The Burnout Society

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This change, which apparently empowers and is liberating, actually becomes a boomerang that soon beats us with all its strength because it hides a great psychological risk of which we are not aware. 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.

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.” The “corona blues” is the name the Koreans have given to the depression that is spreading during the pandemic. Under quarantine conditions, without social interaction, depression deepens. Depression is the real pandemic. The Burnout Society set out from the following diagnosis: Greek edition: Η ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΔΙΑΦΑΝΕΙΑΣ. Athens, Opera publications, 2015, ISBN 978-960-8397-78-1. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I might just end there – you see, after all that philosophising, I’m suddenly feeling very, very tired … Brazilian Portuguese edition: Filosofia do zen-budismo, Vozes, Petrópolis, 2020 ISBN 9788532662361.Disciplinary society is a society of negativity. It is defined by the negativity of prohibition. The negative modal verb that governs it is May Not. By the same token, the negativity of compulsion adheres to Should. Achievement society, more and more, is in the process of discarding negativity. Increasing deregulation is abolishing it. Unlimited Can is the positive modal verb of achievement society. Its plural form—the affirmation, “Yes, we can”—epitomizes achievement society’s positive orientation. Prohibitions, commandments, and the law are replaced by projects, initiatives, and motivation. Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers.

Han argues that subjects become self-exploiters: "Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class struggle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself." [9] The individual has become what Han calls "the achievement-subject"; the individual does not believe they are subjugated "subjects" but rather "projects: Always refashioning and reinventing ourselves" which "amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint—indeed, to a "more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation." As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the "I" subjugates itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization. [10] Being tired is not the problem; the problem is that the kind of tiredness that our society brews is one of exhaustion; it is no longer in tune with rhythms of rest which can renew inspiration in us. Sabbath: a refuge from restlessness Each era and society has its own patterns of thought, which inculcates in its members. We can not escape them. Unless we make a conscious exercise of analysis and reflection they will determine us throughout life, because they have become the margins that limit our thinking, outside of which we do not even conceive reality as possible. Brazilian Portuguese edition: O desaparecimento dos rituais, Vozes, Petrópolis, 2021 ISBN 9786557132487.Müdigkeitsgesellschaft will soon be available in 19 languages. [13] Several South Korean newspapers voted it to be the most important book in 2012. [14] The Guardian wrote a positive review of his 2017 book Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, [15] while the Hong Kong Review of Books praised his writing as "concise almost to the point of being aphoristic, Han's writing style manages to distill complex ideas into highly readable and persuasive prose" while noting that "on other occasions, Han veers uncomfortably close to billboard-sized statements ("Neoliberalism is the 'capitalism of' Like), which highlights the fine line between cleverness and self-indulgent sloganeering." [16] The Los Angeles Review of Books described him as "as good a candidate as any for philosopher of the moment." [17] We are constantly comparing ourselves with others. It is precisely this comparison that makes us all the same