Snitches Get Stitches

DL and Krispin talk about S1 E8 titled “Most Improved Player.” We talk about how systems maintain the status quo, and the ethics of transparency in different contexts. And also, surprisingly, about the MCU a little bit.

Krispin mentions the On God’s Campus, a podcast about how religious exemptions have allowed Christian colleges to ban interracial relationships and LGBGTQIA+ students and staff.

Krispin mentions also one of his favorite books, Gentler God by Doug Frank

We use the audio from The Good Place Podcast.

Leave us a voicemail at (503) 912-4130 or send a voice memo to propheticimaginationstation@gmaill.com.

You can Join our patreon comamunity to support this podcast and gain access to two extra episodes each month, our facebook community, as well as the backlog of patreon-only episodes covering evangelical media, spiritual abuse, and more.

You can follow The Bad Place Podcast on Twitter and Instagram. You can follow Krispin on Instagram here and Danielle on Instagram here. 

TRANSCRIPT

Ep8

Krispin: All right. Welcome.

DL: Everything is fine. Right?

Krispin: Everything. Welcome. Everything is fine.

DL: That's how episode 8 starts off. Back in that room with the huge green letters that say, Welcome. Everything is fine. And it's so jarring, both at this point in the season and because of where our life is at right now.

Right?

Krispin: Yes. Right. Because nothing is fine.

DL: Right? Everything is awful. Really.

Krispin: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, what? What are you feeling right now?

DL: Well, I'm just, I'm thinking about Eleanor. Huh. So, to backtrack, we're talking about Season 1, Episode 8 of The Good Place. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to hell.

And it's titled

Krispin: Most Improved Player

DL: Most Improved Player. And it's, this episode starts off with Eleanor back in... Michael's office, or at least the entryway where it says, welcome, everything is fine, but she has just confessed, right, that she doesn't belong in the bad place. [00:01:00] So she's in, like, internal torment and agony, and that starts off this episode.

Krispin: Right. Yes. And so, yeah, this is a significant episode really where they're trying to figure out, like, does Eleanor belong?

DL: Well, no. They already know she doesn't belong. Yes. Should she be Kicked out to the bad place or not. Right. Yes. It's really the question, right? Mm

Krispin: hmm So should we start with the summary before we get too far into it?

DL:Yeah, is there something you wanted to say though about your personal mental health coming into this episode?

Krispin: There's just a lot, lot, lot going on, personally for us, but also globally, that's just

DL: really impactful. And The Good Place is actually a really incredible show, I think, to watch and be thinking about as like global world events happen around us, but we will get into that.

Anywho. Yes. Okay, but should we let Mark Evan Jackson from the official Good Place podcast give us a recap [00:02:00] of this episode?

Krispin: Yes, here we go.

I’m Marc Evan Jackson. Elanor tells a damaging story from her past, which makes Michael summon Trevor from the bad place. Chidi convinces Michael to give Eleanor another chance. Janet recovers from being murdered, but is still working out a few kinks. We also meet real Eleanor. Alright, good, succinct summary. That was a great summary.

Was there anything in particular that you feel like was missed?

DL: Yeah, I think sort of the overall theme of Michael testing everyone and he has this, like, glowing cube that's basically a lie detector.

Krispin: It's like a Tesseract that detects lies.

DL: Okay sure.

Krispin: Not that I'm a Super Marvel person, but it's a glowing cube.

[00:03:00]

DL:

To me it seemed more like something out of like a Mario game, because of the noises it made or whatever. Oh, right. Huh. Yeah, that's true. But that, so that ups the ante a bit, right? Nobody can lie to Michael. When they go into his office and he questions them about who killed Janet, do you think we should allow Eleanor to stay or not?

Like. The stakes are, we can't lie. This is an all knowing cube, I guess,

Krispin: you know? I mean, even Michael lies at one point, because he tells Sahani, you've been very helpful, and then it just blinks red, which means that he's lying, which I assume is not planned by him. I assume that it just is a lie detector.

DL: Exactly.

Krispin: So, yeah, that's basically the summary of the, er, that's basically the episode is just people sitting in, in Michael's office and, with this lie detector, or preparing to go in with this lie detector. Yeah. Right. And then basically, one thing is we meet [00:04:00] Trevor, which is Adam Scott's character, which is great.

Who's a demon. Huh. And... And basically we also meet Eleanor, the real Eleanor that was supposed to be in the good place, at least according to this point in the show. And so we see Eleanor, who is suffering in hell, meets Eleanor, who is in heaven. Right. Which I think is really important to point out.

DL: And I guess we should, we can go into this in the Watch Rewatch, but I definitely want to talk about the real Eleanor. Okay. Because that was a, an interesting point for me.

Krispin: Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's an important, like, it's like just 10 seconds right at the end, but obviously, like this huge ethical thing of like, well, if we're saving Eleanor from, to keep her in the good place, then that means that.

The real Eleanor is suffering in the bad place

DL: This is an ethical question that you're always thinking about, which I love! It's definitely a part of it, for sure.

