Severance's Interrogation of

Corporate Culture's Gnosticism

Anthony Sciglitano May 06, 2022

SPOILER WARNING: Spoilers ahead!

Severance is a fascinating show that joins the theological and

philosophical to contemporary concerns with work-life balance and
techno-capitalist wish-fulfillment. The questions it raises are at once
philosophical and social: what does it mean to be a person, to have an
identity? How central is memory to who we are? Can our bodies alone
guarantee personal continuity? How are our minds related to our bodies?
How are we connected to others across our fragmented existence?

The title, “Severance,” comes from an elective surgery that implants a

chip into the brain and severs one’s work person (“innie”) from one’s
extra-work person (“outie”) where never the twain shall meet. That, at
least, is the hope of those who work in upper management for the Lumon
corporation. Lumon was founded by the Great Keir to whom Patricia
Arquette’s character, Harmony, has erected a shrine in her house.
Arquette’s character is not severed but “whole,” though that integrity
seems more negative than positive. She appears to live an austere or
ascetic existence, all the better to serve Keir. She is one of several true
believers in the show.

On the outside, Harmony lives next door to Mark (Adam Scott), the main
character, who turns to severance as a kind of eight-hour relief from world
shattering grief at his wife’s death. At least while he is at work, he suffers
no more! Lumon thus offers a kind of salvation, a freedom from suffering,
at least during the work day. While the work they are doing at Lumon is
“very important,” as Harmony will emphasize, it is not clear that any of the
severed workers know what it is they do or why they sort numbers,
especially when they become frightening, into several boxes on a
computer screen. Presumably Harmony, in her upper management role,
and the Board which unnervingly mumbles through a speaker, possess
the secret knowledge, but this is not clear. One wonders whether
severance technology itself is the entire point.

Lumon, as the name suggests, is a brightly lit office space lined with white
walls and constructed like a maze that keeps the members of different
departments from encountering one another. Fraternization is
discouraged. Rules are strict and, in some sense, sacred: they come from
the wisdom of the founder, Keir himself, and are written down in the
equivalent of scripture, that is, the company handbook. Violation of the
rules can win one a trip to the “break room,” a confessional where one
reads a statement of apology repeatedly until an electronic sensor, like the
Inquisition of old, determines that sincerity has been achieved.

“Break” here can be read as a clever euphemism; less a place of rest than
a place of high anxiety meant to impart a sense of sin where none existed
and foster a break in one’s previous self-understanding. On occasion,
however, the break room is deemed unnecessary or unwise and replaced
with a trip to the wellness center where Ms. Casey may lead one through a
meditation or breathing exercise and perhaps even reveal prized
information about your “outie” self. The “innie” / “outie” language is
correctly diagnosed as infantile by Helly, but should not be thought all that
strange from the corporate or even academic sector where, for instance, a
“digital measures” technology was recently re-dubbed “faculty success
statistics” or in corporate where a “bad situation” will be dubbed an
“opportunity” or in government where “torture” is switched to “enhanced
interrogation.” Doublespeak is all around us.  

There is life outside of Lumon, outside the light (!), but it is muted at best.
Mark’s character is depressed and the world is filmed as if through the
lens of his own darkness. His grief at the loss of his wife colors his entire
emotional palette and turns all bright hues into grays. This depression is
precisely the attraction of severance for him. Happiness—or at least
forgetfulness—is only an elevator trip away. Mark has a sister and a
brother-in-law named “Ricken” who has recently published a self-help
book, hilariously named, The You You Are. Ricken and his book provides
some of the best comic relief in the series. It would be funnier if some of it
did not sound a little too close to the platitudes spouted by our
contemporary self-proclaimed gurus.

If theology and work join to make the corporate setting a sacred space,
with its Founder and Savior figure (Keir), its High Priestess (Harmony) who
mediates between the workers and the Board, its sacrament of
reconciliation/penance (the break room), its scripture (the handbook), and
its spirituality (the wellness room), its theology is a kind of neo-Gnosticism
or corporate Gnosticism. Only the people at the top possess the secret
saving knowledge or even know what the company does all of which has
something to do with scientific knowledge that can save people from their
grief stricken lives . . . and goats. Yes, there are goats. We are not yet sure
why, but it seems to have something to do with eggs used to celebrate a
successful meeting of quotas.

Nevertheless, the series takes a surprising tack if offering a critique of

totalitarian corporate culture. More often than not, critiques of corporate
culture or work focus on the ways in which our work-life intrudes upon
and nearly digests our domestic life. The usual point is that technology
renders all escape merely provisional. Even snow days are rarely anything
more than working from home while one navigates children and pets.

