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Hello 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…

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How 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

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Hello 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 <3

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 Literature

Cécile Fabre, “The Morality of Treason”

George P. Fletcher, “The Case for Treason”

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

Phyllis 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?

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Content 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 Boupacha

Highlight: 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

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What 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 Accelerationism

Sianne Ngai, Our Aesthetic Categories: Zany, Cute, and Interesting

Sianne Ngai, The Cute

Dylan 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?

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It’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!!

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We’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, Mysticism

And leave a comment below with your thoughts or questions 🙌

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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