Krispin: Yeah on your first watch in 2016, what do you remember?

DL: [00:05:00] Oh, just being stressed out. You know what I mean? Like, so stressed out.

And I think this is another episode where I felt some fatigue of like, there's just always going to be something bad happening and at the last second... You know, Eleanor was even on the train to the bad place. It started rolling off and then she confesses and then Michael, you know, So I was a little bit like how long can this keep going like this tension of Eleanor and going to the bad place?

I think there's a part of me that was just like you guys Just get over it, right?

Krispin: I felt that same impatience of like, sometimes I watch shows and I'm like, I really want to just know where this is going. I'm going to skip ahead 25 minutes to see what happens. I might go back. I might not. I know you do the same thing with books that you've been known to like, and this is what it feels like.

It almost like it's important, but it also, I felt my impatience of like, this almost feels like sitting through a boring staff meeting in a way. It wasn't boring

DL: though. Eleanor's backstory was very funny and engaging, and I think Ted Danson finally gets to shine. You know, in this episode, really shine.

I'm just saying when I first watched it, and I didn't know it was coming, it was stressful. Mm hmm. And a little bit like, okay, what, come on, let's, come on,

Krispin: you know? Right. Yeah, definitely. I remember feeling really impacted by Michael's switch, right? He's been this nice, happy guy, I mean, we talked a bit about this in the last episode, when he tells Tahani, I am blaming you, but we see this, like, full force, like, Eleanor is trying to be like, we're friends, right?

Like, trying to make it nice. And Michael's just like, no, I'm just mad at you and I'm frustrated.

DL: And then the way he just calls Trevor the demon so quickly, right in front of Eleanor. It was awful. You know, you're like, this is not a good dude.

Krispin: And we've, and we've talked about, like, this [00:07:00] parallel with, like, a narcissistic pastor or leader.

DL: Yeah, Michael, the  megachurch pastor. Yes. And this really fits, right? Like, I'm happy, I'm good. But, like, the moment, like, you're the problem, like, flip switch. You're out. Oh, yeah. Yes. Totally. So, I really.

DL: Very megachurch pastor of him. It's true.

Krispin: Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So. On the rewatch, what stood out to you?

DL: Well, so much. The thing that comes up for me over and over again is watching how Tahani responds. And so, I thought she was interesting in this episode because she was just like, Get Eleanor out of here. Like, she doesn't deserve to be here and she actually makes it worse for those of us who do deserve, you know?

How does that work? Like, so Tahani is still struggling with, like, this is a good system. This all makes sense. This is exactly what I deserve and this outsider's ruining all of it, [00:08:00] you know? Which, we as the viewers know, this is going to come back to haunt her since she also has, It's a quote unquote soulmate who is hiding his identity, you know, like she's saying this about Eleanor.

It's like, well, she's going to say, have to say that about Jason, you know, like we all know, but so she looks like. A total asshole Uhhuh, if I'm being honest, Uhhuh, right? Right. Yes. And then by the end, she sort of comes around, but not as much as you would hope, in a way. Right? Yes. You know? Mm-Hmm. . And it's really Eleanor, the one who is just making these gigantic leaps and bounds of like caring for other people.

Right.

Krispin: It's like are very different from her. Really? Yeah. It's like she's really improved.

DL: Oh my God. It's the most improved . It's like Eleanor's the most improved and Tahani is not the most improved. Right. You know? Mm-Hmm. . So that stood out to me and then. I was sort of surprised, because I've obviously been thinking about this show and watched all four seasons I was surprised at the end, the introduction of the real, quote unquote, the real [00:09:00] Eleanor.

Oh my god, it just made my stomach drop, like, what an ethical conundrum to think about. It's like, you know, I feel like, like a, clutching my head, like a moral philosopher's like, No, this changes everything. I can't be happy. You know, like, I can't be happy because now I have to think about this other person and their suffering.

Krispin: Yes. Hey, that phrase sounds familiar.

DL: Oh, I can't be happy? I can't be happy because I have to think about someone else's suffering. Oh, does that sound familiar? Yeah.

Krispin: For me in the rewatch, I really focused on the flashback which is basically this part where Eleanor has a roommate who's, like, not a great person, but then Eleanor just, like, makes these, like, rips her dress, like, doesn't tell her, makes t shirts about her, like, also is not a good friend.

And what really stood out to me there is that we know You know, knowing this whole thing, we know that everybody is in the [00:10:00] bad place and everyone failed to meet good place standards. But what's unique about Eleanor is that she is consciously making bad decisions, right? Even, like, Jason doesn't consciously make bad decisions.

He, like, he doesn't go against his conscience, right? And so what really stood out to me was this piece of You know, “this focus on she's bad because she conscious, went against her conscious, made these bad decisions, did things she knew was wrong.” And I was thinking, this is just because of stuff I've been reading and listening to lately, about the idea of your conscience being the best determiner of what is right. I've been listening to this podcast called On God's Campus which is related to the Straight White American Jesus podcast, and they're looking at the religious exemptions. So basically, schools like we went to, Bible colleges, can say like, because of our [00:11:00] conscience, we are going to not admit queer students.

