WEBVTT NOTE 53. The Attempted Militarization of the Jetsons 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.160 The Attempted Militarization of the Jetsons A lesser-known episode of The Jetsons speaks 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:13.340 directly to our current plight – the relentless but eternally floundering attempt to militarize 3 00:00:13.340 --> 00:00:18.320 a bourgeois society that is more interested in consumption and leisure than serving a 4 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:20.680 mythical national ethos. 5 00:00:20.680 --> 00:00:23.880 Let's first review the setting. 6 00:00:23.880 --> 00:00:29.760 The Jetsons is a cartoon made by Hanna Barbara from 1962 to 1963. 7 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:34.300 The newer ones aren't as good, but they aren't terrible either. 8 00:00:34.300 --> 00:00:38.560 It is distinguished in science fiction lore by the fact that it is a rare attempt in this 9 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:43.220 genre that actually succeeds in predicting the future. 10 00:00:43.220 --> 00:00:47.280 In the Jetsons' world of the future, people are pretty much the same as they are today, 11 00:00:47.280 --> 00:00:51.000 except that they have more gizmos and far more leisure time. 12 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:56.400 There are families, kids in school, teens in love, workers complaining about bosses, 13 00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:01.640 Rockstars and spouses assuming agreed-upon specializations. 14 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:05.220 They love good food, so long as it is made very fast. 15 00:01:05.220 --> 00:01:06.220 They have pets. 16 00:01:06.220 --> 00:01:07.220 They shop. 17 00:01:07.220 --> 00:01:09.020 They are buffeted by fashion trends. 18 00:01:09.020 --> 00:01:11.360 They enjoy sports. 19 00:01:11.360 --> 00:01:12.420 That's the future. 20 00:01:12.420 --> 00:01:16.480 It is an extension of today, just as today is an extension of everything that followed 21 00:01:16.480 --> 00:01:18.480 before. 22 00:01:18.480 --> 00:01:22.420 There is no dramatic hinge of history that causes all rules to change, as socialists 23 00:01:22.420 --> 00:01:36.600 The entire setting of the Jetsons underscores another point that is lost on most every writer 24 00:01:36.600 --> 00:01:38.940 of this genre. 25 00:01:38.940 --> 00:01:44.180 Technology does not change human nature, or dramatically rearrange the meta-structure 26 00:01:44.180 --> 00:01:49.860 of limits and opportunities that form the basis of the social order. 27 00:01:49.860 --> 00:01:54.060 It doesn't rob us of free will or subject us to anonymous forces beyond our control 28 00:01:54.060 --> 00:01:58.860 or otherwise transform us all inside and out. 29 00:01:58.860 --> 00:02:07.020 Technology only makes what we want to do easier to do, and leads to a greater degree of flourishing. 30 00:02:07.020 --> 00:02:13.380 If this point is so simple, why is it that so many geniuses have missed it? 31 00:02:13.380 --> 00:02:19.080 The gizmos in the Jetsons in particular are a consequence of entrepreneurship, a vastly 32 00:02:19.080 --> 00:02:24.460 the expanded division of labor, expanded by planets and galaxies, and a rivalrous capitalist 33 00:02:24.460 --> 00:02:27.400 economy engaged in free trade. 34 00:02:27.400 --> 00:02:32.800 There is no central planning, they use money, people are hired and fired, there is risk 35 00:02:32.800 --> 00:02:37.080 inventions variously succeed and fail. 36 00:02:37.080 --> 00:02:42.160 Spacely Sprockets and Cogswell Cogs make capital goods to sell to others who make other goods, 37 00:02:42.160 --> 00:02:47.680 a complex structure of production requiring the passage of time and markets. 38 00:02:47.680 --> 00:02:51.580 They compete with each other, but also depend on each other, since cogs require sprockets 39 00:02:51.580 --> 00:02:56.480 to produce, while sprockets require cogs to produce. 40 00:02:56.480 --> 00:03:01.880 The technology used in the Jetsons is nearly on target with current trends. 41 00:03:01.880 --> 00:03:07.840 Workers sit behind screens and punch buttons and complain about long days – two hours, 42 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:09.640 three days per week. 43 00:03:09.640 --> 00:03:14.520 The Jetsons foresaw the future of microtechnology, and so little things are always flying around. 44 00:03:14.520 --> 00:03:19.640 The show did not foresee the microchip, so it was unclear to the makers of the show exactly 45 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:22.920 what would cause things to zip here and there. 46 00:03:22.920 --> 00:03:29.240 We often see little machines with tailpipes and tiny clean gas fumes coming out. 47 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:34.080 The cars fly, which of course hasn't happened, but flight has become routine for the middle 48 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.040 class. 