Plato, Schopenhauer, and Girard on Why We Never Feel Full
Three philosophers on the ache of always wanting more: Plato's lack, Schopenhauer's pendulum of pain and boredom, and Girard's mimetic desire.
Philosophy
Big ideas made simple — Stoicism, existentialism, and the questions worth sitting with, brought down to the scale of an ordinary life.
Absurdism on Screen: Camus, Birdman, and Synecdoche
Camus's absurdism traced through four works — Birdman, Synecdoche New York, Atlanta, and The Banshees of Inisherin — and what each says…
Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, Sartre on Facing Existence
Four philosophers, four different answers to a life without guarantees — Nietzsche's Übermensch, Schopenhauer's will, Camus's revolt, Sartre's freedom.
Simone de Beauvoir: How a Woman ‘Becomes’ What She’s Told
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir asked not who am I, but who decided in advance who I'd be, and how…
What Is a Homeland? Rousseau, Belonging, and Identity
A simple question with a long history: what is a homeland? On Rousseau's social contract, collective identity, and loving a place while…
Two Kinds of Illusion: Baudrillard, Truman, and Silver Lake
The Truman Show and Under the Silver Lake tell the same story twice: Jean Baudrillard's hyperreality, once as a tidy dream and…
Alienation on Screen: What Marx Saw in Parasite and Metropolis
Karl Marx's theory of alienation, traced through four films — Metropolis, Modern Times, Parasite, and Severance — and what it says about…
Machiavelli’s Uncomfortable Truth About Power
Napoleon read it. So did Hitler. The Prince endures because it said plainly what most people still won't: politics has little room…
Morality Might Just Be a Very Old Social Contract
What was heroism a century ago is a war crime today. Aristotle and Hume both suggest morality is less an eternal law…