You know, and this actually started. These laws started 60s, 70s, 80s, I'm not sure, with also banning interracial marriage because of our conscience. And so I'm thinking about how whiteness, it really puts this emphasis on like, if you know something is wrong and you do it, then it's wrong. But if it's what you think is the right thing to do, and you do it, then you're good.

Yeah. You know, so I don't know, that just really stood out to me. I want to give a shout out to that podcast. It's just launching. Yeah. It's really intense, but

DL: yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think, yeah, I think this episode actually brings up so many issues. I know.

Krispin: I'm like, we could talk about, I told you, I was like, I'm not even going to talk about the main ethical question, but that really stood out to me that, you know, in white evangelicalism.

It is like, yeah, your intent is what's important and not your impact.

DL: Yeah. So for me, I would sum it up and this can, I think this could go [00:12:00] into our conversation on what is the main ethical question. I'm not sure it's, I do think it's an ethical question. For me, this episode and what you're saying, it brings up this point that all of this discussion about a, like a personal ethic, like it means nothing if you don't.

Look at the systems that are designing those ethics and who's actually in control and what's actually going on and I think this episode in particular is such a good example of like how we can sort of become the frog in a boiling pot of water and just learn to accept a lot of deeply unethical things while thinking we are deeply ethical people.

And so I think this episode does such a good job of sort of talking about the personal versus the systemic and how the systemic can change so much of what we actually end up doing and believing.

Krispin: Does that make sense? Yeah. Oh yeah, totally. And I recognize like me [00:13:00] bringing this up is sort of Foreshadowing what we will talk about later in the series or what comes up later, but I just thought that was so interesting to me that this focus on like, Eleanor is bad because she does the things she know is bad.

But yeah, so many ways that we harm people, even if we're thinking, even if we think we're doing the right thing. Yeah, totally. Not to be like hopeless about it, but I just think it. Yeah. I really appreciate what you said about the systemic part. Favorite things about the episode?

DL: Oh! Janet was amazing in this episode.

All her cacti that was really good. I did love seeing Ted Danson be a little evil. Adam Scott as like a smarmy demon.

Krispin: I know, and the things that he says. It's so good. He calls her sweetheart. Yeah. He says you should smile more. It's so good. They were obviously going after, like... Certain demographic of people.

DL: Toxic masculinity? Mm hmm. It was, yeah, so that was just all a delight. [00:14:00]

Krispin: hmm. One of my favorite things was when Tahani finds out that Eleanor is faking and Tahani says, she pretended to be my friend when I really needed one. Like this, I don't know, it just cracked me up because she's like mad, but she's also sort of like, but also like it really meant a lot to me, so I appreciated just like her You know, kind of mixed emotions there.

I love when Jason tells Eleanor, like, I'll go in and tell Michael that you're, you have a dope soul and hella ethics.

DL: Hella ethics. I love that.

Krispin: I also loved that so much of The Bad Place revolves around The Bachelor. So, Michael asks, like, basically, did you watch The Bachelor or post about it on social media as, like, an indication of whether or not you belong in the good place?

And then Adam Scott's character, Trevor, later says, like, we gotta get back to the bad place. We gotta watch The

DL: [00:15:00] Bachelor. There's so many drive bys on The Bachelor franchise, which I loved. Yeah, Michael does this whole bad place questionnaire, were you, like, taking it along with Eleanor? Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yep. Yep, scored. Any? I scored a zero, too. So, I deserve to be in the good place, and I've always secretly thought this about myself, and now it clinches it, because I do think the Bachelor or Bachelorette franchise is a symptom of a devolving culture, so, yeah, and I'm such a good person for thinking that, you know what I mean?

I'm like so counter cultural for like not watching The Bachelor. I'm like so cool. Exactly. I have hella ethics.

Krispin: Yeah. I was like, is it really bad?

DL: Some of us watch shows like Love is Blind in this relationship. Not me. I mean, I would never. Because Love is Blind is like The Bachelor, but like times 10 as far as bad ethics goes.

But you know what I mean? I would never. But some

Krispin: people... I don't even know how to respond to this.

[00:16:00] It helps me be better at my job as a couples therapist. I love watching it. And You love drama. No, I love You love a little drama. I love thinking about, like, what are, what is going on here? What is going on in all this chaos

DL: in these relationships? Remember? I used to get involved in lots of, like, drama online and stuff, and you loved hearing me talk about it.

Now I'm trying to be a better person, and now you're like, I gotta watch Love is Blind, gotta get my drama

Krispin: fix. That's what Enneagram Nines are all about, is like, I don't want to be in the drama, but I want a little bit of that spice of life.

DL: I think it's very cute. Thank you, and for your birthday! I did watch the first episode of Love is Blind just for you, right?

Right. Anywho, you're in the bad place, I'm in the good place, now where are we at?

Krispin: You were throwing me under the bus for watching reality TV, but now we can move on to the Bad Place segment.

DL: Wow. I did not throw you under the bus. I'm just like an ethical, honest person. You know what I mean? So.