49 00:03:36.040 --> 00:03:39.600 Travel is fast, but not magical as in Star Trek. 50 00:03:39.600 --> 00:03:41.200 Food is fast. 51 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:43.360 Construction is fast. 52 00:03:43.360 --> 00:03:48.040 Let's do most tasks that people once did, and so everyone is struggling to find exercise 53 00:03:48.040 --> 00:03:49.040 outlets. 54 00:03:49.040 --> 00:03:51.840 And yet, people are not in a rush. 55 00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:55.960 The point of speed is to create more time for leisure. 56 00:03:55.960 --> 00:03:58.640 What a world! 57 00:03:58.640 --> 00:04:01.520 Where is the state in the Jetsons? 58 00:04:01.520 --> 00:04:06.720 There are traffic cops who speak gruffly, and there are police who try to catch burglars. 59 00:04:06.720 --> 00:04:07.720 That's about it. 60 00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:13.040 Oh yes, there is a zoning board that sometimes makes trouble for real estate developers. 61 00:04:13.040 --> 00:04:17.380 But for the most part, this is the ideal of the night watchman state. 62 00:04:17.380 --> 00:04:21.980 How this world manages to restrain the state is never mentioned, but there is no talk of 63 00:04:21.980 --> 00:04:28.080 a constitution, or even a ruler at all, which provides something of a clue. 64 00:04:28.080 --> 00:04:33.760 In the episode in question here, G.I. Jetson, this normally bourgeois society, fueled by 65 00:04:33.760 --> 00:04:39.420 enterprise, technology and the pursuit of leisure, comes to be dominated in the smallest 66 00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:53.580 The episode opens with a nightmare in which George Jetson's boss, Mr. Spacely, has been 67 00:04:53.580 --> 00:04:58.280 transformed into a devil, lording it over everyone in Hades. 68 00:04:58.280 --> 00:05:00.760 He is chasing George with a pitchfork. 69 00:05:00.760 --> 00:05:04.340 George wakes up and Jane Jetson asks what's wrong. 70 00:05:04.340 --> 00:05:08.180 George responds that perhaps he has been working too much. 71 00:05:08.180 --> 00:05:16.340 Yesterday, I worked two full hours, what does he think he is running, a sweatshop? 72 00:05:16.340 --> 00:05:20.180 That very morning, a phone call comes in, and an official sounding voice announces that 73 00:05:20.180 --> 00:05:23.420 George's number has come up. 74 00:05:23.420 --> 00:05:27.940 He has to leave immediately to go to train for the space guard, which requires some service 75 00:05:27.940 --> 00:05:31.980 from everyone, from 18 to 80. 76 00:05:31.980 --> 00:05:37.820 His destination is Camp Nebula, which, his boy Elroy points out, is 10 million miles 77 00:05:37.820 --> 00:05:50.880 The Belligerent Voice continues, making unreasonable demands insisting on a strict sense of discipline 78 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:58.700 and exercise and 100% compliance, which everyone finds ridiculous and tedious. 79 00:05:58.700 --> 00:06:03.420 After a 10-minute space ride, everyone protests the gruelling trip. 80 00:06:03.420 --> 00:06:07.540 George arrives at Camp Nebula to find that Mr. Spacely turns out to be the commanding 81 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:11.940 Professor, and so the nightmare comes true. 82 00:06:11.940 --> 00:06:16.460 His first order to everyone is, take the men to the indoctrination center. 83 00:06:16.460 --> 00:06:18.180 And off they go. 84 00:06:18.180 --> 00:06:22.260 Spacely asks, who wants to be the first to be indoctrinated? 85 00:06:22.260 --> 00:06:24.740 Of course, George is chosen. 86 00:06:24.740 --> 00:06:30.200 It begins with a buzz haircut, a medical exam and an eye exam. 87 00:06:30.200 --> 00:06:36.060 Then comes the IQ exam, which George passes because he is able to put square pegs in square 88 00:06:36.060 --> 00:06:40.140 Square Holes and Round Pegs in Round Holes. 89 00:06:40.140 --> 00:06:44.300 The next person takes the same IQ test and breaks the machine after trying to cram a 90 00:06:44.300 --> 00:06:46.980 square peg in a round hole. 91 00:06:46.980 --> 00:06:49.180 The robot machine in charge announces, 92 00:06:49.180 --> 00:06:51.820 Original thinking shows leadership potential, 93 00:06:51.820 --> 00:06:56.940 and tags him, Officer, material, congratulations. 94 00:06:56.940 --> 00:06:59.260 Everyone gets stamped with a number, such as, 95 00:06:59.260 --> 00:07:09.180 U.S. approved 5106 and U.S. approved 5107 There is some attempt to dehumanize them, but 96 00:07:09.180 --> 00:07:14.780 it is really pointless, since George's fellow reservists are mostly his fellow employees. 97 00:07:14.780 --> 00:07:19.980 They care more about each other than the mission or whatever it is they are supposed to be 98 00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:23.980 doing for which they have nothing but a cynical disdain. 99 00:07:23.980 --> 00:07:30.220 Mr. Spacely introduces their drill sergeant, Sergeant Uniblab, the newest thing in military 100 00:07:30.220 --> 00:07:31.820 robots. 