Overthink

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comAre you paying attention when you scroll online? In episode 176 of Overthink, Ellie and David draw your attention to attention. They explain why attention is so hard to define and debate the extent to which it should be equated with consciousness. Is attention the same thing as consciousness? Or are there important differences between these concepts? They consider different ways that attention has been classified, from “overt vs. covert” to “effortful vs. effortless” to “voluntary vs. involuntary.” Ellie and David then discuss the commodification of attention and how it has been intensified by the digital era, or what Chris Hayes calls “the age of attention.” How has social media changed the way we attend to the world, to ourselves, and to others? Is our attention still our own? Or has it become alienated? In the Substack Bonus Segment, Ellie and David talk about Simone Weil’s and Iris Murdoch’s ethical approaches to attention.Works Discussed:Jelle Bruineberg, “Rethinking the cognitive foundations of the attention economy”Chris Hayes, The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered ResourceWilliam James, The Principles of PsychologyCarlos Montemayor and Harry Haroutioun Haladjian, Consciousness, Attention, and Conscious AttentionThe Friends of Attention, Attensity! A Manifesto of the Attention Liberation MovementHighlight: Spontaneous thinking* Spontaneous thinking refers to what happens in your mind when you are just existing, not performing any particular task. This activates the default mode network in your brain, and you engage in many spontaneous thoughts; you are remembering things, thinking about your values, daydreaming, etc.* There is existential and cognitive value to spontaneous thinking, and it is important in consolidating a sense of self.* The attention economy, by constantly grabbing our attention, stops us from spending valuable time with ourselves. Doomscrolling doesn’t just waste time that we could have spent doing something, but also time where we could have done nothing.Related articles:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comPlay it cool and play this episode. In episode 175 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about what it means to be cool. From swag gap relationships to Mark Zuckerberg and the manosphere’s failed attempts at being cool, your hosts examine coolness’s ties to youth and subversion and its opposition to displays of wealth. They trace how coolness emerged from Black American culture in the 1930s, before being associated with Beat Poets and punk musicians. They consider precursors to cool, like the Italian term sprezzatura, and question the ontology and the morality of coolness. Is coolness an attitude or a state? Is it inherently narcissistic? Can you ever successfully “try” to be cool? In the Substack bonus segment, Ellie and David discuss coolness through an ethical perspective.Works Discussed:Joel Dinerstein, “Jazz Cool”Ted Gioia, The History of Jazzbell hooks, We Real Cool: Black Men and MasculinityDick Pountain and David Robins, Cool Rules: Anatomy of an Attitude Highlight: Ironic detachment* Ironic detachment, along with narcissism and hedonism, is one of Pountain and Robins’s criteria of coolness.* It involves a wholesale rejection of sincerity and an unwillingness to express interiority. The cool person doesn’t say what they really care about, and they don’t want to seem invested in anything.* Pountain and Robins point out that coolness spread in the post-war period. They argue that the horrors of the war led to a widespread disillusionment, where people found it hard to latch onto values. They thus turned inward, focusing on private experience and leading to ironic detachment from the world.Related articles:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWhat resources do Indigenous studies provide for addressing the crisis of human-made climate change? And how is the climate crisis linked to settler colonialism? In episode 174 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with Indigenous philosopher and activist Kyle Whyte about his work on climate action. They discuss how Indigenous people are often blocked out of conversations about environmental impact, the common mischaracterization of the land back movement, and the importance of kinship. How are certain groups disproportionately affected by climate change? Is climate change actually a new problem? And how can respecting land rights of Indigenous people offer some solutions to climate change? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts question who is called upon to respond to the crisis of climate change and how non-Indigenous people should engage in discussions surrounding climate change and colonialism.Works Discussed:Kyle Whyte, “Climate Action at the Speed of Consent”Kyle Whyte, “Indigenous Climate Change Studies: Indigenizing Futures, Decolonizing the Anthropocene”Kyle Whyte, “Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice”Highlight: The “Speed of Consent”* Mainstream discussions around climate change highlight a sense of urgency.* More specifically, climate change is generally labelled as an emergency, as something that must be immediately solved, which urges immediate action without reflection. See: The Climate Clock, The Climate Emergency (UN), etc.* “Urgency” as it is tied to climate action reinforces settler colonial logics.* If climate action is approached with a sense of urgency, it prevents any ability to slow down, weigh decisions, build trust with communities, etc.* The language of “urgency” prevents us from understanding and developing dynamics that will lead to constructive climate action.* Developing constructive dynamics entails building trust and reciprocity with Indigenous communities.* This sense of urgency implores us to use settler colonial approaches of addressing the climate crisis.* Ex. Proposals for carbon sequestration technologies are anchored in further taking away the land of Indigenous communities.* The “speed of consent” means moving at the speed at which Indigenous communities—as well as other communities—consent to climate solutions. In doing so, the rights and freedoms of Indigenous people are respected/enhanced, it is made sure that policies are viable/long-lasting/widely supported, and constructive climate solutions are ultimately more empowered and effective in their implementation

