This episode is a little different. It’s a work of fiction. A Christmas ghost story for philosophers. A Dickensian horror wrapped in VHS static and existential dread.
In 1983, a philosophy professor named Vernon Pale went on public access television to deliver a Christmas lecture. He argued that every gift we give is violence. That obligation is the real present we’re exchanging. That Christmas is capitalism’s most honest ritual, because it makes that transaction explicit.
For forty three minutes he built his case. Then the station cut the feed. The philosopher disappeared. Never taught another class. Never cashed another paycheck. Just walked out of the studio and off the edge of the world.
This episode explores that broadcast. What was said. What was censored. And why a forgotten tape about the danger of gifts feels more urgent now than it ever did.
We’re drowning in obligation. Every relationship transactional. Pale saw it coming. Tried to find the exit, to love without imposing. Tried to give the only gift that doesn’t create debt…
His absence.
Did it work? Does philosophical disappearance solve anything? Or is presence, with all its weight, all its terrible grace, just what it costs to be human?
What do we owe each other? And what does it cost to find out?
This is a work of fiction. But the philosophy, the discomfort, and the questions are not.
Happy Christmas.
Much love, David x