101 00:07:31.820 --> 00:07:38.500 Spacely points out, Uniblab costs the government millions, enough for two officers' clubs. 102 00:07:38.500 --> 00:07:44.780 Uniblab demands that they all fly in formation this way and that way, this way and that way. 103 00:07:44.780 --> 00:07:50.300 That's pretty much the whole drill, just the goofy middle-aged guys languidly letting their 104 00:07:50.300 --> 00:07:53.580 jetpacks take them back and forth. 105 00:07:53.580 --> 00:07:58.180 After the drill is over, Uniblab tries to sell raffle tickets and later tries to get 106 00:07:58.180 --> 00:08:01.180 the soldiers involved in a game of blackjack. 107 00:08:01.180 --> 00:08:07.780 Winner gets a desk job, says the robot, underscoring that petty corruption in the military can't 108 00:08:07.780 --> 00:08:11.100 be abolished by technology either. 109 00:08:11.100 --> 00:08:15.060 The structure of the space guard is a hilarious thing to behold. 110 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:19.600 It seems like nothing other than an inert hierarchy where each person is permitted to 111 00:08:19.600 --> 00:08:24.800 to Humiliate the Person Below but Must Cower Before the Person Right Above. 112 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:29.500 In fact, this seems to be the only business going on at all – yelling and denouncing 113 00:08:29.500 --> 00:08:33.480 down and deferring and cowering up. 114 00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:38.360 The only real action taking place is that some people are promoted and others are demoted 115 00:08:38.360 --> 00:08:43.600 based on the extent to which they please the person up one notch. 116 00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:45.740 That's about it. 117 00:08:45.740 --> 00:08:51.180 The episode ends with Jetson getting the best of Uniblab, which turns out to be a typical 118 00:08:51.180 --> 00:08:57.180 piece of government machinery, easily sabotaged and broken, and Mr. Spacely suffering at the 119 00:08:57.180 --> 00:09:03.340 hands of his superior, who in turn has a superior who in turn has a superior. 120 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:10.860 George returns home to a happy family, having wasted a day or two in a pointless civic ritual. 121 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:17.580 The whole show is a wonderful commentary on how this consuming, spending, bourgeois, capitalist 122 00:09:17.580 --> 00:09:22.340 society is impervious to militarisation. 123 00:09:22.340 --> 00:09:27.100 The state is seen as a pointless device for wasting time and money, something people will 124 00:09:27.100 --> 00:09:33.260 obey with their feet but will otherwise ignore with their hearts and minds. 125 00:09:33.260 --> 00:09:41.820 The Jetsons won't be militarized, and certainly won't be nationalized, but why? 126 00:09:41.820 --> 00:09:47.220 What seemed to be missing in the attempt to impart a militarized sense of civic loyalty 127 00:09:47.220 --> 00:09:52.540 was that crucial ingredient – an enemy. 128 00:09:52.540 --> 00:09:55.940 Nowhere in the episode is a foe mentioned. 129 00:09:55.940 --> 00:10:01.920 There are no attackers, no retaliation is planned, in fact there seem to be no security 130 00:10:01.920 --> 00:10:10.600 The indoctrination center didn't even bother to pretend that there was a threat. 131 00:10:10.600 --> 00:10:14.200 It is very likely that there were no threats in any case. 132 00:10:14.200 --> 00:10:18.160 But that hasn't usually stopped governments, which are known to either invent them or provoke 133 00:10:18.160 --> 00:10:24.720 them into existence in order to whip up the civic ideal of loyalty to the state apparatus. 134 00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:28.720 It is possible that, in the night-watchman world of the Jetsons, the government didn't 135 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:32.360 have the means to propagate a threat. 136 00:10:32.360 --> 00:10:36.680 Or maybe the Jetsons' world is even more advanced than we've thought. 137 00:10:36.680 --> 00:10:40.960 The state doesn't bother with scaring people because it knows that no one would believe 138 00:10:40.960 --> 00:10:44.540 the propaganda in any case. 139 00:10:44.540 --> 00:10:51.840 Some may criticize this cartoon for idealizing a society based on middle-class values, commerce, 140 00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:56.080 technology, petty human problem-solving. 141 00:10:56.080 --> 00:11:01.040 But for anyone who loves freedom and human flourishing, the Jetsons' attachment to 142 00:11:01.040 --> 00:11:08.040 technology and domestic life are to be preferred to nationalist hysteria and the destruction 143 00:11:08.040 --> 00:11:10.480 of war. 144 00:11:10.480 --> 00:11:15.560 Perhaps the greatest triumph of this show is that it managed to make peaceful bourgeois 145 00:11:15.560 --> 00:11:22.080 Our Living, look as exciting in cartoons as it is in real life.