I have not been able to escape the Apple TV+ show Severance. It exploded on social media and received nominations for countless awards (including receiving two Emmys). Even Professor Nowka, chair of the English department here at Salem State, mentioned it to me, going so far as to say, “It’s the first show that everyone is watching together since the pandemic.” It’s a science fiction show that’s resonating with the American public on an unfathomable scale. It’s not just a TV show anymore, it’s a phenomenon.
Science fiction as a genre has always been especially captivating to me. It’s one of the few genres that can break all of the rules, yet seemingly get away with it. But what draws me to it more is that it’s a genre that takes these issues that feel so real, so tangible, so pertinent, and can take them to their greatest extreme, to ask the questions we need to ask ourselves.
It’s a reflection of our feelings as a society, a snapshot of the concerns of the past, and a portrayal of the concerns of the present. I feel like reading and watching science fiction really gives me an idea of what people are worried about, what they care about, and what the world they want to see looks like. So, when my grandfather asked me to recommend a new show to watch together (as we do at the end of most nights), I mentioned Severance based on its popularity and intriguing concept.
Severance is about a company, Lumon, that invented a procedure (referred to in the show as the “severance procedure”) which allows workers to separate their memories so their “work self”, referred to as the “innie”, and their “home self”, referred to as the “outie” are entirely separate and have no knowledge of the other’s life. The main character is the severed employee Mark S., played by Adam Scott, who works in the Macrodata Refinement department, sorting numbers into boxes without knowing what the numbers or the boxes mean, only ever being told that “the work is mysterious and important”.
They aren’t sure that they’re important to the company, they have no idea what they’re doing or why it matters, they don’t even know if what they are told is true because they have no way of verifying that information. They are completely disconnected from their work, and they completely disconnect from their work – by becoming “innies”.
Why is Severance resonating so much with us?
Severance as a procedure is advertised by Lumon as a way to separate your personal identity from your workplace, taking “it’s just work” to the extreme. This would be a dream to the average American, who more often than not feels burnt out, like they can’t leave work at the office, and that their stress from work is affecting the rest of their life. With this ideal procedure, you could have an identity separate from your job, something so ingrained into Western society that we used to make our jobs our last names. We still value others by their job title: tell Mom you’re marrying a surgeon and you’ll see her face light up, but tell her you’re marrying a grocery bagger and she’ll wonder what you’re doing with your life.
The idea of having a “work self” isn’t new. People have had to compartmentalize their self-identity and behaviors for as long as work has existed. Compartmentalization isn’t necessarily a bad thing, either. It’s safe in small doses, like most things are. You can’t treat your coworkers or customers like your children, as it wouldn’t be healthy or safe for either of you. Yet, one of the points that Severance makes over and over again is that separating the self from the work you do just creates two selves. This doesn’t solve the problem - it creates a new one, and it lets existing ones (such as mistreatment in the workplace) worsen.
For “innies”, suffering at Lumon is the only real option. They can’t contact their “outie” except through Lumon facilitated contact, protestors of the severance procedure want innies gone, and if their outie quits or is fired, it’s the same thing as them dying, since they’ll cease to exist forever - they even hold a funeral for Irving after his forced retirement. It’s the same with the “work self” – we have to participate in proper workplace conduct, and that includes compartmentalizing our feelings and behaviors until we get home. If we don’t behave properly at work, we lose our jobs. Without jobs, without money, we can’t survive in this modern world.
It is this deep tie between our jobs - jobs in which we feel so disconnected from the effects of our actions that it can often feel ridiculous or meaningless - which keeps us connected to the lives of the innies. Just like them, if we don’t have our jobs, we risk the threat of homelessness (and then prison for being homeless), or worse. In the case of people who require expensive medications to survive, their life itself depends upon their compliance with the system - just as the existence of the innies depends entirely on their compliance with Lumon and the jobs they complete.
What can we do?
Of course, we need to reduce the stress that people feel when they are working, but the easiest way to do that is if they simply don’t need to work to survive. If being fired or quitting doesn’t mean risking starvation, then a lot of the stress that comes with mistreatment at work goes away because you can just leave.
One of the “innies”, Helly, expresses her frustration towards her “outie” in Season 2 Episode 6 after a particularly traumatizing experience, saying, “What sucks is that she used my body … that she dresses me in the morning like I’m a baby, that she controls me… It’s disgusting.” It’s not what is being done that Helly has a problem with, but the lack of autonomy and choice she has in the matter. She doesn’t get to choose to go to work every day. Most people can’t. And, as the cost of living continues to rise while wages continue to stagnate, the number of people who can’t make that choice grows every single day.
“If being safe and warm is directly tied to income, is the outside life truly safe from work?” said Ed V., a friend of mine, about the show. Yet, this applies to real life too. Even with compartmentalizing feelings and behaviors to align with your job, that doesn’t mean that your job is safe from your outside life, or that your outside life is safe from your job. Getting seriously ill shouldn’t mean ruining your life. Being a mother shouldn’t ruin your professional opportunities. Losing your job shouldn’t mean that you might die.
One of the most successful solutions we have seen for the economic pressures that average people feel is called Universal Basic Income, often acronymized as UBI. This gives every individual a baseline income to support their basic needs, such as food and shelter. It is universal because it is provided unconditionally, unlike Social Security, which only pays out for retirement, disability, or other extenuating circumstances and pays out in proportion to the amount of money you made while working.
The most famous trial of UBI was performed in Finland, which completed a randomized control trial of their basic-income program nationwide. 2,000 unemployed people were randomly chosen to receive 560 euros each month, less than what the average student had to live on. By the end, the trial group was healthier, happier, less stressed, more trusting in others and in their government, and more employed than the control group, despite a common critique of the UBI system being that people will choose not to work.
It’s not just Finland that has performed UBI trials and received such results as higher life satisfaction and increased employment, however. A California study, and a separate New York study, found an increase in employment “because UBI gave people time to apply for better jobs,” according to Hope O’Dell, who performed an in-depth look into UBI trials across the globe.
It seems that the solution is simple. If working isn’t done under threat of death or imprisonment, then people feel better while they are at work. They won’t feel like Helly R. in the first season, that the only option to end their suffering is death.