Parks & Rec: Philosophy in Three Characters

I once wondered why people don't like to talk about philosophy, as if I inherited some genetic predisposition to adore the phrase "necessary & sufficient conditions." Then I read Hegel. So, here I will illustrate a nuanced philosophical theory at work in Parks & Recreation. If you want to know about MacIntyre's three emotivist characters in Western society, you may start with Annabel Porter, Dr. Richard Nygard, & Leslie Knope.

Three Characters

In the last year I revisited & reread three important works by Alasdair MacIntyre, a man I admire enough to repeatedly reference & appeal to in many essays. MacIntyre diagnosed all of contemporary Western culture with a bad case of emotivism. Emotivism as a theory means any statements regarding ethics or value judgments are expressions of attitudes/feelings and are only used to get someone else to believe similarly. So, when an emotivist says, "Murder is wrong," that statement means, "I believe murder is bad & so should you." Thus all moral & ethical statements only function as a personal expression & an appeal to believe similarly.

Today, all it takes is a general perusing of Twitter to see that most people debate as if emotivism is true. MacIntyre sees two main problems with the prevalence of emotivism in our world: (1) moral & ethical debates become incoherent & never ending since they have no standards or criteria to appeal to, & (2) this relegates all moral attitudes & relationships to manipulative behavior. It is from this second problem that MacIntyre identifies three prominent characters who embody the emotivist attitude.

A character, in this sense, means specific social roles which embody the ideals & morals of a society. In our world, MacIntyre names the rich Aesthete, the Therapist, & the Manager as our emotivist characters. The rich Aesthete embodies the aesthetic tastes & preferences of those whose wealth & perspective privileges them to create trends that affect everyone in a society. The Therapist & the Manager each govern the efficiency of the personal & professional world. All three characters purport to know some ends worth pursuing & their expertise involves the efficiency & effectiveness to achieve these ends. Let's turn to the ways these three characters reveal themselves in Parks & Recreation.

Annabel Porter: the Aesthete

"Bloosh is a weekly lifestyle email written by Annabel Porter. She used to be the face of the Eagleton phone book. Then she moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming friends with a bunch of celebrities. Then she moved back to become a lifestyle guru. She’s legit. She spent four months living in Kate Bosworth’s pool house."

Throughout the series, Annabel Porter is small town Indiana's rich Aesthete. She frequently appears on local access shows promoting new trends. When Tom Haverford wants to get his new business off the ground, he tries to schmooze Annabel. Tom does this because she functions as a kind of authority in the realm of taste & aesthetics.

The writers present a particularly satirical portrayal of the Aesthete. In the photo above the quote, she tries to convince Ron Swanson that her new locally-sourced organic beef milk is anything but ordinary milk. But it isn't. It's just milk. However, people in Pawnee are still willing to pay $35 a gallon for Annabel's milk. The show presents the purely arbitrary nature of Annabel's selections. Yet everyone in the town defines their aesthetic taste in adherence with or in contrast to Annabel Porter. Her role is to wield influence over Pawnee's aesthetic taste. In short, the rich experience of aesthetic judgment reduces to the manipulation from & (unjustified) veneration of one central Aesthete.

Dr. Richard Nygard: the Therapist

Fittingly, you never meet Dr. Richard Nygard in any episode of Parks & Recreation. Yet his influence over the personal lives of the characters is a consistent point of reference. Upon realizing that a life devoted to physical fitness & health supplements still cannot assuage the passing of time & decay, Chris Traeger falls into an episodes-long existential crisis. The show's eternal optimist becomes a crying man-child of despair! Who else could come to the rescue but local therapist Dr. Richard Nygard? The rest of the series shows Chris coping in more healthy ways after an absurd number of sessions with Dr. Nygard. "And I have my therapist, Dr. Richard Nygard, who I see fifteen times a week."

For Chris Traeger & other characters in Parks & Recreation, the never-seen Dr. Richard Nygard functions as the Therapist character. He is the point of reference for any psychological issues, directing Pawnee's citizens towards that amorphous ideal of 'health'. For MacIntyre, the Therapist character obliterates the lines between manipulative & non-manipulative behavior through practices designed to turn those with neuroses into well-adjusted citizens. The problem with the Therapist, according to MacIntyre, occurs when they become an un-contested figure who is necessary for keeping a society functioning without considering the broader social conditions which produce issues in mental health. I must be clear that MacIntyre is NOT advocating against therapists or mental health treatment. His concern stems from the way we understand ourselves in light of characters like the Therapist. Psychology & psychiatry are historically young fields with a number of competing theories & frameworks. Yet, even if the ideals of mental health change only in method, there is far more to our socially-informed identity than mental health alone, such that the social character of Therapist cannot provide a true ideal for who we ought to be as individuals.

Leslie Knope: the Manager

I must admit, at the outset I did not think Leslie Knope fit the qualities of MacIntyre's emotivist Manager. It turns out I was partially correct and partially incorrect. For those of you less familiar with Parks & Recreation, Leslie Knope runs Pawnee's Parks & Recreation department. She manages under the department director Ron Swanson, a proud libertarian bent to gut government bureaucracy from the inside. And while Leslie Knope grows substantially from a hard-headed bureaucrat to an inspirational leader & friend, she does embody the heart of MacIntyre's Manager.

Leslie Knope's biggest flaw is her consistent & well-intended manipulation of other people. Much of her character's arc involves releasing these tendencies & allowing others to make decisions of their own volition. Yet among many in their mid-twenties, Leslie Knope is indeed held as an ideal person to be like for her strong convictions & ability to get stuff done in spite of foolish citizens & a broken bureaucracy. She embodies the Manager character by often manipulating her coworkers & friends to do something she believes needs to be done. Leslie is unlike the Manager in that the ends she tends to pursue are genuine communal goods, like access to public parks, healthier food options, & economic investments.

So What?

You might be wondering why I took you on such a roundabout path in this essay. I did so for two reasons: good philosophy inspires you to see the truth it points to in all parts of your life, including television shows, & we rarely analyze those we define ourselves in reference to. On the first account, I hope you see that moral philosophy is evident all around you & thus worth thinking about. On the second account, role models matter. Those we admire & abhor both influence who we become. MacIntyre goes as far as saying, "Characters are the masks worn by moral philosophies." If you want to know why good philosophy matters, you might only need to look in a mirror to see the ways both good & bad philosophy have left their marks on you & your world.