Which industries should cease to exist immediately? And what ‘bullshit jobs’ should they take with them? In episode 143 of Overthink, Ellie and David explore the academic and social movement of ‘Degrowth.’ They discuss the imperial mode of living that has become normalized in the Global North, explain how it relates to the ‘iron law’ of capitalism, and detail how the degrowth movement seeks to build a communist future. In particular, they explore the pillars Kohei Saito’s degrowth communism. Why are degrowth scholars such as Saito so critical of the Green New Deal? Was Karl Marx himself a ‘degrower’? And what exactly does it mean to degrow the economy? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts continue their discussion of the pillars of degrowth, thinking about the benefits abandoning the current division of labor and shortening work hours.

Works Discussed:

Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen, The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism

John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature

Jason Hickel, Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

Matthew Huber, Climate Change as Class War: Building Socialism on a Warming Planet

Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy

Kohei Saito, Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto

Aaron Vansintjan, Andrea Vetter, and Matthias Schmelzer, The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World Beyond Capitalism

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Why does much of the history of philosophy neglect the topic of birth? In episode 142 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with Jennifer Banks about her book Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth. They think through the debate between pronatalism and antinatalism, and consider alternatives to these positions. They also discuss Hannah Arendt’s account of natality and what Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tells us about the relationship between birth and monstrosity. What is birth, and why does it seem to defy so many of our concepts and categories? What’s the difference between being-born and giving-birth? And how would our view of ourselves change if we saw ourselves through the lens of a “philosophy of birth” (as opposed to, say, “a philosophy of death”)? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts dive further into Hannah Arendt’s works, focusing on the link between her concept of natality and her ideas about the public/private distinction.

Works Discussed:

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition

Jennifer Banks, Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth

Alison Stone, Being Born: Birth and Philosophy

Dean Spears and Michael Geruso, After the Spike: Population, Progress, and the Case for People

Marjolein Oele, “The Dissolution of the Pregnant City: A Philosophical Account of Early Pregnancy Loss and Enigmatic Grief”

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Tradwives, the divine feminine, and “that girl” on social media. In episode 141 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss femininity. They look to Simone de Beauvoir’s famous claim that one is not born but rather becomes a woman, and discuss how the process of feminization is crucial to this becoming. They explore the association between femininity, mystery, and docility. Is the return to traditional gender roles an attempt to move away from capitalism? How do contemporary beauty standards shape women’s self-understanding. And is there such thing as “feminine writing”? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss 90s cultural feminism and spirituality, and question whether it is possible to find liberation through the divine feminine image. 

Works Discussed:

Sandra Bartky, “ Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”

Pierre Bourdieu, La domination masculine

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Hélène Cixous, “The Laugh of the Medusa”

Manon Garcia, We Are Not Born Submissive

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Performative males, hustle bros, sissies, and manfluencers. In episode 140 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss masculinity. What does it mean to be a man, and how has the concept of masculinity changed over time? They look at the male loneliness epidemic, the current influx of male influencers spreading right-wing rhetoric on the manosphere, and some of the main features of masculinity. Is masculinity rooted in violence and homophobia, or is it possible to have a healthy model of masculinity? In the Substack bonus, your hosts get into the mythopoetic men's movement and the connection between haircuts and masculinity.

Works Discussed:
Robert Brannon and Deborah Sarah David, The Forty-nine Percent Majority: The Male Sex Role
Pierre Bourdieu, La domination masculine
R.W. Connell, Gender and Power
James W. Messerschmidt, Hegemonic Masculinity
Joseph Pleck, The Myth of Masculinity
Todd W. Reeser, Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture
Frans de Waal, Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex Among Apes

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What does it mean to love thy neighbor? And who counts as a neighbor in the first place? In episode 139 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about neighbors. They think through the parasocial relationships that hold between us and those who live near us, how the values of our neighbors affect our lives, and how neighborly relations blur the public/private distinction. They use the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy of the neighbor as “the Other” to think about the experience of moral responsibility. And they consider how our relationships with neighbors differ from other relationships? To what extent do we choose our neighbors? How do wealth and class shape our experience of living-with-others? And what actually makes a neighbor a neighbor? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts question whether we have specific ethical obligations to our neighbors and discuss cultural differences in how people view their neighbors.

