Absence: On the Culture and Philosophy of the Far East (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2023) ISBN 9781509546206 Reception [ edit ] Han being awarded the Prix Bristol des Lumières [ fr] alongside Jacques Attali, Christophe Barbier, Philippe-Joseph Salazar, among others

Spanish edition: La salvación de lo bello. Barcelona, Herder Editorial, 2015, ISBN 978-84-254-3758-8. Q. Some fear that the Internet of Things could one day mean that objects will rebel against human beings.A. Big data is only a very primitive form of knowledge, namely correlation: if A happens, then B happens. There is no understanding. Artificial intelligence does not think. Artificial intelligence doesn’t get goosebumps. Play more and work less: A visit with Byung-Chul Han in Karlsruhe". Sign and Sight. 2011-07-25 . Retrieved 2012-06-09.

A. Capitalism really responds to the instinctive structures of man. But man is not only an instinctive being. We have to tame, civilize and humanize capitalism. That is also possible. The social market economy is a demonstration of it. But our economy is entering a new era, the era of sustainability. This theme is explored in detail in The Burnout Society , a short work dating from 2010. Han begins by introducing the idea of a society based on the language of immunology, with life revolving around the self and others, the familiar and the alien. What this meant is that in politics and society people acted very much as our bodies do when an infection is detected, isolating and annihilating the threat; as a result, anything not forming part of the whole is automatically part of this threat (here Han gives the example of Cold War rhetoric). You’ll note the use of the past tense here, and this is because the writer believes that this was a 20th-century concept and that we’ve moved on (to which I can only say Trump, Brexit, refugees on Manus Island … ). The Burnout Society certainly isn’t my usual fare, but I enjoyed it immensely, and its core message is one we should all consider. Han dips nicely into others’ ideas too, giving us a taste of other views on the subject. As with much popular philosophy, it’s hard to shake off a nagging feeling that Han’s ideas are simply common sense explained clearly; not a bad thing, of course, but perhaps meaning that there’s nothing here as clever as you might think on a first reading. Of course, it may just be that in the time since the book’s publication, what were once profound insights have now become fairly self-explanatory truths. Byung-Chul Han studied metallurgy in Korea before he moved to Germany in the 1980s to study Philosophy, German Literature and Catholic theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. He received his doctoral degree at Freiburg with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger in 1994. To show how we are building this society of tiredness, Han launches his argument from the basis of our achievement society.

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Q. In this world you describe, one of hyper-consumption where relationships are lost, why is it important to have objects that we love, and to establish rituals? Der Freitag writer Steffen Kraft criticized him for drawing on anti-democratic and anti-technology Carl Schmitt, and alleged that he "confuses cause and effect: it is not the hope for more transparency that has turned democracy into technocracy, but the refusal of even progressives to consider the consequences of information technology on the political process." (original quote in German: "Ursache und Wirkung: Nicht die Hoffnung auf mehr Transparenz hat die Demokratie zur Technokratie gemacht, sondern die Weigerung selbst Progressiver, die Folgen der Informationstechnik auf den politischen Prozess zu bedenken. ") [5] Works in English [ edit ] Han, Byung-Chul (2017) [2012 in German]. The Agony of Eros. Translated by Butler, Erik. Foreword by Alain Badiou. London: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262533379. LCCN 2016031913.

Consequently, Roberto Esposito makes a false assumption the basis of his theory of immunitas when he declares: The new Human-type, helplessly exposed to the excess of Positivity, is deprived of any sense of agency. The depressive person is this animal laborans (working animal) that exploits itself, voluntarily, without coercion. They are both culprit and victim. The basis of all of the above is the underlying idea that we’re free and that it’s up to us to seek personal fulfillment. After all, we’ve been told that we can be anything we want to be and nothing is beyond our reach. For the same reason, we set unrealistic standards for ourselves and push ourselves to the absolute limits to meet them.By adopting denial as a philosophy, Bartleby makes it impossible to break the ring that surrounds him. The narrator, by contrast, reveals all his anxieties, frustrations, and fears to the reader. His disappointment is evident in getting to know his clerk intimately and thus exercising control over him (as he did with his other employees). However, Bartleby does not yield to his (or our) appeal. Even in viral form, hostility obeys the immunological scheme: the enemy virus intrudes into a system, which functions immunologically and fights off the invader. For all that, the genealogy of hostility does not coincide with the genealogy of violence. The violence of positivity does not presume or require hostility. It unfolds specifically in a permissive and pacified society. Consequently, it proves more invisible than viral violence. It inhabits the negativity-free space of the Same, where no polarization between inside and outside, or proper and foreign, takes place. Several thousand people commit suicide every year in South Korea. The main cause is depression. In 2018, about 700 school children attempted suicide. The media even talk of a “silent massacre.” By contrast, so far only 1,700 people have died of Covid-19 in South Korea. The very high suicide rate is simply accepted as collateral damage of the achievement society. No significant measures have been taken to reduce the rate. The pandemic has intensified the problem of suicide—the suicide rate in South Korea has risen rapidly since it broke out. The virus apparently also aggravates depression. But around the globe not enough attention is being paid to the psychological consequences of the pandemic. People have been reduced to biological existence. Everyone listens just to the virologists, who have assumed absolute authority when it comes to interpreting the situation. The real crisis caused by the pandemic is the fact that bare life has been transformed into an absolute value. Greek edition: Η ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΡΗΓΟΡΙΑΣ. Athens, Opera publications, 2021, ISBN 978-618-5400-26-2.

How to deal with this reality? How can we learn to manage and control the infinite stimuli that affect us, from communication to the internet, through the images and the violence of television news? How to be able to “hang up”? It is urgent to (re) learn the art of attention, listening, silence, stopping, giving space, not falling into the “gears” of consumption and production, so that human beings do not become, the purpose of which is to operate without alteration and at maximum yield.But, if we don’t meet them, since we believe we’re solely responsible for our own well-being, we feel like complete failures. We do this totally independently and there’s no one from outside pressuring us. Indeed, we’re our own toughest judges and managers, punishing ourselves with reproach and self-harm. Productivity as a synonym of personal value