How Capitalism Learned to Sell Us Love
Drawing on sociologist Eva Illouz, on how film, advertising, and jewelry turned love into a product, and why the story always ends…
Hannibal and the Curse of Will Graham’s Empathy
On Bryan Fuller's Hannibal, Will Graham's dangerous gift for empathy, and how Carl Jung's idea of the Shadow explains why the show…
Herd Psychology: Why the Crowd Makes Us Smaller
Drawing on Gustave Le Bon's The Crowd, on why people who'd never do wrong alone feel safe doing it in a group,…
Brave New World, Black Mirror, and the Comfortable Cage
Huxley's soma and Black Mirror's Nosedive both describe a prison you volunteer for: comfortable, entertaining, and never once felt as captivity.
The Silent Fight Between Your Mind, Emotion, and Instinct
Most of what feels like a rational decision actually starts as emotion or instinct, and your mind just arrives afterward to write…
Why We Fall for Fictional Killers Like Hannibal and Dexter
On catharsis, high-functioning psychopathy, and moral justification, and why audiences keep rooting for television's most dangerous, most convincing characters.
Rust Cohle and Hannibal Lecter: Two Kinds of Genius
Comparing True Detective's Rust Cohle and Hannibal Lecter: one sees the universe as meaningless, the other sees it as unfinished art, and…
When Philosophy Is Just Self-Repair in Disguise
Marcus Aurelius, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche read differently once you see Stoicism, pessimism, and the will to power as personal coping turned into…
The Life of David Gale and the Fragility of Justice
A close read of The Life of David Gale (2003), on how a death-penalty story turns viewers into witnesses to a justice…