Works Discussed:
Mark Granovetter, “The Strength of Weak Ties”
Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being
Hannu Ruonavaara, “The Anatomy of Neighbour Relations”
Anna Strhan, “And Who is My Neighbour? Levinas and the Commandment to Love Re-examined”

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How did Black Women become magical? In episode 138, Ellie and David talk to Lindsey Stewart about her book, The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic. They talk about how the concept of ‘conjure’ shifted from its origin in the West African tradition to how it manifests in African American communities today. They discuss how Yoruba religion traveled to the US with slavery, as well as exploring the impact of historical images like the Mammy and the Voodoo Queen. What are the dangers of rhetoric of Black women being magical? How has Christianity influenced the ignorance that many Americans have around conjure? Is Beyonce magical? And does her album Cowboy Carter invoke the West African concept of Sankofa? In the Substack bonus segment, Ellie and David talk about magic on a larger scale, and parse out the differences between magic, religion and science. 

Works Discussed:
Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards and Valerie N. Adams, “I am not (your) superwoman, Black girl magic, or beautiful struggle: Rethinking the resilience of Black women and girls” 
Kim R. Harris, “Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ embraces country music, Black history and religious imagery”
 Lindsey Stewart, The Conjuring of America: Mojos, Mermaids, Medicine, and 400 Years of Black Women's Magic

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With conspiracy theories, fake news, and anti-science rhetoric everywhere, we are living in an age of post-truth. In episode 137 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the meaning of truth in our contemporary political and social landscape and how post-truth has increased in the recent years. How do phenomena like opinion overload, news fatigue, and information overload contribute to the spread of post truth? And are we really “post” truth, or do we simply live in an age of “many” truths? Ellie and David explore different conceptions of truth, the differences between misinformation and disinformation, and between lying and bullshitting. And what’s the connection between post-truth and postmodernism? Have so-called “pomo professors” contributed to the rise of political dishonesty and deception? In the bonus, your hosts talk about Michael Hannon’s article “The Politics of Post-Truth” and consider whether “post-truth” is even the right word for the crisis we’re facing.

Works Discussed:
Max Black, “The Prevalence of Humbug”
Harry Frankfurt, “On Bullshit”
Ralph Keyes, The Post-Truth Era
Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition
Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth
David M. Peña-Guzmán and Rebekah Spera, “The anatomy of a philosophical hoax: The politics of delegitimation in contemporary philosophy”
Simon Truwant, De waarheid heeft vier gezichten

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What makes burnout different from exhaustion or fatigue? In episode 136 of Overthink, Ellie and David look at the history of the term burnout and its surprising connection to social justice. They also explore Byung-Chul Han’s reading of burnout as a natural consequence of “achievement culture.”  How does our mindless scrolling on TikTok and Instagram reveal our inability to be bored and meditate? And how does this  contribute to our personal and collective run-ins with burnout? Why do so many people, academics included, fail to recognize their own burnout? And is it even possible to escape burnout in a capitalist society? In the bonus, your hosts talk about the shame surrounding burnout, errand paralysis, and the relationship between burnout and compulsive buying.

Works Discussed:
Herbert J. Freudenberger, “Staff Burn-Out”
Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society
Emily and Amelia Nagoski, Burnout, the Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle
David M. Peña-Guzmán and Rebekah Spera, Professional Philosophy and Its Myths
Anne Helen Peterson, Can’t Even: How Millennials became the Burnout Generation
Hannah Proctor, Burnout

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Aperol spritzes, ‘Euro summers’, and aesthetic beach pics. In episode 135 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss all things travel. They discuss the differences how travel changes our relationship to the place where we're from, the difference between travel and tourism, and the place of travel in the history of philosophy. They go from Plato’s views that young people shouldn’t travel to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s belief that travel is essential for turning boys into men. They also explore the question, why do humans love to travel so much? In the bonus, your hosts debate over their relationships to phones and taking photos while travelling and dive deeper into what it’s like to experience culture shock.

Works Discussed: 

Francis Bacon, “On Travel”
Agnes Callard, “Against Travel”
Paul Fussell, Abroad
Michel de Montaigne, “On Cannibals”
Plato, The Republic
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Emile
George Santayana, “The Philosophy of Travel”
Joseph Shaules, The Intercultural Mind: Connecting Culture, Cognition, and Global Living
Emily Thomas, The Meaning of Travel: Philosophers Abroad

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All metaphysical theories are…really weird. In episode 134 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with Eric Schwitzgebel about his book Weirdness of the World. They think through the difference between weirdness and bizarreness, the nonsensical nature of philosophical theories, and whether we should all just agree with Occam’s razor that the simplest explanation is always best.Is the recent theory that we’re all living in a simulation really that strange? Is it stranger than the idealist metaphysics of Plato or the atomism of Lucretius? And why are philosophical theories doomed to weirdness? Are we the weird ones, or do we just live in a weird world? In the bonus your hosts talk about the butterfly effect and the infinitude of the universe, and how neurodivergent traits can be rewarded in philosophy.

Works Discussed:
Graham Harman, Weird Realism: Lovecraft and Philosophy
Eric Schwitzgebel, Weirdness of the World

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