post-modernists.
00:17:43.940 The post-post-modernists.
00:17:49.280 Those are the good guys.
00:17:50.600 And if we wind up being successful, it'll be a pretty cool future.
00:17:59.080 But it's a hard road to tread.
00:18:04.060 So that's my review of Breaking Bad.
00:18:08.480 Amazing show.
00:18:09.620 I can't, as much as I hate all the characters except Jesse, I can't get enough of a bloody thing.
00:18:15.660 And that's sort of a little mini-review of a book I haven't finished reading, The Fourth Turning.
00:18:23.640 Which, yes, I heartily recommend that you read that book.
00:18:28.640 Irene out, folks.