Archie Bunker Will Teach You the Socratic Method

For its first seven seasons, from 1971 to 1978, All in the Family was as good as television gets. Expertly written and acted, able to be hilarious and poignant almost simultaneously, it retains its ability to amuse, move and shock us nearly thirty years since it aired its final episode. There was an eighth season before the series transitioned into Archie Bunker’s Place in 1979, but it is the least memorable period of the show, rarely mentioned by fans or surviving cast and crew. The main reason for this is that Archie and Edith Bunker’s daughter Gloria and her husband Mike “Meathead” Stivic left the show at the end of year seven, taking the original premise with them. Without liberal Mike to spar with narrow-minded Archie there was no conflict driving the comedy (or the drama, either), and the once-great show declined precipitously until 1983, when successor Archie Bunker’s Place was mercifully canned.

One of the main reasons the show was so great at its peak was because it showed us characters who had opinions and points of view. When All in the Family debuted audiences had been watching the likes of The Beverly Hillbillies and Bewitched, live-action cartoons, for ten years. By contrast, Archie, Edith, Mike and Gloria seemed like real people, and the best episodes were those that allowed us to see them breathe a bit rather than constantly maneuvering them into set-ups and punchlines. Television has since devolved so drastically that the show is still revolutionary when viewed alongside drivel like The War at Home or According to Jim.

Television isn’t the only element of our culture that’s deteriorated in recent years; political discourse could pick up a thing or two from All in the Family. Archie himself isn’t the best dialectics coach (and so I must confess my titular declaration is false—my deepest apologies), but the series overall demonstrates the importance of discussion and attempting to understand opposing points of view (though not specifically through the Socratic Method—again I am sorry, but I had to title it something). The arguments, particularly those between Archie and Mike, were the soul of the show.

They were funny, of course, but there was more to the constant Archie/Meathead squabbles. As the audience we got to see both sides. The writers obviously took Mike’s side most of the time, since Archie’s positions were almost always convoluted and irrational, but it’s much too simplistic to say the show was liberal and leave it at that. For one thing, Mike wasn’t immune from behaving like an idiot from time to time. He admitted once that he felt feminism was a righteous and necessary cause, just not for his wife; and he felt as insulted as anyone else would have when he lost a coveted teaching job because of affirmative action. He was not the noble, blameless progressive crusader you might expect to see in a lesser series.

Secondly, and most importantly, Archie was given humanity and dimension, wasn’t a crude, bigoted caricature. He was a racist and a sexist and a homophobe and an anti-Semite and a whole slew of other things people ought not to be, but he was also a man who loved his wife, daughter and—despite their differences—son-in-law. That’s a vital lesson for us all to remember: people are more than the worst parts of themselves. Leaving his myriad prejudices aside, Archie’s not really that bad a guy. Insensitive and obnoxious, sure, but he takes up for the ones he loves and spends his life just trying to do what he thinks is right. The world from where Archie stands looks very different than the world Mike sees.

The show depicted Archie and Mike at each other’s throats far more often than not, but they eventually developed a camaraderie despite the constant fighting. Consider the episode when they found themselves locked in the storeroom at Archie’s bar overnight. Over several hours and a bottle of vodka, Archie shared with Mike the story of how he got his childhood nickname (“Shoe-Booty”), and how his father used to beat him and lock him in a closet, “to teach me to do good.” Mike still disagreed with Archie on practically everything, but there was an understanding between them that didn’t exist before.

Understanding the other side is something few people seem interested in doing lately. Terms like “conservative” and “liberal” are brandished like knives. Instead of having frank discussions about issues we disagree on we talk in meaningless code: pro life, pro choice, neocon, the homosexual agenda. We volley euphemisms rather than talk about what we actually mean. Imagine how much more honest, civil and productive civilization would be if more people made an effort to empathize with the opposition. Imagine how much less poisonous and bloody the world would be.

The final episode of the seventh season finds All in the Family at its most human and most optimistic. In a long and wrenching final scene, Mike, Gloria and their young son Joey say good-bye to Archie and Edith and leave for California, where Mike has taken a new teaching job. With only a few moments to spare, Archie and Mike finally let go of their hostility. “Thanks for the good times,” Mike says. “I know there was a lot of fighting, but we did have some good times. You’re like a father to me.” Archie shrugs and says, “Well, you’ve been just like a son to me—you never did anything I told you to do.” Mike hugs Archie and tells him, “I know you always thought I hated you. But I love you.”

Is it too naïve to suggest that it can be that easy for the rest of us? It probably is. But it shouldn’t be.