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+Title: "The good place" vs. the ethics of society
+Category: Blog
+Date: 2020-09-20
+Tags: culture, politics, philosophy
+Status: Draft
+
+A few months ago I was bored and I decided to watch "The good place".
+It's a show that had been introduced to me before, and I even watched
+about half of the first season, before I stopped.  It had left me kind
+of cold, and uninterested, and I mostly forget about it's existence.
+But now I was sufficiently bored and so, I watched it again.
+
+I don't really wanna talk about the show from the perspective of art
+critism.  It's quite fun to watch at times, the premise is quirky and
+all the characters have something to set them apart that makes them
+recognisable for someone who's bad at people.  But it's a comedy at
+it's core, and most of the "humour" left me feeling kinda cold.  It
+didn't so much have jokes as much as just vague references at jokes,
+at least for me.
+
+Really, the show wasn't special, funny, or even bad enough for me to
+really care about it too much.  There was however something in the
+text, and subtext of the show that bothered me, that I've kept
+thinking about.  And that's what this post is going to be about.
+
+
+## Good vs Evil
+
+The main premise of the show is centred around the idea of "good
+people" vs "bad people" (the good place vs the bad place).  It mirrors
+heaven and hell, without putting a precise theological term on it,
+because this concept has existed in various faiths throughout the
+ages.
+
+The story follows a woman who gets sent to the good place even though
+she's a horrible person.  Most of the first season is dedicated to
+this mystery.  At first she thinks this is a mistake, until it becomes
+apparent that actually bad people being put into a fake "good place"
+is part of a weird psychological punishment.  When they find out about
+this, their memories get wiped, and it starts over.  This happens over
+and over again.
+
+The show wants to demonstrate that people can get better, seeing as a
+group of "bad people" were sent to a fake "good place", and improved
+as people.  The permanence of "good people" and "bad people" is called
+into question.  Some stuff happens, and the group of four people, and
+one daemon who started taking a liking to them end up on the run
+against the system.
+
+Throughout the plot it becomes apparent that the system is broken in
+less obvious ways too: nobody gets to go to the good place anymore.
+Nobody is good enough.  Too high are the standards of what counts as a
+"good person".  Furthermore, when they manage to get into the good
+place, it becomes clear that eternal bliss with no ups and downs, and
+no end in sight is a just different type of hell.
+
+The show concludes by restructuring the system, making the "bad place"
+not into a torterous nightmare, but a place where your actions and
+emotions are being tested, and questioned.  The idea being that there
+is no such thing as a "bad person", and that everybody could go to the
+"good place", if they accepted that they have flaws, and worked on
+them.
+
+They also mildly restructure the "good place" to have "an end"
+which...is death.  Isn't that nice, everybody gets to live their
+perfect life in heaven, then they die.
+
+
+## Good people, bad people
+
+So that was the plot.  As I said, I'm not gonna criticise the show for
+it's scene-to-scene writing, or even the overarching plot.  It mostly
+tries (and manages) to be wholesome.  Although it has issues
+throughout, that are rooted in a very flawed understanding of
+philosophy and morality.
+
+The moral compass of the show is a character called Chidi, a professor
+of moral philosophy who died and was sent to the "bad place".
+
+Throughout the show he quotes Kant a lot, with some other racist white
+men from history sprinkled in there.  His understanding of philosophy
+isn't very deep, or nuanced.  Either he was supposed to be bad at his
+job, at which point the show didn't really take time to develop this
+point enough to be poignant, or it just demonstrates that the show was
+written by someone with basically no knowledge in this field.
+
+I argue that the way that "the good place" portraits philosophy and
+moral choices in philosophical frameworks is very representative of
+how our society works, and how people think about "good vs bad".
+
+But let's back up a bit.  For most of watching the show (if you did/
+will) the thought it is trying the hardest to communicate is "there's
+no bad people", "hell is a bad concept", etc.  This becomes pretty
+obvious.  However, the larger system of afterlife remains pretty much
+entirely un-examined.  Why is there an afterlife, and why do we need
+one, these are questions the show never asks, or attepmts to answer.
+
+Any critism against the system is phrased in a coy way, that will lead
+to reform of it, not abolishment.