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comThou shalt not miss this episode! In episode 173 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about theft. They discuss our moral intuitions around theft, how feudalism and capitalism may be founded upon an original (and large scale) act that of theft, and the gendered association between kleptomania and women. They also critique the lack of legal repercussions for tech companies that steal information to train new AI models. Finally, they look at representations of theft and capital in film and television. What does the move from heist films to grift docudramas say about 21st century capitalism? And why do we love to take the side of thieves? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss the ethics of stealing from large corporations.Works Discussed:Elaine Abelson, When Ladies Go A-Thieving: Middle-Class Shoplifters in the Victorian Department StoreAnna Kornbluh “Falling Heists, Rising Grift: Filming Capital in the Already Long Twenty-First Century”Robert Nichols, Theft Is Property! Dispossession and Critical TheoryHighlight: Expropriation* Expropriation essentially refers to the fact that the sovereign has the right to appropriate property for the common good* All the land in a kingdom belongs to the king, so they can do whatever they want with it* There were still some limits to expropriation, even within the feudal system* Expropriation had to:* Be for the common good* Lead to fair compensation of the impacted parties* If those two conditions aren’t met, then the expropriation is not justified* Nowadays, we usually use the term eminent domain for this concept* There is a legal process laid out for what the state should pay in exchange for private land

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comDoes decolonization require violence? In episode 172 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth, “the bible of decolonization.” They discuss Fanon’s bold stance on violence, his condemnation of rituals and dance, and some potential criticisms. They also question what the subjectivity of colonized people looks like given colonialism’s psycho-affective effects. What does violence do for the colonized? Who gets liberation movements off the ground? And what are the challenges that a newly independent nation might face once a colonial power has been overthrown? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts talk about Fanon’s critique of Africanism and some of the clinical cases Fanon incorporates into this important work.Works Discussed:Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of The EarthConcerning Violence (2014)Highlight: Decolonization and Violence* Franz Fanon argues that decolonization is always violent and there’s no negotiating with a colonial power* Colonialism is violent in three ways:* Economic: resource extraction* Physical: military rule and respression* Mental: the dehumanization of the colonized* For Fanon, the violence against the colonizer is restorative since it gives back the humanity that colonialism stole and gives the colonized more agency

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comBottom, rump, booty, fanny, tush, and derriere! In episode 171 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about butts. Why do humans have bigger rear ends than other animals? Why are butts often seen as a site of aversion? And is anal sex a metaphor for the universe? They discuss the evolutionary history of butts, how the music industry helped normalize bigger butts, and how the exploitation of Sara Baartman in the 19th century is part of a larger story about the sexualization of black women. In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts talk about Marquis de Sade’s discussion of anal sex and appeals to nature in justifications of human sexual practices.Works Discussed:Georges Bataille, “The Solar Anus”Leo Bersani, “Is the Rectum a Grave?”Janell Hobson, “Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture”Dinah Holtzman, “Ass You Lick It: Bey and Jay Eat Cake”Sadiah Qureshi, “Displaying Sara Baartman, the ‘Hottentot Venus’.”Heather Radke, Butts: A BackstoryChristopher Wallner et al, “Interethnic Influencing Factors Regarding Buttocks Body Image in Women from Nigeria, Germany, USA and Japan”

