As the old joke goes, a Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother. A similar thing is happening with Adolescence, a recently released Netflix limited series, which is getting a lot of attention for all the wrong reasons.

While the execution of the one-take format and sparse production accoutrements is noteworthy, even commendable, the public and the series creators completely misunderstand the underpinning foundation, the “why” of the story. The program says something much deeper and more solid than the public realizes or the creators intended. The show is meant to attack “toxic masculinity” and social media, but actually exposes the moral emptiness of a post-virtue culture.

The story revolves around a thirteen-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate, and is observed from the perspective of a police detective, a court-appointed forensic psychologist, and the suspect’s family.

Image by Grok.

The series creators, Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, have said that the fundamental “why” of the story is “toxic masculinity” and the ubiquitous social network culture. Both plagues do exist within our Western society, but they exist as reflections of a deeper, more fundamental problem.

In the series’ second installment, two police detectives visit the school that both the suspect and the victim attended. It’s a roiling pool of chaos and unfettered anarchy where the teachers and administrators have relinquished their hierarchical responsibilities to a mob of teenagers who sort themselves into a hierarchy based not on virtue, but on social media “likes” and insults. Neither Mark Zuckerberg nor other social media titans created this chaos; they merely filled the vacuum created by others.

The third installment is almost entirely staged in a single room and depicts the interaction between the suspect and the court-appointed psychologist. The creators toy with the ideas of structural conflict, such as class and gender. In doing so, they miss an opportunity to address the more relevant aspect of consumers and providers in the therapeutic state.

In the end, the psychologist is unable to explain or reconcile the suspect’s actions, and it’s suggested that her determination is limited to whether the young man presents a danger to society. As philosopher Alisdair McIntyre explained in his 1981 classic After Virtue, the therapist acting within the constraints of a post-virtue culture cannot make moral claims, yet moral claims are central to this series. The “why” of the series cannot be understood outside of a moral context.

We can all agree that murder is bad, but, as McIntyre suggests, we should have a moral framework to explain why we agree. The therapeutic state does not provide this framework.

The series’ final episode centers on the suspect’s family and how its members deal with the tragedy of the murder. The episode’s central point is that the father’s work van is defaced with the word “nonce” (British pejorative slang for pedophile). This event is used, intentionally or not, to expose the father’s orientation, and by extension, the family, within the community.

The family is isolated from its neighbors, living as a discreet unit within something that cannot realistically be termed a “community.” There’s geographic proximity, but there are no communal interests or obligations. For example, the father sees the woman across the street and asks if she observed the vandals. When she replies she hadn’t, he disparages her as a nosy (expletive). The family’s isolation clearly predates the murder and reflects the broader trend of postmodern urban and suburban living arrangements.

The family goes through its day—coincidentally, the father’s birthday—by planning pleasant things to do, including Chinese food and a movie. No one discusses how its members should reconcile themselves to the tragedy that shook their lives. The viewer is led to believe that reconciliation is a product of time and consumer behavior, that the family will persist if it merely persists. The fundamental tools of communal reconciliation are non-existent within postmodern culture because the moral framework has been discarded.

The idea of “toxic masculinity,” in general, and Andrew Tate, in particular, are repeatedly raised, further demonstrating that Adolescence’s creators are saying one thing but accidentally mean another. Andrew Tate, a horrible human being, is a symptom, not a cause. He is the result of a post-virtue society, not its creator.

In a culture where prostitution and pornography have become normalized and commercialized, miscreants such as Tate will flourish. Perhaps this is what prominent author and atheist Sam Harris has in mind when he writes that the goal of his “rational ethics” is “human flourishing.”

I applaud Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham for creating Adolescence, not for the technical achievement, brilliant acting, and remarkable execution, but for accidentally exposing the decaying structures of Western civilization.

Chris Boland can be reached at Cboland7@outlook.com.