Indecisiveness in a Capitalistic Society: a Critical Analysis of Mr. Robot

Introduction

Mr. Robot follows the journey of a depressed, socially anxious, schizophrenic and morphine addict hacker, Elliot Alderson, hell-bent on trying to bring down the Evil Corp, the largest capitalistic conglomerate in the world, with the help of his alter ego Mr. Robot. While watching the show one might think that Elliot is indecisive due to his mental illness and addiction, and while that is true, there are also moments when his indecisiveness can be seen as “normal.” The viewer usually tends to trail the narrator and protagonist’s story closer than any other, but through a closer look, it is apparent that almost every character in the show experiences moments of indecision. In a society that values efficiency and decisiveness, indecision can appear to be a display of weakness and dysfunctionality, two qualities that our protagonist seems to embody more often than is healthy for him. In Mr. Robot, indecision affects the actions of Elliot and those surrounding him as they navigate a world where decisiveness is valued almost as much as time and money.

Indecisiveness and Social Anxiety: Elliot's Struggle

Indecisiveness is a byproduct of social anxiety. It’s present at the beginning of the first episode where Elliot is in a café, orchestrating the arrest of child pornographer by hacking his illegal content and handing it over to the police. But that was not where he was supposed to be. He was supposed to be at his friend Angela’s birthday party that night. The next day when she asks him why he didn’t show up the audience gets to see the flashback of him arriving outside of the bar where the party was held, looking at Angela socializing with a crowd of people and not going inside. In that instance that he is looking at her through the glass door, there is an expression on his face that reads anxiety over uncertainty. His hesitation and indecision feed off and further propel his fear of interacting and socializing with an unknown group of people. He becomes distressed from it, and even as he makes the decision to leave, he needs to seek out a safe zone, his coping mechanism, hacking. He hacks others’ personal data not only to act as a vigilante but also to cope with the stress of indecisiveness and anxiety; he buries his own vulnerability by exposing others’, which is why he minds other people business more than making decisions about his own life.

Tyrell Wellick's Indecisiveness

Being a decision maker can cause stress and failure. Tyrell Wellick, an employee of the E Corp., portrayed as a generally power-hungry character in this show. He wants to be promoted to the Chief Technology Officer position after Colby’s arrest. Everyone expects competency and decisiveness from a person like him. But under the influence of others’ expectations and his own moral failures, he cracks. In the moment of lunacy, he kills the wife of the new CTO, later constantly runs away from or avoids talking to the detectives. Tyrell shows many signs of decision difficulty which puts him in the red in decision-making meter; he makes unstable choices, he continuously worries about the choices he has made and tends to regret them, he delays talking to detectives even though he knows that at some point he has to. He also displays anxiety and stress and unlike Elliot, his coping mechanism is hurting others, screaming at people. He is almost as paranoid, if not more, as Elliot.

Dissociation and the Creation of Mr. Robot

The lack of decisiveness can lead to dissociation. In episode two Elliot gets run-down on the plan from Mr. Robot, or an ultimatum. Mr. Robot tells him that they’re planning on blowing up a gas tank in order to destroy the E Corp data center. Elliot is absolutely appalled by this proposition and replies with, “I am not killing anyone.” This scene is quite interesting in retrospect with the knowledge that he is Mr. Robot. He is negotiating with himself, disagreeing with himself, and arguing with his very own self. The more Elliot shies from the idea, the more Mr. Robot provokes him: 'Are you a one or a zero? That’s the question you have to ask yourself, are a yes or a no? You’re gonna act, or not?'

What is witnessed in this scene is the underlying reason Mr. Robot was created in the first place. He was created from Elliot’s internal desire to be bold and resolute, a person who is not anxious, a person can make big decisions no matter the cost. Someone who is not indecisive like he is. And that is exactly how Mr. Robot is; he sees the world and choices as “binary,” no in between. In episode six we witness another disagreement between Elliot and Mr. Robot while Elliot tries to find a way to bust Vera out of prison in order to save Shayla. Here Mr. Robot depicts the logical side of him, the side that is not run by emotions. Elliot’s indecision has given birth to this whole different person whose ideologies doesn’t even match up with his own most of the time. His inability to make decisions have caused him to dissociate from his personal identity. Elliot and alter ego constantly clashing with one another creates internal indecision which affects the choices that he makes.

