With the rise of hustle culture, the grind, and capitalist productivity, we often associate discipline with toxicity. But is there still value in disciplining oneself? In episode 169 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a disciplined approach to this question and more! They discuss modern culture’s rejection of discipline and how this manifests on the left vs the right, the association between discipline and punishment, and Michel Foucault’s seminal ideas on disciplinary power. How can we discipline children without resorting to punishment? And are there models of self-discipline that aren’t rooted in punishment of the self? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss Sandra Bartky’s argument that gender norms are a modern form of disciplinary power.

Works Discussed:

Joan E. Durrant and Ashley Stewart-Tufescu. “What is “Discipline” in the Age of Children’s Rights?.”

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish

Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality

Adekunle A. Ibrahim and Philomena A. Ojomo. “Discipline and Punishment in Schools: A Philosophical Appraisal.”

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Why do we seek to escape from ourselves? In episode 168 of Overthink, Ellie and David take a closer look at Emmanuel Levinas’s article “On Escape.” They discuss Levinas’s claim that escape is central to the human condition and explore what exactly we try to escape from and escape to. They explain how this aspect of human existence is crystallized by our experiences of need, pleasure, and even nausea. Are we condemned to being needy beings? How does Levinas’s view of shame put him at a distance from Sartre? And is Levinas right that to be a human is to never be at peace with oneself? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss why escape is the condition of our time and critique Levinas’s reading of idealism.

Works Discussed:

Emmanuel Levinas, “On Escape”

Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

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Are some people born evil, or are we all capable of evil acts? In episode 167 of Overthink, Ellie and David talk about all things evil. They think through the characterization of evil in Disney films, Leibniz’s best of all possible worlds theory, the conflation of evil with badness, and Hannah Arendt’s concept of the banality of evil. How does Manichaeism attempt to resolve the problem of evil? Is evil simply the lack of good in the world? And does the concept of evil still have relevance in an age of secular ethics or is the concept too weighed down by its own theological past? In the Substack bonus segment, your hosts discuss evil people and how we might categorize them.

Works Discussed:

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Hannah Arendt, “Nightmare and Flight”

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Paul Formosa, “The Problems with Evil”

Paul Formosa, “A Conception of Evil”

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy

Gavin Rae, Evil in the Western Philosophical Tradition

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Join our Substack for ad-free versions of both audio and video episodes, extended episodes, exclusive live chats, and more: https://overthinkpod.substack.com/

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.