Robin James: The Other Secret Twist: On the Political Philosophy of The Good Place (LA Review of Books)
Eleanor recognizes that only in The Bad Place would people be forced to treat others as disposable…so they must be in The Bad Place. And when she makes decisions on the assumption that she isn’t in an ideal world, this throws a wrench in Michael’s plan. He has to reboot that world because Eleanor’s behavior has become incompatible with it. Eventually (in “Team Cockroach” S2E4) Michael joins them, realizing that he needs their help if he himself is to escape the ultimately punitive and carceral regime of which he is a part. That’s what the show spends the rest of season 2 doing: season 2 is about mostly white women and people of color (and one white male accomplice who literally is a mostly(?) reformed demon…plus Janet, who I’ll get to later) collectively practicing philosophy on the assumption that the world they live in is not in fact equal but designed to harm and oppress them.
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Beginning from the assumption that everyone’s on more or less an equal playing field and thus entitled to equal weight in the conversation (and that people generally want to do the right thing, which Mills calls the assumption of “strict compliance”), this is the same “both sides” liberalism that Mills critiques as ideal theory. Despite what Schur tells us the show’s message is, season 2 shows us a very different message, one about the importance of beginning from the assumption that you—especially if you are a white woman, person of color, or non-human person—are in The Bad Place. And you’re there not because of anything you did, but because White Men engineered it that way for their benefit.
