“What is happiness?” Don Draper once asked in bitterly rhetorical fashion.
“It’s a moment before you need more happiness.” Of course, that wasn’t the end of it.
That memorable line came in the middle of a drama that spent more than 70 hours of television unpacking a question to which its protagonist only pretended to know the answer, as “Mad Men” exhaustively pressed through the latter half of the 20th century and peered behind the curtains of capitalism in search of a less elusive solution.Who are we, and how do we measure our worth? Is enough ever enough, or is it fundamentally unAmerican to believe that someone can have too much money? If the show ever came to a simple conclusion, it was only that there are no simple conclusions — happiness is ultimately just an advertisement for itself, a catchy jingle for a product that isn’t for sale.
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