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comThe discourse around today's crisis of care responds to the shredding of America's social safety net, but leaves out the most vulnerable almost entirely. In episode 170 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss how this works with Premilla Nadasen, author of Care: The Highest Stage of Capitalism. They discuss how gender fits into the care industry, the harms of associating care work with emotion, and how the practice of care has been commodified. How is it that we deny the most basic care from those who need it most? What are the harms of framing care workers as family members? And how has racial capitalism produced the explosion of the care economy that we're seeing today? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about the distinction between the practice of care and care itself and how labor workers can learn from care workers in their modes of organizing.Works Discussed:Arlie Hochschild, The Managed HeartPremilla Nadasen, Care: The Highest Stage of CapitalismHighlight: Racial Capitalism and Care* Premilla Nadasen highlighted several points where racial capitalism is useful for understanding care* Racial capitalism = there is not capitalism without racism and in order to even understand capitalism, we must think about race* The care system is inequitable* Lower-class people have few care services and support than those with more privilege* Tends to be people of color, especially women of color, unhoused people, unemployed people, single mothers, formerly incarcerated people, etc.* As Nadasen says, “there is a racial hierarchy in terms of how we understand poverty and who as access to care support systems and who does not.”* She also explains that the care economy is profit extraction from life* Companies (e.g. healthcare, education, housing) make money off of our desire and need to care for ourselves and others* Slavery, as Nadasen argues, is the best example of this point* Beyond just labor exploitation, there were insurance companies, slave holders, and shipping companies that profited from life and the care economy

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWith the rise of hustle culture, the grind, and capitalist productivity, we often associate discipline with toxicity. But is there still value in disciplining oneself? In episode 169 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a disciplined approach to this question and more! They discuss modern culture’s rejection of discipline and how this manifests on the left vs the right, the association between discipline and punishment, and Michel Foucault’s seminal ideas on disciplinary power. How can we discipline children without resorting to punishment? And are there models of self-discipline that aren’t rooted in punishment of the self? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss Sandra Bartky’s argument that gender norms are a modern form of disciplinary power.Works Discussed: Joan E. Durrant and Ashley Stewart-Tufescu. “What is “Discipline” in the Age of Children’s Rights?.”Michel Foucault, Discipline and PunishMichel Foucault, The History of SexualityAdekunle A. Ibrahim and Philomena A. Ojomo. “Discipline and Punishment in Schools: A Philosophical Appraisal.”Highlight: Foucault on Self-discipline* Can we discipline the self and to what extent is self-discipline different from punishment?* We associate discipline with punishment, resulting in an immediate averse reaction to it* Discipline may even seem worse when it’s self imposed* However, there are models of self-discipline that do not suggest punishment of the self* Foucault’s writings on antiquity explore the notion of self-discipline and how subjects throughout history have carried out different projects that require serious training, commitment, and self exertion to discipline their minds and bodies* He uses the Greek term askesis, meaning an exercise or a mode of training that would allow the self to give form to their subjectivity through the application of a certain kind of force* We are always forming the subjects that we are through these self-directed forms of discipline

You often hear people say “everything is political” and political disagreements feel like a fight. But what if our obsession with debate and rational argumentation is actually making polarization worse?Drawing on Sarah Stein Lubrano's Don't Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds, David explains how endless social media debates cause people to dig their heels in and what we need to do instead. This video was inspired by our episode with Sarah Stein Lubrano which you can find here.If you have more questions for Ellie )Love, Overthink This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit overthinkpod.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWhy do we seek to escape from ourselves? In episode 168 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Emmanuel Levinas’s article “On Escape.” They discuss Levinas’s claim that escape is central to the human condition and explore what exactly we try to escape from and escape to. They explain how this aspect of human existence is crystallized by our experiences of need, pleasure, and even nausea. Are we condemned to being needy beings? How does Levinas’s view of shame put him at a distance from Sartre? And is Levinas right that to be a human is to never be at peace with oneself? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss why escape is the condition of our time and critique Levinas’s reading of idealism.Works Discussed:Emmanuel Levinas, “On Escape”Jean-Paul Sartre, NauseaHighlight: Levinas on the Human Condition* Levinas believes that being human means not being at peace with yourself* David mentions two important terms to understanding Levinas:* Escape* We, by our very nature, are constantly seeking to escape who and what we are* Impotence* We seek to escape, but we fail every time* We’re left with the combination of desire and a yearning for departure that can never come to fruition* This was a very basic introduction, so listen to the episode to hear Ellie & David grapple with more of Levinas’s ideas :)

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comAre some people born evil, or are we all capable of evil acts? In episode 167 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about all things evil. They think through the characterization of evil in Disney films, Leibniz’s best of all possible worlds theory, the conflation of evil with badness, and Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil. How does Manichaeism attempt to resolve the problem of evil? Is evil simply the lack of good in the world? And does the concept of evil still have relevance in an age of secular ethics or is the concept too weighed down by its own theological past? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss evil people and how we might categorize them.Works Discussed:Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of EvilHannah Arendt, “Nightmare and Flight”Hannah Arendt, The Origins of TotalitarianismPaul Formosa, “The Problems with Evil”Paul Formosa, “A Conception of Evil”Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, TheodicyGavin Rae, Evil in the Western Philosophical Tradition