The Socioeconomic Context of Indecisiveness

Indecision shouldn’t always be seen in a negative light, it indicates that the individual is weighing their options and about the consequences that their action might have. In the same episode, Elliot faces another moment of uncertainty even though it only lasts a few seconds. Elliot goes to E Corp's server farm to stop the biggest hack the company has ever seen. After he stops it, he checks the server and finds a message from the hacker behind fsociety that says: “Leave me here.” He is almost about to delete the server when he realizes that he can’t or doesn’t want to delete it, so he leaves it up so only he can access it. This can be seen as Elliot acting indecisive and irrational by deviating from his job of a cybercrime engineer. Alternatively, in light of the glass-half-full rhetoric, it can also be a demonstration of his decisiveness. This decision makes much more sense toward the end of the season when it is revealed that Elliot is Mr. Robot and thus the creator of fsociety. When he makes the choice to not delete fsociety, he is subconsciously protecting the agenda of Mr. Robot, who is an extension of him, and defending against the foreseeable negative consequences on fsociety by not shutting it down.

Indecisiveness is deeply tied to the socioeconomic world. In episode two Elliot talks to Krista, his therapist, about not having control and feeling like life is pointless because everything is predetermined. Elliot suffers from something that many people do in this twenty-first century, the burden of choices. In his dialogue Elliot addresses consumer choices:

Trying to constantly pick between two options. Like your two paintings in the waiting room. Or Coke and Pepsi. McDonald’s or Burger King? Hyundai or Honda? It’s all part of the same blur, right? Just out of focus enough. The illusion of choice. Half of us can’t even pick our own cable, gas, electric. The water we drink, our health insurance. Even if we did, would it matter? You know, if our only option is Blue Cross or Blue Shield, what the f*** is the difference? In fact, aren't they... aren't they the same? No, man... our choices are prepaid for us, long time ago.

There’s a negative connotation attached to the word “capitalism,” if it is uttered in a room full of millennials the reaction would surely not be a pleasant one. But even as this society rejects capitalism, it does so only on the surface. Students may write essays and have discussions about how expensive American colleges are and how it ought to be more affordable, but the truth is, it doesn’t stop them from filing application after application for these same colleges that will surely leave them in debt for the rest of their lives. The show depicts this in Angela and her student loans, and Trenton, a member of the fsociety, whose parents work sixty hours a week and take out loans to complete online degrees. All of them are struggling to pay off debt but they still think America is great. They do this out of their desire to be decisive, they want to be part of collective identity and have a purpose. And if they fail to do that, by being indecisive, they’ll fall behind, they will be seen as a cog in the machine, an empty shell of what could have been. An example of this can be found in episode seven when Romero says he wants to quit fsociety and run a “Bath and Body Works” bottling facility in his back yard. His hesitation, then refusal, doesn’t sit well with Mr. Robot who calls it “a waste of potential.” Romero has already formed a collective identity with the member of society, and his indecision is seen as negligence to his responsibilities. Just like Romero, everyone is so deep into the capitalistic society that there’s no going back, they wanted to “sedated.”

Conclusion

Elliot is overwhelmed by these choices and astounded by the fact the no one else is questioning it. His indecision and paranoia come from the fear of choosing incorrectly, which narrows down the pool of options at which point choice doesn’t remain optional anymore, it becomes mandatory. His indecision makes him negatively conspicuous in a society where everyone must choose and make decisions faster than they can take their next breath. Through the lives of its characters and the phenomenal world making, this show relays an important message: having too many choices is not always a good thing and being indecisive is not always bad, ironically, indecisiveness can lead to the true freedom of choice.       

Works Cited

1. Mr. Robot. Created by Sam Esmail, USA Network, 2015-2019.
2. Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. Penguin Classics, 2003.
3. Giddens, Anthony. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Stanford University Press, 1991.
4. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke University Press, 1991.
5. Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume One. Penguin Classics, 1990.
6. Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1999.