Moral Relativism Makes Good Television

As I try to soak up every drop of my last week before work, I find myself slowly dipping my toe into financial interests, almost to gradually reintroduce structure into my days. I start my internship in Private Banking in one week, and since Sunday have thrown myself fully into the DVD collection of a show from the mid 1990s called Profit.

I have no doubt that the deeply disturbing and villainous nature of the show's main character (even within the framework of his job in a conglomerate/acquisitions firm) is the reason it lasted only 4 episodes. He is an inveterate corporate climber, and the textbook definition of a bone chilling sociopath. The show is an incredibly well crafted piece of drama--the two hour pilot alone qualifies as a fantastic film--and was clearly ahead of its time, as today characters like Tony Soprano are accepted into our living rooms. But while The Sopranos is about moral ambiguity, Profit is resolutely amoral. Jim Profit, played magnificently by Adrian Pasdar, is a fascinating character precisely because he is blithely unconcerned with societal conceptions of morals in his pursuit of the position as President of Acquisitions. He freely uses extortion, bribery, psychological torture, and even murder to accomplish his goals, and the questions "Is this right or wrong?" are ignored. Profit doesn't consider or care about how others are harmed by his actions--it's simply not part of his calculus in decisions. There is something incredibly terrifying and Ayn Rand-ian about that. Profit's exterior--well mannered and groomed, Harvard and Wharton educated, seemingly sympathetic and compassionate--is equally menacing, precisely because it is an artifice. He has no actual personality, so he can exploit the full range of human emotion if the situation calls for it and it furthers his end game. If it suits him and his goals to be funny and charming, than he can be. But if he believes that he is better served by planting incriminating evidence and securing a life sentence for an innocent man, than so be it. I am amazed that a show with such a fundamentally scary character ever made it to air, but I'm very glad it did, as it provided me with some amusement and deep ruminations about morality over the past couple days.

Catch Profit on DVD if you can, although it will probably shake you up too much to sleep for a couple of days.