I wrote a while ago about how guilty pleasures are stupid and that we should all just admit if we like something even if we know it’s stupid. This week, Prison Break kicked off its fourth season, and there is no better example currently on TV of a show so bad it’s good.

When Prison Break started, I didn’t start watching because I wanted to watch a bad show. I thought the idea behind the show was intriguing and, let’s be honest, an engineer playing superhero isn’t a common occurrence. The first season was great for its first half and good for the rest. But after that the show got worse. Some people ridiculed the second season because they were no longer in prison, so the name no longer applied. But that’s a facetious argument at best. The people on Lost aren’t all lost, either physically or emotionally, that doesn’t mean the show’s name should be changed.

But that doesn’t mean the show didn’t get ridiculous. And yet, as the show degenerated rather than giving up on the show I continued to watch but with glee over the absurdities found in every new moment. By that point, half the fun of any given episode was reading the recaps over at television without pity, where not a single logical flaw or absurdity is forgiven.

The real problem here is that other entertainment media don’t seem to have this problem with “guilty pleasures.” Reality TV made the term necessary in the television world because no other medium has such bottom-of-the-barrel-scraping trash. Plan Nine from Outer Space is not seen as a “guilty pleasure” but rather it’s loved and revered for being one of the most unintentionally terrible and incompetent movies ever made.

So let’s make this clear; there’s no such thing as a guilty pleasure. There are simply things we like (and often love) in spite of their flaws. Would you call your brother a guilty pleasure because he has an addiction? Would you call your wife a guilty pleasure because she cracks her knuckles? Humans are passionate creatures who love and hate for reasons ranging from the sublime to the petty. It’s one of the reasons hatred and bigotry exists, and its one of the reasons adultery and polygamy exist. It is a core aspect of our humanity. Ignorance may be bliss but calling our less noble loves and passions “guilty pleasures” belittles them and simultaneously gives them power over us. Looking at the uglier aspects of our psyche, even when manifested as the enjoyment of bad television, is necessary to self-improvement.

Awareness of our surroundings through highly attuned senses and through opportunistic pattern recognition led us to the top of the Darwinian food chain. But now our society exists outside of those confines and so beyond this awareness we require self-awareness: an understanding of our internal flaws. Whether we succumb to or rage against them, our flaws drive us as much as anything else. Ignoring them is as smart as ignoring the oncoming wolf or lion 10,000 years ago.

So, am I pushing the point too hard? Guily pleasures don’t exist. Love comes in many forms and is formed by many things. Being aware of that is a good thing and ignoring it or pretending it isn’t true by calling things guilty pleasures is a bad thing. It weakens you and makes certain your ongoing ignorance of yourself.