We are constantly comparing ourselves with others. It is precisely this comparison that makes us all the same Now, if you’ll excuse me, I might just end there – you see, after all that philosophising, I’m suddenly feeling very, very tired … Burnout syndrome has 2 dimensions. The first is exhaustion, the physical and mental drainage caused by rapid expenditure of energy. The second is that of alienation, feeling like the work you’re doing is meaningless and it doesn’t really belong to you. With the expansion of the system of production comes an ever-increasing narrowness of functions to be filled by workers. Infokratie: Digitalisierung und die Krise der Demokratie. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2021. ISBN 978-3-7518-0526-1. On one level, continuity holds in the paradigm shift from disciplinary society to achievement society. Clearly, the drive to maximize production inhabits the social unconscious. Beyond a certain point of productivity, disciplinary technology—or, alternately, the negative scheme of prohibition—hits a limit. To heighten productivity, the paradigm of disciplination is replaced by the paradigm of achievement, or, in other words, by the positive scheme of Can; after a certain level of productivity obtains, the negativity of prohibition impedes further expansion. The positivity of Can is much more efficient than the negativity of Should. Therefore, the social unconscious switches from Should to Can. The achievement-subject is faster and more productive than the obedience-subject. However, the Can does not revoke the Should. The obedience-subject remains disciplined. It has now completed the disciplinary stage. Can increases the level of productivity, which is the aim of disciplinary technology, that is, the imperative of Should. Where increasing productivity is concerned, no break exists between Should and Can; continuity prevails.

Joe’s co-workers all agreed he was irreplaceable. His boss claimed the plant would top the industry if he just had a few more guys like Joe. Despite his rare talent, Joe refused promotions. The system that gives esteem to engaged employees also creates anxiety only quelled through working more intensively

Notes

Question. How is it possible that in a world obsessed with hyperproduction and hyperconsumption, at the same time objects are disappearing and we are moving toward a world of non-things?

Han calls the logical extreme of this “we-tiredness” – in other words “I am not tired of you, but rather I am tired with you.” The depressive man is that working animal that exploits itself, that is: voluntarily, without external coercion. He is, at the same time, executioner and victim […] The depression is unleashed at the moment in which the subject of performance can no longer do anything […] The depressed is tired of the effort to become himself.” Brazilian Portuguese edition: Capitalismo e impulso de morte, Vozes, Petrópolis, 2021 ISBN 9786557131282.Slow down and learn to live in the present. Calmly enjoy each and every activity and every moment with the people around you. Practice mindfulness as a lifestyle. Harm does not come from negativity alone, but also from positivity—not just from the Other or the foreign, but also from the Same. Such violence of positivity is clearly what Baudrillard has in mind when he writes, “He who lives by the Same shall die by the Same.” 4 Likewise, Baudrillard speaks of the “obesity of all current systems” of information, communication, and production. Fat does not provoke an immune reaction. However—and herein lies the weakness of his theory—Baudrillard pictures the totalitarianism of the Same from an immunological standpoint:

The Emergence of the Mindset Culture Gary Vaynerchuk, 16 April 2015, via the World Travel and Tourism Council The dialectic of Being-Active, which escapes Arendt, is that the hyperactive intensification of activity turns this into a Hyper-Passivity, in which we helplessly follow every impulse and stimulus. Instead of freedom, it brings forth new constraints. It is an illusion to believe that the more active we become, the freer we are. The point of view in Han is that Bartleby is someone who has not yet come across depression because it is not moved by the quest to be itself. It only performs monotonous activities, which leave no room for any initiative. Overwork is not his mark so much is that at the end of the tale comes the revelation that he was employed in the card industry, a kind of archive. Consumerism has been implemented as the escape route. However, it’s a trap that ties us to the dynamics of productivity. Rest and escape the burnout society

Popular

Hard work is arguably what American society values most. In a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2014 that asked people about their personalities, 80% of respondents described themselves as “hardworking”. No other trait drew such a strong positive response, not even “sympathetic” or “accepting of others”. Only 3% said they were lazy, and a statistically insignificant number identified strongly as lazy. Secular, 21st-century residents of wealthy countries don’t worry much about whether we’re God’s elect. But we’re still trapped in the Calvinist cage. We are anxious to demonstrate to potential employers, and to ourselves, that we are work saints. Like divine election, this type of status is an abstract condition that we cannot assign to ourselves, but one we hope others will recognize. Jean Baudrillard, “Jean Baudrillard im Gespräch mit Peter Engelmann,” Der Geist des Terrorismus (Vienna: Passagen, 2002), 85 (this interview does not appear in the English-language edition, The Spirit of Terrorism, trans. Chris Turner [London: Verso, 2003]). For instance, we’re told that everything is possible, that we can control everything, that we’re capable, and that we should always feel good as well as achieving our goals. Unsurprisingly, this can be exhausting. Comparison with others Romanian edition: Agonia erosului, Humanitas, ISBN 978-973-50-4326-1, EPUB/PDF ISBN 978-973-50-4466-4.

Lejano Oriente como arma para la revolución? Reflexiones sobre el papel de la filosofía oriental en la obra de Byung-Chul Han. Estudios de Filosofía, 67, 2022, pp. 5-24. ISSN 0121-3628

Spanish edition: La salvación de lo bello. Barcelona, Herder Editorial, 2015, ISBN 978-84-254-3758-8.