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comContent warning: this episode involves discussion of sexual violence and sexual assault.Can pornography be liberating or does it just promote the hatred of women? In episode 165 of Overthink Ellie and David discuss pornography. They talk about the feminist ‘sex wars’ and the pro-porn and anti-porn views that emerged from it. They talk about how the figure of the porn star has changed in the era of OnlyFans, and how porn blends sex with visuality. How might porn endanger women as a class? Can sex in pornography be considered art? And are AI and deepfakes enhancing the harms of pornography? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts chat about Heated Rivalry and discuss the relationship between art and porn.Works Discussed: Laura Bates, The New Age of Sexism: How AI and Emerging Technologies Are Reinventing MisogynyAndrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing WomenCatharine MacKinnon, Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex DiscriminationOriana Small, Girlvert: A Porno MemoirAmia Srinivasan, The Right to SexHighlight: Catharine MacKinnon* Mackinnon was an anti-pornography American lawyer, feminist activist, and legal scholar who famously wrote Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination* She also was friends and worked with Andrea Dworkin* She criticized pornography through the lens of anti-discrimination law* Mackinnon argues that pornography violates the rights of women as a protected class* Based off Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, she contends that sexual harassment is to sex what separate but equal was to race* Sexual harassment in the workplace is a violation because it infringes upon women’s rights* She makes the same argument about pornography* By eroticizing the abuse, humiliation, and domination of women, pornography harms women as a class and locks them into a position of social inequality

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHello Overthinkers! In honor of it almost being spring we will be offering paid subscriptions 20% off until March 20th! Redeem here :) Is the way we interact with technology moving us towards a cyborg future? In episode 164 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Donna Haraway’s seminal essay, “A Cyborg Manifesto,” in which Haraway critiques the increasing technologization of everyday life and questions what it means to be a feminist and a socialist in the age of informatics and cybernetics. They discuss her critique of identity politics, her notion of the “homework economy,” the increase of miniaturization in technology, and her appeal to pleasure and responsibility. Why should we discard the assumption that technology has deepened mind-body dualism? And what might the theory of the cyborg look like in light of the rise of generative AI? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss how the cyborg can be found in popular media like Severance and Crimes of the Future, and how the cyborg differs to Frankenstein’s monster.Works Discussed:Donna Haraway, “A Cyborg Manifesto” Dave Yan, “Posthuman Creativity: Unveiling Cyborg Subjectivity Through ChatGPT”Highlight: The Homework Economy and Feminization of Work* Haraway describes the homework economy, characterized by the feminization of work * Technology inevitably impacts our homes and households* For example, workplace changes affects the structure of the family, e.g. male “digital nomads” become domestic subjects, which was traditionally the space of feminity * Ellie and David also connect Haraway’s ideas to AI* Many LLMs, and even AI in general, are feminized* E.g. Siri and Alexa have female voices* What other connections did you see between Haraway and AI?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comCan Buzzfeed quizzes, Myers-Briggs Types, and Enneagrams tell us anything valid about who we are? In episode 163 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss personality. They talk through the Big Five personality test and its legitimacy, the history of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator test (MBTI), and how the concept of personality emerged out of abnormal psychology. Why did the concept of personality replace using literature to understand the self? How does the concept of personality presuppose a fixed concept of the self? And what is the connection between MBTI and World War II? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about how personality tests might be susceptible to the Barnum effect and their reduction of the self to egos.Works Discussed:Theodor Adorno, The Authoritarian PersonalityMerve Emre, What’s Your Type? The Story of the Myers-Briggs, and How Personality Testing Took Over the WorldColin Koopman, How We Became Our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational PersonHighlight: The Big Five* Ellie & David took a popular personality test in preparation for this episode, known as the Big Five* The term “Big Five” was coined by Lewis Goldberg in 1981* Openness measures open-mindedness to new ideas and experiences* Conscientiousness measures thoughtfulness, impulse control, and goal-direct behaviors* Extroversion measures sociability, assertiveness, and talkability* Agreeableness measures levels of kindness, cooperation, and altruism* Neuroticism measures emotional instability* This way of “measuring” personality does not type people, as those like MBTI do

