Why "The Wire" was brilliant - "Only one choice, however, offers the slightest chance for dignity. And dignity matters." - David Simon.

David Simon - "Camus rightly argues that to commit to a just cause against overwhelming odds is absurd. He further argues that not to commit is equally absurd. Only one choice, however, offers the slightest chance for dignity. And dignity matters."

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | David Simon on cutting "The Wire":

"I'm not effecting change in the slightest. On the other hand, I feel as if I've been able to, in my journalism, in storytelling, in television, and in the way I conduct my life, I've been able to speak openly and aggressively about anything that mattered to me.

...No one really gets out unscathed this season... Do you think it's possible to work within any of these institutions and remain honorable?

Bunk, Prez, are OK, maybe. Bubbles, of course, though he is an outsider, struggling only with his own addictions. Sydnor will be fine for a minute or two more, maybe. But no, that's the point of this postindustrial American tragedy. Whatever institution you as an individual commit to will somehow find a way to betray you on "The Wire." Unless of course you're willing to play the game without regard to the effect on others or society as a whole, in which case you might be a judge or the state police superintendent or governor one day. Or, for your loyalty, you still might be cannon fodder -- like Bodie. No guarantees. But only one choice, as Camus pointed out, offers any hope of dignity."

The Wire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

"Simon has said that despite its presentation as a crime drama, the show is 'really about the American city, and about how we live together. It's about how institutions have an effect on individuals, and how 'whether you're a cop, a longshoreman, a drug dealer, a politician, a judge [or] lawyer, you are ultimately compromised and must contend with whatever institution you've committed to.'

...Institutional dysfunction

Simon has identified the organizations featured in the show—the Baltimore Police Department, City Hall, the Baltimore Public School System, the Barksdale drug trafficking operation, The Baltimore Sun and the stevedores' union—as comparable institutions. All are dysfunctional in some way, and the characters are typically betrayed by the institutions that they accept in their lives. ...A central theme developed throughout the show is the struggle between individual desires and subordination to the group's goals.

...Social commentary

Simon described the second season as a meditation on the death of work and the betrayal of the American working class.…[I]t is a deliberate argument that unencumbered capitalism is not a substitute for social policy; that on its own, without a social compact , raw capitalism is destined to serve the few at the expense of the many."

He added that season 3 "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." The third season is also an allegory that draws explicit parallels between the War in Iraq and the national drug prohibition, which in Simon's view has failed in its aims and become a war against America's underclass. This is portrayed by Major Colvin, imparting to Carver his view that policing has been allowed to become a war and thus will never succeed in its aims."