Westworld and The Conservative Canon: The Case of Rehoboam

Abstract

This paper problematizes in the light of a conservative canon the themes of humanity’s planning and the prevention of its collapse represented in the third season of the HBO series Westworld (2016-). In particular, the Rehoboam system is analyzed from the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre, and the Founding Fathers of the United States. We also focus in the conservative peculiarities of such a system and the nature of the imagined social order required to end poverty, conflict and instability in a future world. Through a content analysis of the eight episodes of the season, it is argued that Rehoboam is the culminating machine of the counterrevolution.