Hello Overthinkers! Happy Friday :)David gave us some insight into his course load this semester at San Francisco State University. Which course sounds the most interesting to you? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit overthinkpod.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comTo what extent is drug addiction voluntary? In episode 162 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with philosopher Hanna Pickard about her book, What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction. They discuss how the “broken brain model” of addiction emerged to combat the moral model of addiction and explore the consequences of both of these models. What drives some people into addiction? What does it mean to say that addiction is a brain disease? How should responsibility and blame fit into our understanding of this condition? And how do we identify when somebody’s patterns of drug use have crossed the threshold into addiction? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about the temporality of addiction and what it means to hold an “addict identity.”Works Discussed: Alan Leshner, “Addiction Is a Brain Disease, and It Matters”Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with AddictionHanna Pickard,  What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of AddictionHighlight: Consequences of the Broken Brain Model* Hanna Pickard borrows a phase from sociologist Nick Haslam for describing the broken brain model: it’s a mixed blessing in terms of its practical effects* On the positive side, it’s increased public support for research and treatment of drug addiction* On the negative side, the broken brain model:* Increased stigma because it associates people with addiction with dangerousness and difference* Increased internalized stigma among those with addiction; they feel like something is wrong with them and their brain* As a result, it can impede problem recognition and recovery* If your addiction means your brain is broken, you may be pushed to denial, thus not seek help or treatment* If you believe your brain is broken, then you can’t fix it

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWhat does it mean to be spontaneous? In episode 161 of Overthink, Ellie and David get spontaneous. They look at Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation, at spontaneity’s role in politics, and at the dark side of spontaneity. How do different cultures and physical spaces enable or inhibit spontaneity? What is the relationship between spontaneity and human freedom? And is Lenin correct in arguing that leftists need to resist spontaneity in political organizing? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think through the relationship between spontaneity and habit, how spontaneity plays into the recording of Overthink episodes, and the habitual spontaneity of those with Tourette’s Syndrome.Works Discussed: Aristotle, Physics Lucy Cooke, The Truth About Animals Jonathan Gingerich, “Spontaneous Freedom”Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure ReasonVladimir Lenin, What is to Be Done?Highlight: Vladimir Lenin on Spontaneity* Vladimir Lenin was a central figure in the Bolshevik party and played a prominent role in the 1917 Russian Revolution* In the second half of the 1975, there was growing discontent with the Czar and conditions were getting worse for the people, so spontaneous uprisings arose* Lenin asked how do we transform society? and how can spontaneous actions lead to collective change?* He understood spontaneity as something that “comes out of the blue” in a way—nobody could have predicted that it would happen now rather than a week ago* Spontaneously alone is not yet an organized struggle that is supported by a party and has revolutionaries devoted to it* Consistent uprisings require consciousness * Without consciousness, Lenin warns that just spontaneity would (1) make people only worry about what’s happening to themselves and their network and (2) cause reform, not a revolution

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHello Overthinkers! We hope you enjoy another episode in our Closer Look format. We’d love to hear your thoughts about the episode and any questions or comments you have for Ellie and David :)What does it mean to say that the good life is a life of pleasure? Although you might think of champagne and caviar, Hellenistic philosopher Epicurus actually considered the good life to be more about appreciating the simple things in life and letting go of the things that bring us only temporary pleasure but lead to pain in the long run. Why has Epicureanism so often been misrepresented, and what did Epicurus really say? In episode 160 of Overthink, Ellie and David investigate the teachings of Epicurus in The Epicurus Reader. They explain his four-part cure on how to life a better life, including why we shouldn’t be worried about death. They also offer critiques on his view of justice and its lack of application to political life. How can attaining ataraxia lead us to achieving eudaimonia and living the good life? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts elaborate on whether or not Epicurus’s argument that we should not fear death is convincing.Works Discussed:Brad Inwood and Lloyd P. Gerson, The Epicurus Reader: Selected Writings and TestimoniaHighlight: Epicurus’s Four Part Cure* What’s good is easy to get* The good pleasure, or the absence of pain* What’s terrible is easy to endure* Do not add suffering to our pain; embrace life* Don’t worry about death* Don’t fear Gods or the gods in plural* Ellie and David discuss more about points 3 and 4 in the episode! Namely (1) why would we fear them in the first place and (2) how do we overcome that fear?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWhat does it mean to be ill? In episode 159 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss illness. They explore how illness has been mythologized, how it may alienate us from our bodies, and how it impacts social relationships. Is science the solution to the mythologization of illness, or is the scientific model of illness its own form of mythology? How should we conceptualize illness? Is it as a “deviation” from a norm? And if so, what norm? Finally, what can we learn about illness from a phenomenological approach that centers the patient’s first-person experience? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts think about the distinction between the mental and the physical in connection to illness and the intersection between mind and body in illness.Works Discussed:Georges Canguilhem, The Normal and the PathologicalHavi Carel, Illness:  The Cry of the Flesh,Susan Sontag, Illness as MetaphorSK Toombs, The Meaning of Illness: A Phenomenological Account of the Different Perspectives of Physician and PatientHighlight: Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor* Susan Sontag famously argued that illness has often been mythologized and treated as metaphor, which then leads to dangerous and problematic consequences* She gives two main examples: tuberculosis and cancer* Before treatments were developed, they were both seen as arbitrary death sentences that essentially fell from the sky and could target anybody* The way we describe these diseases has important social consequences, like treating patients to be socially shunned and treated as contagious, even if the disease is not actually contagious* Another facet of Sontag’s argument is that fatal diseases are thought to be obscene* Our deepest fears become associated with disease* With tuberculosis, patients were thought to have a spiritual problem that caused them to contract it

