Envy

08/27/24 • 54 min

2 Listeners

Why are you so obsessed with me!? In episode 111 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle envy, jealousy, and admiration, in everything from Sigmund Freud to Regina George. They think through the role of envy in social media and status regulation alongside Sara Protasi's The Philosophy of Envy, and investigate the philosophical lineage of this maligned emotion. Does the barrage of others’ achievements on social media lead to ill-will or competitive self-improvement? Why do we seek to deny our own envies? And how might Freud's questionable theory of 'penis envy' betray the politics of how we assign and deflect desire?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!
Works Discussed
Aristotle, Rhetoric
Basil of Caesarea, On Envy
Christine de Pizan, City of Ladies
Justin D'arms, Envy in the Philosophical Tradition
Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, “Analysis Terminable and Interminable”
Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One
Plato, Philebus
Plutarch, Moralia, “Of Envy and Hatred”
Sara Protasi, The Philosophy of Envy
Max Scheler, Ressentiment
Genesis 4, Exodus 20

Snow White (1937)
Mean Girls (2004)

Overthink epiosdes
60. Influencers
82. Regret
98. Reputation

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Snow White (1937)
Mean Girls (2004)

Overthink epiosdes
60. Influencers
82. Regret
98. Reputation

Support the show

Previous Episode

Intensity

What do skydiving, guitar-playing teenagers, and deep-seated psychic states have in common? They're all intense! In episode 110 of Overthink, Ellie and David untangle the role of intensity in shaping our aspirations, cultural tropes, and political goals. They trace the concept’s history from its tricky roots in Aristotle's theory of change, passing through medieval science and princely romanticism, to the thrills of skydiving and breathwork today. They turn to Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze’s accounts of consciousness and emotion to explore how intensity looks beyond the scientistic impulse to categorize and quantify, and question if intensity is of any help in addressing capitalist acceleration today.
Check out the episode's extended cut here!
Works Discussed
Aristotle, Categories
Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Life
Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will
Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition
Gustav Theodor Fechner, Elements of Psychophysics
Tristan Garcia, The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession
Mary Beth Mader, “Whence Intensity? Deleuze and the Revival of a Concept”
Benjamin Noys, The Persistence of the Negative
Nick Srnicek & Alex Williams, “#Accelerate: Manifesto for an Accelerationist Politics”
The Bachelorette
Inside Out 2 (2024)
Mentioned Overthink episodes
61 - Self Knowledge
32 - Paradox
107 - Organisms

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Next Episode

Hyperreality

Why is there a Parthenon... in Nashville? Jean Baudrillard might have the answer. In Episode 112 of Overthink, Ellie and David pick apart hyperreality: the provocative suggestion that our reality today is so inundated by signs that the gap between reality and simulation has all but broken down. Your hosts talk through the history and experience of hyperreality, from its presence in Superman and Bridgerton to its uncanny role in legitimizing presidential power. And they wonder: does the idea of hyperreality motivate political action, or does it slide into complacent provincialism?

Check out the episode's extended cut here!
Works Discussed
Jean Baudrillard, America
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation
Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Sadie Plant, The Most Radical Gesture
Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle

An American Family (1973)
Superman (1978)
Love Island (2023)
Bridgerton (2005)

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Overthink - Envy

Transcript

David00:00:39.975

Hello, and welcome to Overthink.

Ellie00:00:42.405

The podcast where your favorite philosophy professors try and help you feel better about yourselves by showing you that your problems today have been, in some form or another, the topic of philosophical debates for centuries.

David00:00:54.575

I am David Peña Guzman.

Ellie00:00:56.895

And I am Ellie Ander