Alienation

Overthink

Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D.

Philosophy, Society & Culture, Education

4.7 • 549 Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Do you fear the Sunday Scaries and Thank God It's Friday? You might be suffering from a case of what Karl Marx called "alienation." In episode 29 of Overthink, David and Ellie break down this key but often misunderstood concept for the modern workplace. After explaining Marx's four forms of alienation using the example of making Teva sandals, they discuss the gig economy and "bullshit jobs." Plus: in today's society, are even poets and Netflix viewers alienated? Or does Marx's concept only apply to an outdated model of industrial work under capitalism?

Works discussed:
Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Rahel Jaeggi, Alienation
David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs
Byung-Chul Han, In the swarm: Digital prospects
Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man
Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle
Emmanuel Renault, From Fordism to Post-Fordism: Beyond or Back to Alienation
Louis Althusser, Reading Capital

Support the show

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

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, I'm David Pena Guzman.
0:08.2	And I'm Ellie Anderson.
0:10.1	Welcome to Overthink.
0:11.9	The podcast for two friends, who are also professors, put philosophy in dialogue with the everyday.
0:18.4	Because big ideas are within everyone's reach.
0:30.1	Ellie, a lot of people hate their job.
0:33.8	To the point that we have all kinds of ways to talk about how much we hated based on the day of the week that we are in.
0:41.9	So like Wednesdays are hump day where it's just like, you're making it to the other end of the week.
0:50.1	You know, it's downhill from there.
0:51.8	Or like TGI Fridays, thank God it's Fridays, which is also the name of like a chain.
0:57.0	But like that's how popular it is.
0:58.4	TGI Fridays is the name of the chain.
1:00.8	The phrase is either a thank God it's Friday or TGIF.
1:05.2	But then Sunday Scaries, right?
1:07.9	Wait, what is that?
1:08.7	Sunday Scaries.
1:10.3	Sunday Scaries. That's like the best one. That's when you feel like crap on Sunday because you're like anxious about the Monday you have ahead of you. And then we have Mondays, am I right? For Mondays. I feel like we really need representation for Tuesdays and Thursdays. which is like, oh, it's okay to drink if I'm a little hungover on Friday. It doesn't matter so much. And what about Tuesday? I don't know. What is Tuesday? I actually love a Tuesday, but I also, like, don't really get Sunday scleries, so... Because usually I don't like teaching. I don't teach on Mondays because I get Sunday scurries if I teach on Mondays. Really? Do you really get that? Yeah. So I have a friend who gets so anxious on Sundays that he just knows that he won't be able to sleep the whole night on Sundays. Oh, that sounds absolutely off.
2:01.1	And it's not because anything particular is happening on Mondays.
2:04.6	Like, it's just a regular week, but he just by now has accepted this as part of his reality
2:09.2	that on Sundays he's not going to get any sleep out of stress.
2:12.9	Oh, my God.
2:14.6	And even those who are getting sleep, a lot of times aren't looking forward to starting
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D., and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Ellie Anderson, Ph.D. and David Peña-Guzmán, Ph.D. and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.