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHello folks! Ellie and David just hosted an exclusive live yesterday which you can find here. We would love your thoughts in the comments or in our chat, as well as any questions or comments you have for the podcast :) Without further ado, we hope you enjoy the episode!Should we be sympathetic towards manipulators? In episode 157 of Overthink, Ellie and…

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHow do new forms of social control under capitalism foreclose the possibility of social critique? In episode 156 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a deep dive into Herbert Marcuse’s 1964 classic, One-Dimensional Man. Marcuse analyzes how 1950s conformism narrows the private space of human thinking, turning us into one-dimensional beings. Your hosts talk about Marcuse’s diagnosis of life under capitalism, and his assessment of how analytic philosophy’s obsession with formal logic encourages conservatism and prevents us from subversive thought. In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss what freedom looks like for Marcuse and how critical Marcuse would be of Overthink.Works Discussed:Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional ManStephen Whitfield, “Refusing Marcuse: 50 Years After One-Dimensional Man”Paul Mattick, “One Dimensional Man In Class Society”Highlight: False Needs* Marcuse writes about a classic Marxist distinction between real/vital needs and false needs* Real needs are objectively necessary for humans, e.g. food, shelter, and social contact* False needs include a new phone or clothing from a specific brand* The difference between real and false needs is not always evident to us* We just experience all our needs as the same type of need* Many of our false needs come from external forces that are serving other interests* Advertising for a company will make us want that object, which ultimately benefits the company and not us* Then, the false needs that have been fed to us distract from other, more substantive criticisms

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHello folks! As we hit the 5-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection on the U.S. Capitol, we thought it would be the perfect time to do an episode on treason. We’d love your thoughts on treason, January 6th, and anything else you’re overthinking about these days in our subscriber chat. Additionally, Ellie and David will be hosting a Substack livestream (maybe two!) this month and we’d love all your questions and comments about everything philosophy :) With love, here’s to the first Overthink episode of 2026 Do we ever have a duty to commit treason? In episode 155 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about “the crime of crimes.” They look at the emergence of this legal concept and its evolution over time, and discuss some of the most important historical cases involving treason:  Benedict Arnold, Aaron Burr, and John Brown. Can we say that treason is always bad when America's founding itself depended on an act of treason? Who is capable of committing a treasonous act? And is treason ever morally permissible? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss how treason is seen in Hobbes’ political philosophy and whether we need to recover insurrection as a political possibility.Works Discussed:Neil Cartlidge, “Treason,” The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Law and LiteratureCécile Fabre, “The Morality of Treason”George P. Fletcher, “The Case for Treason”Michel Foucault, Discipline and PunishPhyllis Greenacre, “Treason and the Traitor”Leonard Harris, “Honor and Insurrection or A Short Story about why John Brown (with David Walker’s Spirit) was Right and Frederick Douglass (with Benjamin Banneker’s Spirit) was Wrong”Lee McBride, “Insurrectionary Ethics and Racism”Highlight: Treason as Betrayal* As David mentions, to approach treason from a philosophical angle, it is useful to define it as a subset of a general type of action or behavior, such as betrayal* Psychoanalyst Phyllis Greenacre distinguishes between subcategories of betrayal in her article '“Treason and the Traitor”* Betrayal is generally a violation of trust* She outlines two subterms of betrayal:* Treachery: personal betrayal amongst individuals* Treason: betrayal against the state* Ellie and David then jump into the question who exactly can betray the state?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comContent warning: this episode extensively discusses rape, sexual violence, and incest.In episode 154 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk to philosopher Manon Garcia about her book,  Living with Men: Reflections on the Pelicot Trial. They discuss the rape case of Gisèle Pelicot and how the subsequent trial of her husband and fifty additional men sheds light on the normalization and acceptance of sexual violence in what is known as ‘rape culture.’ In what ways is the current understanding of consent as ‘permission giving’ harmful?  How is heterosexual love often tied to objectification? Why does the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality make it difficult for us to rely on the criminal justice system? And how do we live with men knowing that cases such as these are incredibly common? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss the politics of language and the risk of eroticization in recounting stories of sexual violence, and they think through where we should go from here in terms of sexual and romantic attachments to men.Works Discussed:Manon Garcia,  Living with Men: Reflections on the Pelicot TrialSimone de Beauvoir and Gisèle Halimi, Djamila BoupachaHighlight: Contradiction of Strength versus Weakness* In the Pelicot trial, the defendants were characterized as both strong and weak in their defense* On the one hand, their desire to dominate a woman was portrayed as stereotypically masculine* On the other hand, a lot of the defense relied on their weakness, such as lack of intelligence, education, or maturity* Manon Garcia makes a comparison that the men are both like stallions and animals that cannot control themselves* Garcia also points out that “for them, the sexy they have with their wife, it’s fungible with raping an unconscious old lady” and questions how the defendants could even get aroused

