The Secret Lessons of ‘Mad Men’

By Christian Gonzalez

Saturday, October 10, 2026

 

The New York Times recently released its ranking of the top 100 shows of the 21^st century. Breaking Bad came in at first, The Wire at second, and Mad Men at third. Mad Men is my favorite show, but I haven’t watched the gold and silver medalists, so I have no sense as to whether the rankings are fair. However, I do want to add to the many plaudits Mad Men has received. One of its greatest triumphs is the sensitivity and care with which it morally judges the past.

 

Mad Men begins in the advertising agency Sterling Cooper, around 1960. During that time, open expressions of racism were considered acceptable, and there were prejudices against Catholics, Jews, and ethnic whites. Above all, the show focuses on sexism. All the secretaries at Sterling Cooper are women, all the figures in positions of authority are men, and sexual harassment is rampant. The exception to this rule is when Joan Holloway becomes a partner at the firm. Yet she reaches that position only after sleeping with the head of Jaguar’s American dealers’ association in order to secure the car company’s business.

 

At the same time, the series does not allow the injustices of that era to engulf our vision. Morality is one of the most important features of human life, but it is not the only thing that matters, and Mad Men understands this. There is more to life than the question whether people are fulfilling their moral obligations to each other, and any worldview that concerns itself solely with that question is both impoverished and puritanical. Much of the meaning in our lives comes from our ordinary joys, griefs, frustrations, and longings. Of course morality matters—but so do our emotions.

 

The authors of Mad Men are clearly fascinated by the depth and richness of our emotional life. Roger Sterling is somewhat racist, like most of the other white characters, but he is also hilarious and charming. Bert Cooper has his racial prejudices, but his strange habits and enigmatic way of speaking are still quaint and amusing. Writers with more woke sensibilities could never write a series like this. They would likely be so focused on highlighting the racism and sexism of the time that they would flatten the characters and make the show uninteresting.

 

Even when Mad Men does depict (and implicitly condemn) the sins of its characters, it never loses sight of the historical context in which those actions occurred, or of the deeply human motivations that drove those wrongs.

 

Pete Campbell can be an insufferable jerk, especially in the early seasons, but it is obvious that much of his bad behavior comes from his insecurity. He is a walking bundle of jealousies. When Ken Cosgrove publishes a story in The Atlantic, Pete feels less talented, so he makes his wife, Trudy, flirt with a publisher to get one of Pete’s stories into print. Later, when Pete cheats on Trudy, it is partly because he constantly sees handsome men get more attention from women than he does, and he can’t stand feeling so inferior and inadequate.

 

Betty Draper is often petty and needlessly cruel, but she is surrounded by people who don’t take her seriously, and she lacks the tools with which to understand and express her anger. She also doesn’t live in a social environment that’s conducive to virtue: Mad Men also shows that her primary acquaintances are the housewives on her street, who themselves are terrible gossips. It is tempting to just be irritated by Betty’s nagging, but through its choices of what to show us, Mad Men encourages us to reflect on her situation, and to at least moderate our initial judgment.

 

And then there is the main character Don Draper, whose serial philandering breaks up two marriages, and whose deception and selfishness break the hearts of countless other women, as well as those of his children. Some of the motivations behind Don’s cheating are vain. Like many other men, he enjoys feeling like an alpha, and sleeping with beautiful women gives him that feeling. There is also the sensual pleasure of the act.

 

Yet some of his motivations are more sympathetic. Don is never able to find the kind of lasting happiness that fills the void. After a rough upbringing, he achieves all the standard metrics of success: wealth, a beautiful wife, a fancy car, a prestigious job, and a house in the suburbs. Still, he can never escape the feeling that something is missing from his life. He pursues sex in search of consolation, without realizing that he will never find it that way, or that his behavior repeatedly damages one of the most valuable things he does have—the love of people around him.

 

Mad Men, then, accomplishes a difficult balancing act: It addresses the harm caused by the characters’ wrongs, triggers compassion for the motivations driving that poor behavior, and does justice to the attractive features of people’s personalities.

 

Roger Scruton wrote that culture “offers to every new generation the examples, images, and words that will teach it what to feel.” Mad Men teaches us what to feel when we contemplate other people’s wrongs: not just anger and annoyance, which come most naturally to us, but also sympathy and understanding. It does not tell us to be so forgiving as to let everything go, which would be its own abdication of our responsibility to judge. But it shows us how complicated people are and how hard it is to get their real measure. It leaves us with mixed feelings about everyone involved.

 

These lessons are generally valuable, but they are especially helpful at a time when we Americans are so divided as to how we should judge the wrongs of our ancestors. The show is worth watching—or rewatching—then, not just because of its brilliant writing or the outstanding performances of its actors, but also because it cultivates our capacity for moral judgment.