Comfort

12/03/24 • 53 min

2 Listeners

Get comfy as you listen to this episode! In episode 118 of Overthink, Ellie and David discuss all things comfortable...and uncomfortable. They talk through the conflation of comfort and luxury, modern architecture’s prioritization of comfort, and whether our need for comfort is the reason for our burning planet. With everything from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to “the comfort-industrial complex,” this episode will have you questioning what it takes for us to lead a full and happy life. Plus, in the bonus they get into the meaning of the phrase ‘too close for comfort’, alcohol as a destructive form of comfort, and the importance of attachment theory.
Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed:
Daniel Barber, “After Comfort”
J L Bottorff et al., “The phenomenology of comfort”
Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Ryan Heavy Head, “Blackfoot Influence on Abraham Maslow, Presented by Narcisse Kainai and Ryan Heavy Head at the University of Montana”
Lynnette Leeseberg Stamler and Ann Malinowski, “Comfort: exploration of the concept in nursing.”
A. H. Maslow, A Theory of Human Motivation
Teju Ravilochan, “The Blackfoot Wisdom that Inspired Maslow’s Hierarchy”.
Peter Sloterdijk, Spheres trilogy
Chögyam Trungpa, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

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Previous Episode

Black Consciousness with Lewis Gordon

Do you need black skin to be Black? How might concepts such as white privilege be limiting our understanding of how racism works? In Episode 117 of Overthink, Ellie and David chat with philosopher Lewis Gordon about his book, Fear of Black Consciousness. They talk through the history of anti-Black racism, the existential concept of bad faith, why Rachel Dolezal might have Black consciousness, and Frantz Fanon’s experience of being called a racial slur by a white child on a train. From the American Blues to the Caribbean movement of Negritude, this episode is full of insight into Black liberation and White centeredness. In the bonus, Ellie and David go into greater detail about how Black liberation is connected to love.
Check out the episode's extended cut here!
Works Discussed:
Steve Bantu Biko, I Write What I Like
W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Edouard Glissant, Introduction à une Poétique du Divers
Jane Anna Gordon, “Legitimacy from Modernity’s Underside: Potentiated Double Consciousness”
Lewis Gordon, Bad Faith and Antiblack racism
Lewis Gordon, Fear of Black Consciousness
Rebecca Tuvel, “In Defense of Transracialism”

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Next Episode

Driving

Have you ever wanted to go on a road trip with the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan? After listening to this episode, you certainly won’t! In episode 119 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about the experience of driving and the moral and social dilemmas involved with it. How does driving alter our relationship with time and space? What is the “long distance truck driver problem”, and what does it have to do with animal consciousness? And how should we respond to the rise in self-driving cars? Buckle in and get ready for this ride into the philosophy of driving. Plus, in the bonus they dive deeper into the ethics of self-driving cars, exploring the repercussions hacking could have on self-driving cars. What moral philosophy should be programmed into the self-driving vehicles of the future? And who gets to decide?
Check out the episode's extended cut here!

Works Discussed:
David Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of The Mind
Kenneth Jackson, The Crabgrass Frontier
Stamatis Karnouskos, “Self-Driving Car Acceptance and the Rule of Ethics”
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception
Catherine Millot, Life with Lacan
Lynne Pearce, Drivetime
William Ratoff, “Self-driving Cars and the Right to Drive”
Mark Rowlands, Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice
Paul Virilio, Speed and Politics: An Essay on Dromology
Jamieson Webster, “Riding in Cars with Jacques Lacan”
Andreas Wolkenstein, “What has the Trolley Dilemma ever done for us (and what will it do in the future)? On some recent debates about the ethics of self- driving cars”