I just finished watching it and as someone who rarely enjoys television shows i think it was amazing and thought provoking. What do you all think?
Also, does anyone know of a place that discusses the show from a marxist perspective? I'm kind of obsessed but would rather not listen to some lib brained shit if I don't have to.
Lumon seems to be a very broad Mega-Corp that makes everything from electronics to medical equipment and pharmaceuticals. Literally everything in the severance floor is made by Lumon and apparently everything in the town surrounding it is made by them as well, including the houses themselves.
As for the work itself, I always saw the work as testing proof of concepts rather than actual work, with each of the departments being a simulcrum of the "kinds" of work out there, with Macrodata Refinement being boring ass office work (Excel sheets, diagrams, inputting data) and Optics and Design being more creative jobs (video game design, product design, graphic design). The guy raising goats is likely testing to see if they can utilize Severance in farm jobs.
The final goal being selling Severance to corporations as the ultimate means to break apart class consciousness and worker solidarity, and in addition being able to get away with abusing their workers. Its why Lumon has spread rumors of departments killing eachother in a "coup" its why the severance floor is designed like a maze, why the departments are kept far away, and why they have myths about Eagan and Wellness sessions.
They're trying to work out the kinks of creating a bicameral mind slave class to work forever.
However it doesn't work, because a human's natural instinct is to reach out to others for love, freedom, connection and social liberation. It's why Helly R refuses to be controlled by Helena and constantly fights for her freedom, its why Irving seeks out Burt for companionship against the company culture they revere, its why Mark insists on banding together across departments against the rules to try to seek help from the hell they're subjected to, and why Dylan volunteers himself to hold the levers for the Overtime Protocol despite having knowledge of having a son on the outside in order to help his friends gain their own freedom.
They're so many minute details about this show that I love, like how the company only ever serves low-calorie snacks for them during parties and in the vending machines (raisins, edaname, eggs, and melon?) so that their "outtie" isn't effected by their "innie"'s food choices, when the reverse isn't true.