Severance advances a different form of corporate dystopia: what if the

corporate overlords, it asks, could find a technology such that usual
human interaction—shared stories, griefs, humor, frustrations, idle banter,
flirtation, and interests such as music, art, and politics—get left in the
elevator on the way to your workspace so that workers are nearly one
hundred percent efficient. Identity is utterly fractured in this case: there is
no mental connection between work and life aside from one’s body.

And so the show raises important questions: what is identity or where

does it lie? Do our bodies constitute a portion of our identity or just serve
our mental identity which becomes divisible into work and non-work
person and perhaps further fragments? What of our memories? Can I be
me without memories or, in this case, with utterly split memories? Am I
really two people at that point? And, more pointedly, is there anything we
can refer to as “identity” at all?

Thinkers involved in intellectual genealogies will recognize the problems

here. With Descartes often cited as an origin point, modern views of the
human person frequently separate mind from external reality; this means
that external reality, the world of body, matter, etc. are devoid of intrinsic
intelligibility and value; they exist to be given any value they may possess
by human makers who impose mind on them in their own image. Notice
that in this view, nothing has inherent value. Human power over nature is
what grants value. Lumon simply takes this to another level: human beings
too can be considered matter external to themselves to be manipulated
and controlled for some higher purpose of those in the know. This is
where Gnosticism (salvation through secret knowledge) meets nihilism (a
meaningless universe).

Despite the best efforts of Harmony, Melchick, Eagan, and the Board,
holes in the Lumon bubble proliferate as they rush to plug them. The
dehumanization of the work place is bound to be resisted and is. The
natural desire for knowledge generates exploration, fraternization occurs,
critical intelligence asks questions and will not rest to find them even if it
wins them a trip to the “break room.” Nor is the Lumon staff oblivious to
the need for entertainment, wellness, and reward. A worker’s anniversary,
for instance, may bring them a hilarious dance party where everyone is
encouraged to participate (spoiler: not everyone does); should one reach
certain goals or quotas, they can receive little gifts like finger cuffs or
eggs. Of course feelings here are all instrumental; the idea is not to put
the lid on the pot too tightly lest it all blow or show no mercy so as to
foment a rebellion. Rather, the goal seems to be to keep all feelings and
impulses in check or balance (“harmony”) such that productivity never
suffers. Human emotions bear no intrinsic value, but must be accounted
for in a fully rationalized system of efficiency.
Nevertheless, as already noted, the bubble starts to leak and the plugs
cannot come fast enough. Pete, Mark’s best friend, leaves Lumon and
seeks “re-integration” which the High Priestess thinks impossible but
which, it turns out, is not. Pete finds (outie) Mark and the bubble is in full-
on emergency mode. Mark is promoted to Pete’s head of department role
for which he is ill suited. Meanwhile, Helly, Pete’s replacement on the data
refinement team, seems destined to live out her name and raise the
underworld before and after trying to (at work) commit suicide, and Dylan
attacks and bites Melchick during a dance party for Helly. John Turturro
(Irving), the truest of Lumon believers, finds himself in the wellness
waiting room connecting with Christopher Walken’s character, Burt, and
the eros of human relationship—and sexual attraction—joined with Burt’s
knowledge of a different hermeneutic tradition of the Lumon Scripture
(“Handbook”) undermines Irving’s staunch defense of the company line.

That is all one needs to know at this point though I will say that the
cliffhangers at the end of season one were spectacular. I was
disappointed. I had hoped for a full story arc and conclusion to determine
precisely what the writers had in mind. Alas, I will need to wait for season
two and just hope for such a “sense of an ending,” as Frank Kermode
called it. A sense of an ending is important. It lets us know what the
creators think is the point and asks us to render a verdict, asks us to
participate and thus form our own views and thus ourselves in
conversation with others.

The really good ones present a sense of what it all means. Severance may
not quite be on that level, but it certainly gestures towards it.
Unfortunately, there is, I think, in this new golden age of television
content, a tension between this sense of an ending and the call to profit
long after an otherwise excellent show should have ended. We shall see
which road the makers of Severance take.

The importance of Severance as cultural interrogation should not be

overlooked. It suggests corporate culture as our new form of religion, one
that seeks to erase and rewrite our identities, values, and ends or
purposes while it requires regular conversion and restatements of loyalty.
It raises key questions with respect to personal identity and
fragmentation, disintegration and integrity or wholeness. It connects to
key philosophical themes with respect to our bodies in relation to our
mind and whether mind is merely another name for brain. For its
conclusions, however, we must wait.

Featured Image: Deliverance promo photo, Fair Use.