Overthink

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 kno...

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...

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 tr...

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 a...

Why are Aztecs often considered pessimists from a philosophical perspective? In episode 150 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with philosopher Sebastian Purcell about his book The Outward Path: The Wisdom of the Aztecs. They discuss how the Aztecs urge us to take an “outside-in” approach to the self, how their understanding of happiness differs from much of Western philosophy, and how their view of the mind as inhere...

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-cap...

How 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...

Don’t shy away from this one! In episode 147 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss confidence. Modernity has created a crisis of confidence, leading to the demand that we all maximize our confidence. But what is confidence? Is it a personality trait or a relational concept? What causes under- and over-confidence? And is instilling confidence an equity issue? Your hosts think through Charles Pépin’s pillars of confidence, D...

Can we ever be truly alone? In episode 146 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk with philosopher Dan Zahavi about his book, Being We: Phenomenological Contributions to Social Ontology. They discuss how the increase in communication through screens has shifted what it means to be together, the decline of social bonds in political life, and what phenomenological understandings of empathy tell us about being together. How ...

Chat GPT, Gemini, Meta AI, and Grok. In episode 145 of Overthink, David and Ellie talk about AI chatbots. Are relationships between humans and AI valuable? Or should we shame people for using LLMs?  And what are we doing when we use these technologies: expanding or outsourcing our cognition? They explore the dangers of using chatbots as romantic partners and therapists, considering how the how the principle of ‘Y...

Why does falling for someone so often feel like a painful obsession? In episode 144 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss the unspoken difficulties of limerence, or the state of falling in love. What is the difference between love and limerence, and why do we confuse them so frequently? How does social media fuel limerent reactions? And is limerence inherently selfish? They discuss how limerence can be formative to our per...

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...

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 a...

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...

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 ...

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 philos...

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 ...

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 rea...

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  contrib...