Krispin: You should have [00:17:00] protected me.

The way that she, that Eleanor protected Chidi by not telling Michael that Chidi killed Janet. Murdered Janet. I love that they just keep on using that term.

DL: Murder. Yeah, that's pretty great. Okay, what do you think is the big ethical question? In this episode, Krispin.

Krispin: I think that it has a lot to do with the way that the ethical imperative of honesty shifts with the context.

I know that sounds very abstract, but I do think that there's this element of, like, they're having to be honest to Michael, but Michael's not a good actor in this system, right? So, honesty is an is a ethical good, but like I think about snitches get stitches. Like, think about that piece, right? Like, if there are people that are being harmed by your dishonesty, because this also comes up in different systems, right?

Where it's like, [00:18:00] say abuse is happening and secrets are kept. I think that is a different context than, like, You were using an illegal drug and you are part of a government system that oppresses people at higher rates depending on their race if they use certain drugs. Okay. So, but I know that you have a lot of thoughts on this.

DL: I want to hear your thoughts. I do. I want you to make that a little more concrete because I think both of us coming out of white evangelicalism, right, there's some there's just so many similarities, right, to the good place, being born into this world where basically we're told, welcome, everything is fine here's the authorities you can trust, and then it becomes this long, long lifelong journey of trying to police yourself, right, to be good within the framework of white evangelicalism.

And, and all of us. who were born into that system or maybe you're born into a different sort of high control scenario system, [00:19:00] like, have this long, untangling journey of figuring out, oh, the people who told us they were good and perfect and godly, like, were not acting in good faith most of the time, right?

And then we have to decide what to do that. So I just want you to think about if you have Some more thoughts about making that a little bit more personal and concrete because I think it can get into trouble when we just are abstract about it.

Krispin: Yes. Okay. I mean, I made it succinct 'cause I have too many thoughts about it.

Mm-Hmm. . And I want to give a trigger warning here. Mm-Hmm. , because I'm thinking about. Like sexual abuse, for example, so I'm going to give a trigger warning on that because I've been a part of a system before where I was like, we need to talk about this person is a perpetrator. And what they said was like, no, that is that person's information that they have.

Like, it would be bad for me to be honest on their behalf. And I think this shows up in a lot of abusive systems, right? Like, there's this [00:20:00] element of, like, yes, you, kind of talking out of both sides of your mouth, yes, you need to confess everything, but also when it comes to people that are abusive, like, well, they have their own personal individual protection or their relationship with God, or they need to just confess to the people they harm.

No one else needs to know about it. And I'm sure people listening are like, Oh, yeah, I know about this dynamic. So on the one hand, I want to say that there is for those that have harmed others and, and continue to have a potential harm, need to be honest, need to be transparent. But then when you flip the power dynamics a lot of times in, say, churches or other settings, Right?

Like you are expected to volunteer information. I think about this scene in the, in the thing where Eleanor is like, okay, I'm going to tell you this thing about me, but you can't judge me because it makes me look bad. And Michael says, that's the whole point of this is we are judging you. [00:21:00]And I think, again, in churches, like, it's this expectation of like, you need to be transparent, you need to be totally honest, to be a good person, but we are going to use that against you.

We are going to try to correct your behavior, or we're going to make you feel bad, or we're going to control you in some way. And so, and I even think about some of the, brainwashing research you've talked about, right? Where confession is actually a way to keep people in cults often. Yeah.

DL: Okay, I'm so glad you talked about that because I think, it's hard for me to know, like, if, so if people didn't grow up within white evangelicalism, right?

I'm, I'm, I'm just curious, like, if they have. any sort of similarities to what you and I did. So you and I grew up in a system where, like, the premise of the show The Good Place makes so much sense to us because we were told from birth there was an all knowing, all seeing God who could read our thoughts, who knew what was in our hearts, and wanted to Wanted us [00:22:00] to conform 100 percent at all times. I mean to that deity.

Krispin: Can I just jump in and say like as a teenager? I was so scared Yeah, that the Holy Spirit was going to tell other people in my life what I was doing like that I was yeah, I keep on going back to porn and

DL: That's how they controlled right teenagers

Krispin: Right. Yeah, I was like, I'm afraid that God is going to tell someone, an adult in my life, that I'm looking at porn because that is what God does.

God Reveals the truth. Reveals the truth and makes sure that you are perfect And if you're not then you have to feel shame and you're gonna be disciplined for it.

DL: Yeah So then that fear probably drove you to try and police yourself and then sometimes it would cause you to confess to people, which would feel awful, but then you sort of get some relief and then you'd feel even closer to the group and you'd commit even harder to try and live up to the ideals of the group and you just perpetuate, perpetuate, perpetuate.

So, you know, this is how we grew [00:23:00] up. I think there's some elements of this outside of religion. I just think like, American culture can be pretty totalitarian, like, everything here is great, we're the greatest country in the world, we deserve to control things happening in the Middle East, for instance, we deserve you know, we deserve to fund wars everywhere and all this stuff.

