Is good stupid?
Eleanor: Yep.
Gwendolyn: OK! No follow up questions.
(Season 3, episode 10)
There are various stereotypes of good people. Sometimes they are pretty smug about their goodness. Occasionally they are other worldly, living on mountain tops in bare feet or sandals, subsisting on lentils and radishes. They can also be overly trusting and totally naive about life – or to put it another way, they are idiots.
Michael: Doors were unlocked, no security. I mean, it makes sense, right? They’re good, so they’re stupid and trusting.
(Series 2, episode 6)
This is reminiscent of a British science fiction comedy called Red Dwarf. In one episode, Demons and Angels, there is an accident with a machine that extracts the best and worst aspects of something, which causes two duplicates of the crew to appear – one “divine” and the other twisted and evil. The good version wear robes and sandals, and spend their time meditating and doing interpretive dance about eternal truth. When one of them is attacked with a knife, he apologises for getting blood on it before collapsing, while another crew member kindly offers the attacker a fresh, unstained knife.
The problem with associating goodness and stupidity is that it goes against a basic premise of The Good Place: that it is desirable to become better people. Who wants to be stupid, if that’s the cost of being good?
The “goodest” person to ever live was Jesus, and he was incredibly intelligent. He regularly silenced his opponents with just a few words. For example, when some religious zealots dragged an adulterous woman in front of him and tried to trap him into either stoning her (illegal under Roman rule) or letting her go free (apparently breaking the Law of Moses), he just said, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.” Her accusers dropped their stones and walked away without a word.
Jesus wasn’t a doormat either. He did say “love your enemies,” “do good to those who hate you” and “turn the other cheek,” but he wasn’t talking about having no will of your own and letting people walk all over you. It was about voluntary love and not allowing someone else to determine your reaction to them, which he demonstrated when he was crucified. In contrast to the servile attitude of Doug Forcett:
Doug: What can I do for you now? Would you like to move in, permanently? Or would either of you like any more water – or one of my kidneys?
(Series 3, episode 8)
Representing good as stupid could be a way of saying that our best selves are not just “good,” but a mixture of good and bad, and that our negative aspects are an essential part of us. That removing all of our flaws would make us less of a person: “If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels” (Tennesse Williams).
One problem with the idea that a person’s flaws are an intrinsic part of them is that it doesn’t seem to apply when their faults affect you personally. Say a drunk driver runs over your child. No one ever says, “Well, he wouldn’t be the Peter we know and love if he didn’t get drunk and recklessly kill someone occasionally. That’s just how he is, and we wouldn’t want him any other way.”
Admittedly that’s an extreme example, so how about a lesser flaw: a friend who tends to be selfish. Just like Eleanor in The Good Place, it would benefit them and everyone around them if they were able to grow in that area and become less self centred and more aware of others. Eleanor’s selfishness wasn’t something that “made her her,” it actually got in the way of her being her best self.
There can be a lot of beauty in broken people, but the beauty is in spite of the brokenness, not because of it. We were created in the image of God, and that image is certainly still there, even if it gets covered up sometimes.
Or maybe the writers of The Good Place are just having fun parodying some common images of what a “good person” really is. Yeah. That’s probably it.
Next: What is good anyway? Utilitarianism, consequences and the little voice.
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