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWhat do Labubus, Beanie Babies, Hello Kitty, and Furbies have in common? They’re all cute! In episode 153 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss cuteness. From the idea of cuteness as a logic of contagion to the evolutionary explanation for why we find babies so adorable, this episode has it all. How is the increasing demand for shortform content a symptom of cuteification? What are the harms of categorizing certain animals as cute? In what ways is cuteness tied to consumption? And is society heading towards a future of cuteness? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts talk about the emergence of cuteness in Kawaii culture and what is so cute about Paddington bear.Works Discussed:Amy Ireland and Maya B. Kronic, Cute AccelerationismSianne Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, and InterestingSianne Ngai, The CuteDylan Wittkower, “On The Origins of the Cute as a Dominant Aesthetic Category in Digital Culture”Sarah Wolfensohn, “Too Cute to Kill? The Need for Objective Measurements of Quality of Life”Highlight: Cuteness and Commodity* Sianne Ngai argues we related to commodities in terms of cuteness* Packaging a commodity may imply cuteness* Capitalism plays into the increasing cute-ification of commodities* Anytime we aestheticize something, we objectify it, and cute-ification is the endpoint of objectification* Objects we buy are already passive, but cuteness increases their passivity* Cuteness also constricts the gap between consumer and commodity* As items are better advertised and created for our desires, they’re getting smaller, plushier, and cuter* Do you think cuteness, consumption, and capitalism are as connected as Ngai believes?

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comIt’s time for something new! In episode 152 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a deep dive into Michel Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Volume 1. From the repressive hypothesis to the role of confession in producing the truth of sex, your hosts get into all of the juicy content of this seminal book. They also talk about the difference between “ars erotica” and “scientia sexualis,” two key concepts in Foucault’s treatment of sexuality. Why does Foucault reject the view that sexuality has been repressed? What is the function of power in sexuality? How does the desire for truth about oneself produce various discourses of sexuality? And, when all is said and done, are Foucault’s reflections on power in this work too homogenous? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss the pedagogization of children’s sexuality and Foucault’s problematic treatment of a historical case involving the sexual abuse of a minor.Works Discussed:Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1 Highlight: The Repressive Hypothesis* Ellie and David make it clear: Foucault is against and dispels the myth that sexuality is repressed* From the 18th to the 21st century, we’ve talked about sex all the time* Sometimes, we indirectly discuss sex, e.g. sexual advertisements * If you believe in the repressive hypothesis, you may be led to believe in the speaker’s benefit: anybody who speaks about sexuality is subversive and a radical* Instead of asking why are we repressed, Foucault asks why do we say that we are repressed?* Ellie and David discuss much more about the repressive hypothesis in the episode, so this is just skimming the surface, but please do tell us about your thoughts!!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comWe’ve all been sold the ideal of meritocracy. The American dream, our education system, and our politics are all based on it. But what if meritocracy is actually impossible--and based on a misunderstanding of how society works? In episode 151 of Overthink, Ellie and David put meritocracy in the spotlight. They think through the inherent inequality of meritocracy, its tendency to skew toward conservatism, and what Trump’s attacks on DEI reveal about how society favors merit. How does meritocracy create vertical social distance between those in power and the working class? And is meritocracy even a worthwhile ideal? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts get into the role that merit plays in Christian theology and the promise of heaven.