So I think just Americans in general probably have a lot of that stuff to unpack, but people like us who grew up in white evangelicalism, it's even more so. And so I thought a bit in this episode about Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, which, you know, Jeremy Bentham, which they've talked about in this show, utilitarianism and like the greatest happiness principle and all that stuff.

Well, he became very passionate with like, you know, making a society. In a way where it's easier for people to do good, you know, to quote Peter Morin, but he came up with this idea of a [00:24:00]prison, right, where you have this, like, solitary tower in the middle and then surrounding it in a circle, almost like a coliseum type thing, there's like a cell with the bars are open, and so you can incarcerate hundreds and hundreds of people, like, in a, in a circle, and then in the middle, right, there's this Tower and you can just have one guard at the top of the tower and he can just turn from direction, direction and he can see everybody at any moment.

And so Jeremy Bentham's like, see, this will be great. We can lock up tons of people and only need to employ like one guard, right? Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . And then eventually the prisoners will get so used to. Like, I could be watched at any time, they will just police themselves, and they will just behave, because they never know if they're being watched or not, and if you never know, but there's always the threat of it, you eventually start to police yourself, right?

And, and then you internalize it, and so Jeremy Vantham's like, well this is great, like, we can just do that to a lot of people, and [00:25:00] anyways, what does that make you think about?

Krispin: two things. Yeah. One is, I did not know that the person that came up with utilitarianism also came up with that prison system.

Because I know about this prison system from the book Gentler God Doug Frank talks about this. Yeah. Two, if you are a moral philosopher that designs prisons, Right. You are in the bad place.

DL: Well, I'm saying, but it is a sort of logical conclusion, because you have to deal with, well, what do we do with people who are not...

Good. Who are not acting ethically. What do we, you know, so I'm like, I think it is complicated, but his idea, which he thought was so genius, right? I think most of us in this day and age can be like oh, like that actually is an element of like the constant state of surveillance leads people to police themselves.

And some people are like, yes, that's what we need and that's what we have to have for a society to function. And I'm saying. No, I no longer agree with that, even though that's [00:26:00] what I was born into and literally our Panopticon, the prison guard for us was God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit, you know, we're so lucky we had the Trinity.

We had three all seeing guards at all times, right? You know?

Krispin: Yeah, no, totally. I mean, I it took me forever to figure out what I thought was The Holy Spirit was just my critical self, you know and yeah, that was just formed early in childhood. It's like, you have to be good. If you're doing something bad, then you feel bad.

DL: Yeah, so that's what I thought about and I thought about just growing up under the constant Threat of surveillance and how that has impacted my life and how It kind of makes sense that I've literally developed obsessive thinking and you know have a clinical disorder now but honestly, it's just like a logical conclusion to being raised under that level of surveillance.

Now, mine was even more exacerbated because both of my parents were fully into this idea, they [00:27:00] use religion and God to control me. And, and I don't think my story is that dissimilar, but I do know most people had other spheres of their life where they were not always operating under that. Now, that did not happen for me because I was homeschooled, isolated, all that stuff.

So, I've been somebody who's been living under constant surveillance and you know, even brought that into my mind.

Krispin: Well, and I think you're actually bringing up something, not, I'm not wanting to compare or saying one way is worse, better or worse, but the function of it is that me going to public school, God was watching me at school when my parents couldn't be.

Right.

DL: So there's that. Yeah. So I just think it's interesting. You know, we, this again, it doesn't, isn't just related to religion, but I just be curious for people to sort of spend some time thinking about that relationship to the constant surveillance. Somebody is always watching you to see if you're good or not.

And that's the central premise of The Good Place. And the way the [00:28:00] show is set up was we never have time. And the characters never have time to interrogate the whole setup being really, really, really bad. Does that make sense?

Krispin: Right, yeah. And that's what I was thinking about is that when you're under this critical eye all the time, you don't have

DL: That you're told is good.

Krispin: Yes. A good judge.

DL: Right. So everybody's believing Michael, that he is an angel and a great judge. And whoever is tallying up the points, they're doing it right. So yes, everybody has that assumption.

Krispin: Right, yeah. And you don't have that moment to stop and ask like, Wait, this is This is good according to one person or a group of people that, you know, have their own biases, that have their own whatever, right, that they've decided what this is good.

But you don't, like, growing up in evangelicalism, you never get a chance to, like, stop and question that, right? Because that would be questioning God. Exactly.

DL: So, You know, I publicly de-converted from Christianity this past year and people were very shocked and whatever, but I think, for me, it is so tied to this [00:29:00] concept of, I was told by human beings who had ulterior motives to protect whiteness, to protect conservative values, to protect and privilege their religion above all others, you know, in a supposedly democratic and pluralistic society, and their vision of God, right, reflected them and their values.

So, Yeah, I'm going to fucking deconvert from that, you know what I mean? And again, I talk about this all the time, people are always so upset that I've also done away with Jesus because Jesus was the guard in the Panopticon, okay? That's who he was and that's why I reject it. Yeah. Wholeheartedly.

Krispin: Mm hmm.

