Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
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“Do you feel like I knew the whole time and just kept doing it?”
✏️ Damien lindelof says this when asked about his toxic work environment 🔗 View Highlight
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I gave him a variation of an answer I have given—or wanted to give—to powerful people many times: I think he knew enough and chose not to do anything about it. But in our culture, phrases like “I didn’t know,” “there was so much going on,” and “mistakes were made” are common ways to frame terrible patterns of behavior, many of which are the result of terrible decisions, not the work of the disembodied hand of fate. Especially if the person at the center of those “mistakes” is a high-status individual, a lot of hedges and rationales are rolled out, and they are often couched in the passive voice.
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Lindelof and Cuse were adults when the show began, and both had been in the industry for years. They were the two people within that workplace who had power, and they bear the responsibility for the culture you read about here—one that endured for six seasons. Nothing that happens consistently across the making of more than 100 episodes of television happens by accident. Whether or not Lindelof and Cuse were present for every damaging incident, the workplace environment at Lost was created, rewarded, and reinforced by them.
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I would trade every person who told you that I was talented—I would rather they said I was untalented but decent, rather than a talented monster.” That is a false binary: People can be talented and decent. Lindelof’s framing is one I encounter a lot, and it belies, or at least hints at, the fundamental belief that if you’re a genius, you’re more or less required to be a monster.