Bernard Holland or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the DOUBLETHINK
We just completed “Silo” on Apple TV and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the main characters is Bernard Holland as played by Tim Robbins.
I didn’t find the show as impactful as “The Man in the High Castle,” but I did find “Silo” compelling entertainment that forces the viewer to grapple with certain components of our own existence.
There is a scene toward the end of the season where Bernard Holland orders his lieutenants to cover their eyes and look away from something. He angrily orders them to “unsee” what they just saw. It is impossible to watch this and not think of the Gatekeepers of Knowledge who dictate what we as a society are permitted to see.
Robbins was an outspoken critic of W and then a large supporter of Obama. Needless to say he fell in the anti Trump camp.
When I saw this particular scene, I immediately thought of the government overreach during the Covid lockdowns. What is most interesting is Robbins has recently come out against these lockdowns. I suppose you could look at this as a “broken clock” mentality.
It makes you think about our own existence.
I think we are all conditioned to look at our future as his mythical option, when in reality these things have already been plotted out. Technology has brought us to a rather spooky place. Watching the images of the spectacle in San Francisco…and watching them not even hiding things… We are already there.
As the bones get picked over, we have devolved into merely spectating.