Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy

In one of HBOs promotional videos for the eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David appears as Godzilla, walking through the streets of New York City, terrorizing everyone who sees him. People scream and run for their lives. Larry, meanwhile, has a quizzical look on his face and asks, What, are you people nuts? Theres something very apt about this image. It captures one of Larrys defining characteristics. But what exactly is it? What makes Larry a monster, and why doesnt he know that hes a monster? Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy discusses a few philosophical answers to these questions. We think youll be surprised to discover how much philosophy is present in the world of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Most of it revolves around Curb-Larry, the character that the real Larry David plays on HBOs popular television series Curb Your Enthusiasm: his values and outlook on life, his unusual ways of interacting with people, his inability or unwillingness to conform to the world, and his relationships with others, including the real Larry David who plays him.We try to cover everything. Some of the chapters discuss ethical and existential issues, such as whether Larry is a bad apple or perhaps worth emulating. Others talk about sexuality, religion, and race relations. Theres a chapter on enthusiasm itself, another on giving gifts, and we even discuss the philosophical significance of Larrys piercing stare into other peoples eyes. Larry may not fit our expectations of what a philosopher is: he doesnt ask questions about free will, or wonder whether the world outside our minds really exists. But thats only because hes more like Socrates than Descartes. Larry is a philosopher of the everyday. He describes us, and he tries to liberate us. He questions the value of our values, and recommends new ones. He tells us bitter truths about the way we live our lives, and he says and does the things that most of us wish we could. Theres something heroic about his independence from social conventions, and theres something tragic about his tendency to hurt people with his frankness, which is rarely malicious. In the end, though, Larry is a healer. As he turns our world upside down, trivializing what we find important and obsessing over things we find trivial, he offers us consolation. He shows us that its ok to be a monster. Curb Your Enthusiasm and Philosophy tries to figure out whether that should concern us.