About The Good Place: When I heard Kristin Bell explaining the premise in an interview near the show's beginning, it sounded hateful to me. I didn't watch until just before the last season, and I would suggest not giving up in disgust (if you were inclined that way) until you've reached the turnaround clarification near the end of the first season.
About ignorance and bliss: I've often heard people say that people who don't/won't know are happier than those who know about the violences and weaknesses of the world, its people, and themselves. Maybe that's true-- I don't think it's simple to know the state of another's happiness. But for what it's worth, people who choose to remain unknowing or uncaring seem to put a good deal of work into maintaining that state, and it doesn't seem to agree with their tempers. Many-- not all-- of them tend to strike me as touchy and anxious. And they all seem to limit what they make contact with very sharply. Now, some seem to do the limitation on a pretext of purity or quality, and they don't seem so directly distressed. But they don't strike me as happy, either. More as smug or disdainful, not states I associate with joy....
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When I heard Kristin Bell explaining the premise in an interview near the show's beginning, it sounded hateful to me. I didn't watch until just before the last season, and I would suggest not giving up in disgust (if you were inclined that way) until you've reached the turnaround clarification near the end of the first season.
About ignorance and bliss:
I've often heard people say that people who don't/won't know are happier than those who know about the violences and weaknesses of the world, its people, and themselves. Maybe that's true-- I don't think it's simple to know the state of another's happiness. But for what it's worth, people who choose to remain unknowing or uncaring seem to put a good deal of work into maintaining that state, and it doesn't seem to agree with their tempers. Many-- not all-- of them tend to strike me as touchy and anxious. And they all seem to limit what they make contact with very sharply. Now, some seem to do the limitation on a pretext of purity or quality, and they don't seem so directly distressed. But they don't strike me as happy, either. More as smug or disdainful, not states I associate with joy....