Yeah. Totally. It's funny because I'm like, I feel like that, I mean, yeah, I feel like that is also my experience. Yeah. Like that was all the time, like, Jesus, am I okay? Am I

DL: okay? Am I okay? Am I okay? And what's interesting is this show does give us some seeds of hope just looking at [00:30:00] Eleanor can change. Like, we actually within us, not because of some outside guard or whatever, but because of who we want to be and wanting to be in line with our values and being changed by seeing how our actions impact other people can change, can make choices to change direction, change how we interact with people based off of the information we are able to absorb about another person's suffering and how our actions can and do impact them.

Mm hmm. And that's kind of where I'm at now. I think that's like a humanitarian you know, outlook.

Krispin: Right. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It's, there is this aspect of even just thinking about the four of them, right? Like you are impacted by other people and together in a community you determine like what is healthy, what works well for us.

Yeah. It's funny. We are at the, you might have religious trauma segment, but we've been talking about it all along, and I have multiple things to say about religious trauma in this [00:31:00] episode. One is Michael asking this questionnaire made me think about what I heard my whole life, which was when you get to heaven, you're going to be asked one question, right?

Michael asked multiple questions, so he, he messed it up. You know, that one question is like, Did you put your faith in Jesus? Yeah. So it made me think about that.

But it also reminded me of those like evangelism like, you know, sharing the gospel with people, things where you walk them through, like, “have you done this?” Have you done like, Oh, look, you broke one of the 10 commandments.

DL: You've done those questionnaires with people?

Krispin: No, but I've watched Kirk Cameron do it on YouTube once with people.

DL: I think Campus Crusade did that.

Krispin: Yeah, I mean, I remember that being like a, I don't know if I ever did it, but I remember being trained in it.

DL: Okay. So one of the most annoying things and Trust me, there's like a billion of them, about evangelicals, is that they will say shit like that, like, all, God's [00:32:00] just gonna ask you one question, one question, I'm like, then why the hell did you spend so much energy, like, policing everything I read, thought, did, said, how many times I went to church, if I was witnessing it, like, You know what I mean?

They actually care about every little thing and you will definitely get told if you are not matching up. Like, and this still exists to this day. I'm almost 40, right? Christians who still, I don't know why, if they're, if they're conserving the Christian and they're still like in my life in some way, they, they feel so much of a right to nitpick me and what I'm doing.

And that's just like so astonishing to me, but that's just, you know, how it goes in that world. And so in that. worldview, right? Not only are you getting people to police themselves, but you're getting them to police each other. All the prisoners become guards. And that is what happens in white evangelicalism.

I think we're seeing, I think we see it in The Good Place, right? Tahani being like, we need to get Eleanor out of here. [00:33:00] Make this the place that we're all supposed to be. Like, Tahani's acting like a guard at that point. Like, Tahani's acting like a demon. She doesn't know it because she thinks she's acting like an angel.

And I'm just like, that's what. More of us who've been born into these systems of surveillance need to spend some time thinking about are you actually Acting like a guard.

Krispin: I'm so glad you brought that up because that was the other thing I wanted to talk about We we talked about how a couple of episodes back in our patreon And, and these dynamics of, like, how do you make yourself comfortable with this idea of hell.

And we see Tahani trying to do that. So, Michael asks Tahani, like, should Eleanor remain here or not? And Tahani's like, well, some of us deserve to be here. And he's like, okay, so you're saying she should go to hell. And Tahani's like, I'm not saying that she should go to the bad place, I'm just saying that she doesn't fit the criteria.

Oh,

DL: I mean, that whole scene was like a [00:34:00] masterclass, right? Yes. Huh. In sort of like, trying to wiggle out of the consequences of your beliefs. On to other people.

Krispin: Right, and I was like, part of me was like, is this trying to make Tahani uncomfortable? It did. It did. I think, though, what actually was more important about that scene in the deck is it shows how Tahani is not a good person because she's trying to wiggle out of it.

DL: Well, I mean, again. The whole point is not to go into that binary. It's not that she's not a good person. It's that she has become complicit in a bad system and is upholding that bad system while thinking of herself as a good person. So I think the whole point of this show is we have to do away with those binaries, right?

Those binaries are so bad and they can corrupt us in ways we don't even realize. So I don't think Tanya is a bad person. I am saying in this episode it's so clear that she is acting. Like a guard at this point. And doesn't seem to feel all that troubled about [00:35:00] sending someone to hell.

Krispin: Yeah. Yeah, well said by the non binary person in this conversation.

DL: I'm just so good at pointing out binaries now. I'm like so good at it, and I just reject all of them.

Krispin: But I do think, yeah, that just really stood out to me, like all the, you know, sort of gaslighting conversations of like, No, it's not that God sends people to hell. They choose to go there because of their actions.

DL: I typed out huge letters. Gaslighting. The first sentence Michael spoke in this episode, just like, Gaslight City, y'all!

Krispin: Huh. Right. Moving on from religious trauma, do you have any fun facts?

DL: Well, I have a fact, but it's not very fun. Okay. Did you know that... There actually were panopticons built.

