What we’re seeing with Westworld, and likely will continue to see in the weeks ahead, is representative of a larger trend in our culture. Despite living in a postmodern world, we remain children of the Enlightenment—especially when it comes to film.
In other words, the way we interact with art and entertainment is deeply rooted in a modern way of life. We are, as philosopher Charles Taylor points out in A Secular Age, buffered selves operating in a disenchanted world. We are individualistic, rational beings who exist and function as if there were nothing beyond the surface of this world, as if everything could be explained away by logic and reason.
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