Listen to David discuss 5 books that have been on Overthink Podcast recently:* Jacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest* Mariana Alessandri, Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods* Jennifer Banks, Natality: Toward Philosophy of Birth* Gaston Bachelard, The Psychoanalysis of Fire* Simon Critchley, MysticismAnd leave a comment below with your thoughts or questions 🙌 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit overthinkpod.substack.com/subscribe

Hello Overthinkers and happy beginning of December ❄️ We will start rolling out more posts for our Substack. We would love any recommendations or requests from our community of videos you’d like to see! 😊 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit overthinkpod.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comThank you for joining us for another episode. Quick announcement: we’ll be releasing more posts on Substack, so drop any questions you have for Ellie and David in our subscriber chat! Also, feel free to suggest any content you’d like to see on Substack. We’d love to hear from you :)What would it be like to live without happiness being your highest goal? In episode 150 of Overthink, Ellie and David speak with philosopher Sebastian Purcell about the philosophy of the Aztecs, detailed in his new book The Outward Path: The Wisdom of the Aztecs. They discuss Aztec pessimism, how the Aztecs take an “outside-in” approach to the self, and how their view of the mind as inherently chaotic shapes their moral outlook. How can the Aztec notion of ‘right speech’ help us gain control over the internal chaos of the mind? And why did they Aztecs reject the possibility of redemption? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts dive deeper into the pessimism of the Aztecs and the claustrophobia of the Spanish conquest.Works Discussed:Sebastian Purcell, The Outward Path: The Wisdom of the AztecsJacques Soustelle, Daily Life of the Aztecs on the Eve of the Spanish Conquest

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comThanks for bearing with us as we got this episode to you all, hope you enjoy it! Hang loose! In episode 149 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about all things surfing. They explore the long history of wave-riding across the globe, from Peru to West Africa, and consider how surfing helps us to reimagine social issues and what surfing reveals about the connection between flow and freedom. Is surfing the pinnacle of human life? How has the sportification of surfing directly contravened surfing’s anti-capitalist ethos? Why is the average surfer an image of white masculinity? And how is this image tied to indigenous erasure? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss the similarities between surfing and skating, surfing as an art, and the existential risk of surfing.Works Discussed:Daniel Brennan, Surfing and the Philosophy of SportKevin Dawson, Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African DiasporaWilliam Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing LifeAaron James, Surfing with Sartre: An Aquatic Inquiry Into a Life of MeaningPeter Kreeft, I Surf, Therefore I Am: A Philosophy of SurfingAileen Moreton Robinson, “Bodies That Matter: Performing White Possession on the Beach”Peter J. Westwick and Peter Neushul, The World in the Curl: An Unconventional History of SurfingWade in the Water: A Journey Into Black Surfing and Aquatic Culture (2023)Highlight: Indigenous Roots of Surfing* Several indigenous cultures that have been surfing long before the modern surfing we know today* E.g. Hawaiian, Polynesian, and Australian indigenous* For Hawaiians in particular, historians Peter Westwick and Peter Neushul discuss surfing’s social dimensions* Surfing was a way to publicly display personal strength and leadership skills for Hawaiian chiefs* While chiefs often had a lot of leisure time to surf, surfing was also common across the community, including women* Ellie and David also discuss Captain James Cook’s colonial perspective of surfing in Hawaii in the 1770s, surfing in West Africa, and how the image of the stereotypical white, blonde, male surfer symbolizes the white colonization of surfing and even access to beachesMore on surfing in Indigenous cultures:* “The Kuleana Way: Surfing as Indigenous Hawaiian Resistance” by Jackson Beall* <a target="_blank" href="https://theblackhi

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit overthinkpod.substack.comHow can we explain the rise of loneliness in our world? In episode 148 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the difference between loneliness and solitude, how loneliness could help explain the rise of fascism in the US, and the public health implications of loneliness. What is the male loneliness epidemic, and does it truly exist? Does the state have a moral obligation to address the loneliness of its citizens? And do we have a fundamental human right to connection? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts get into the etymology of loneliness and discuss the type of companionship that animals offer humans.