No. Yeah, these kinds of prisons, and including one in Illinois. And a bunch, like three in the Netherlands.

Krispin: I was like, I remember seeing [00:36:00] one in Guardians of the Galaxy, but... How do I? Okay. I want to, I want to be clear. Yeah, there's cause there's a tower in the middle.

DL: And then you should have mentioned that from the jump because that will help people understand what I'm talking about.

Krispin: I don't want people to think that I'm like a Marvel nerd because I'm not actually.

DL: I will say Marvel does like 20 percent interesting ethics and then 80 percent they ruin it and that's a really hard ratio for me to deal with. So anyways. Yeah. Okay. Perfect example. Fun fact. There's a panopticon in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Krispin: I'm like, now I'm like, I hope I'm remembering it right.

DL: That's how I remember it. No, it is. Huh. And that scene made me really uncomfortable, but it's also great about how you can uprise and resist and take over the guard tower and fly away with it. So I guess that is what I am saying we should do.

Huh. Is take [00:37:00] over that internal guard tower of our minds and regain power and control and decide what kind of people we want to be after we've seen what the systems are like. Okay, other fun facts! are Tahani's name dropping, in which she talks about her friend Taylor being interrupted by her other friend Kanye, who was defending her very best friend, Beyonce.

And I was like, whoa, this is the bad place for sure.

Krispin: Another Beyonce reference. And also really makes me, like, takes me back in time.

DL: Exactly. First Taylor Swift reference in The Good Place. And we all know you're a Taylor person. Yes. As are so many people in the world. And Beyonce. I mean, you know what I mean? We like them all, but Kanye is a no go. Yeah.

Anymore. So.

Krispin: Yeah. I mean, that wasn't that the red flag at the beginning? [00:38:00] I don't remember the dynamics of that, to be honest.

DL: I just, I also, I guess another fun fact is that Kristen Bell and Adam Scott, who plays Trevor the Demon, they've been in a few projects together. They were in Veronica Mars together. And then, you know, there's the episode of Parks and Rec. And I think that may be it, but that's a fun fact. Yeah. Right. Right.

They're a little dream team.

Krispin: That is funny. I love Adam Scott. Yeah. I did not know that he was in Veronica Myers. Me neither.

DL: I had no idea. That's what the internet told me. I've never watched that show.

Krispin: Oh. Mm hmm. Yeah. I was just thinking about the connection with Mike Schur. Yeah so listener questions.

Yeah, we've gotten a lot of listener questions and and mostly folks were like, this is actually more of a personal question. So you know, of course we're being respectful of that. And we appreciate the engagement, but I will [00:39:00] say that like a lot of the response in general that we heard after the last.

episode, White Lies and Red Boots, which I didn't mention, but I named it to sound like a romance novel title.

DL: You're so proud of that. I'm not sure a single soul read the title of our tiny podcast episode and was like, oh, that sounds like a romance novel, but it's very cute that you tried.

Krispin: This is the way I work.

I title things that really have nothing to do with it. Or like, no indication. Like, friends are friends forever. Yeah. Which we didn't talk about at all. That's one

DL: of my favorite things about you. You know what? You are ungovernable because you refuse to capitulate to the algorithm.

You know what I mean? I'm trying to romanticize it, okay?

Krispin: Anyway but yeah, we just heard a lot of like, kind of feedback of people really struggling with like am I like, you know, should I feel guilty if I'm [00:40:00] continuing in these relationships where I'm not 100 percent honest about where I'm at with my faith or with, you know, beliefs or toxic theology, etc.

DL: And the answer is yes, you should. Just kidding. My goodness.

Krispin: I was worried for a minute.

DL: I was like, I just want to prank Krispin by saying that. I'm sorry.

Krispin: Yeah, no, I think it's really complicated, and we are talking on the Patreon only episodes about family enmeshment.

DL: And family estrangement. Mm hmm.

Because if you grow up in a panopticon and you start to, so if you don't actually listen to your own self, there's going to be some tension, right?

Krispin: And that's where I think fawning comes in, like this fawn response for a lot of folks. I just want to acknowledge that, that like, part of you is like, yeah, I'm going to engage in conflict with my parents.

And then another part of your brain might be like, Nope, we're just. Going offline, we're taking you offline. We're just gonna submit, we're gonna act like everything's okay. Yeah. And that can be a trauma response. So I just wanna say like, if that's your [00:41:00] experience, that was my experience, yeah. With my parents.

So I wanna make a lot of room for that. That it's not like we're talking about going into families or communities where people are like, yeah, it's fine. Whatever you believe, right? There are gonna be consequences. And I think it's complicated. And I do hope that our generation. Thinking about Millennials that grew up in this, like, we're seeing our kids that they are growing up in these places where they feel free to be themselves.

And feel free, I, that's generally what I see, like, there's this element of kids feeling like, yeah, I can disagree with my parents, or I can talk to them about things, etc. And I hope that as we are raising kids in that, we're also healing ourselves, like, doing that, you know, cause you deserve the healing to Learn, like, how can I feel like I can live the life that I want to live and not be so scared but that fear is there for a real reason.

DL: Yeah, and I think if you're listening to this, if you do come from, you know, an evangelical [00:42:00] background or you're in some sort of relationship or communities, right, where you feel like you can't be honest about certain things, you know, specifically, I would say like human rights and all this stuff I, I think.

Re watching The Good Place is really good because you can see the anguish, right? All of the four humans in this scenario feel so I guess Jason doesn't feel a lot of anguish. But the other three do and just think about what actually starts to give them some relief. And over and over and over again it is being honest and sort of taking responsibility for how their actions impact other people.

And eventually that gets used to you know, cause them even more consternation, but you can get through that. Like you can get through those things. And sometimes like Focusing on, oh, this one person's hurting and you need to help them, like, that can be a distraction from actually taking down the whole system and looking at the whole system.

So I think that's another thing to keep in mind is [00:43:00] sometimes we do have some relational distress but the bigger picture is these entire systems that are intent on oppressing and hurting people and that's where our energy needs to go, right, to fighting that.

Krispin: Yeah, I think that's a really good way of framing it.

So, Okay, are we at the very end? Yes, this is the good place. What is giving you hope in humanity these days?

DL: Well, I went to a protest yesterday to show support for Palestinian people and to, you know, call for a ceasefire. And specifically, it was at Congressman Earl Blumhauer's office here in Portland, Oregon.

And I'm, I'm, you know, autistic and I've, I've been to lots of protests that have been kind of traumatizing to me. So it was hard to go, but I'm glad I went and just being surrounded by a lot of families and a lot of people from very diverse backgrounds who just are done with U. S. It's imperialism and you know, [00:44:00] billions and billions and billions of dollars going to weapons and military, you know, actions that, that kill children, defenseless children.

And so it, I think protests. are a really important way to metabolize grief and rage and then come out with some solidarity. So there, there were hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of people that showed up in Portland, Oregon to show solidarity with people who, you know, don't have electricity or water or food or much like say in a lot of like legacy media here in the United States.

So it was a heavy Time, but the, the chants and the marching together was really beautiful and like a solidarity thing. And it was just a reminder of how totalitarianism, be it in religion or be it in a country, right? It just puts these binaries into good or bad. There's the [00:45:00] good side and the bad side.

And I'm saying, for me, the march was about human rights matter. Human rights for everyone matters. And I refuse to say that only one side is. is good, right? And the other side is bad. And when it comes to money and military power I mean, you know, our president Biden has said he will unequivocally support Israel.

Like that's a really dangerous statement to make about anybody, much less the fourth largest military in the world. So just stuff like that is really important for me. And I'm just so happy to see a lot of other people showing up.

Krispin: Yeah. Yeah. I think for me, what's good right now is Is resting and taking a break.

There's so much going on in the world and there's so much going on in our life that I want to show up for that I am showing up for. And so recognizing, like, on a Saturday afternoon to, like, disconnect from those things, playing a video game for a while has been good and, like, just even in some ways, like, not a place I've [00:46:00] been for a little while, like just recognizing like, Oh, I can't just be totally plugged in, you know, 24 seven, 24 seven.

Right. So and kind of along with that, like cozy fall, you know there's again, yes, there's so much going on right now that it doesn't, a lot of the time it doesn't feel that cozy. But trying to carve out sometimes that's like, yeah, this feels like cozy fall vibes. Yeah. How do you do that?

DL: I mean, I know how you do that, but tell, tell the listeners.

Krispin: Lighting some candles. We love a candle! Listening to jazz, which I mentioned last time, I believe.

DL: You're in your jazz phase.

Krispin: I, and hanging out with our kids and, you know, doing, like, they love

DL: all the fall shit. Mm hmm. Our kids really do. Right. So yeah, we are having fun Mm hmm.

Yeah, that's so true. That is a good thing. Helping our kids make costumes is fun.

Krispin: Yeah. [00:47:00] So, glad we got to end there. We are gonna keep going because every time we get to the end of the episode, I'm like, what's gonna happen next? I can't remember.

DL: I know. And yeah, spend some time thinking about the Panopticon, y'all.

I'm, I just, I think Mike Schur really had all of this. background layer going. And I'm just, I just find it all fascinating. Yeah, I love it, too.

Krispin: I want to mention again our, that in our Patreon only we started talking about Dobson parenting, authoritarian parenting, but now we're talking a lot about, like, what does that look like as an adult?

And so we talked about that with our last episode. Our next episode we're going to talk about How do you manage those relationships now? What do you do with these relationships when you have really different values? And if you're honest about your values, it might cause conflict. So we would love to hear from y'all.

How are you [00:48:00] doing that? Questions you have, like we're not experts on this, but it is a conversation that we're having over there. So I wanted to throw that out because it just feels like it. comes up over and over and over again for a good reason.

DL: But thanks, y'all, for listening. Thanks for your support.

If you like this podcast, please, you know, share it, chat about it, do whatever. But thanks so much for listening along. Thanks, y'all. Take it sleazy.