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The Burnout Society

Byung-Chul Han,

Erik Butler (Translator)

3.94 · Rating details · 8,348 ratings · 923 reviews

Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression to attention deficit disorder to borderline personality disorder. Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability ...more

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Paperback, 60 pages

Published August 12th 2015 by Stanford Briefs (first published 2010)

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Feb 15, 2018 Trevor (I sometimes get notified of comments) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, philosophy, social-theory, work

This is a seriously interesting book, but I'm not sure I completely agree with him. His argument is that we now live in a world where we are so self-monitoring that we have moved beyond the notion of a discipline society. That is, we no longer require external modes of discipline, but rather our desire to be high-achievers fulfils this function much more effectively than external compulsion ever could.

I'm going to tell you why I think this might be overstating the case and then I'm going to igno This is a seriously interesting book, but I'm not sure I completely agree with him. His argument is that we now live in a world where we are so self-monitoring that we have moved beyond the notion of a discipline society. That is, we no longer require external modes of discipline, but rather our desire to be high-achievers fulfils this function much more effectively than external compulsion ever could.

I'm going to tell you why I think this might be overstating the case and then I'm going to ignore my own criticism. I think for most people in society external observation and punishments based on those observations has become all-consuming. To say we have moved beyond the panoptic society seems to fly in the face of the everyday experience of most people who have to live with employer set KPIs, Apple watches that tell them if they have reached their move goals or how poorly they are maintaining their sleep ones, and they are filmed by surveillance cameras even while strolling down a street. That is, I struggle to see how we can say we have moved beyond the surveillance society.

However, there is no doubt that we have become much more self-monitoring and that we are even prepared to forgo privacy to gain the pleasure that comes from confirming we are optimising our life projects - whether those be losing weight, reading more books (book challenge, anyone?), reaching our KPIs, exceeding our PBs, or whatever the latest sports derived metaphor might be. 'Calm, fitter, healthier and more productive. A pig in a cage on antibiotics'.

At one point he says something that felt like being hit across the face with a cold towel. That we shouldn't be quite so pleased with ourselves just because we can 'multi-task'. In fact, mulita-tasking is really a return to an animal state, rather than reaching the peak of human achievement. Animals must multi-task - there's always another animal trying to have sex with their partner, eat them, eat one of their children, take the food out of their mouth, shift them down the pecking order. In fact, the one thing an animal cannot be is 'in the present' or 'lost in the moment'. That is, they are condemned to multi-task.

What is human, then, is the ability to be profoundly bored - to be still and to contemplate and to think one's way to a kind of conclusion. He makes a beautiful point here that God made the Sabbath as a day of rest - that we are closest to God when we are resting, rather than when we are busy going about the mundane inanities of everyday life.

The problem is that the modern world is conspiring to make us less than human and more animal like. We are being forced to multi-task and our post-post-Fordist world also means we generally never have anything to point to so as to be able to say, "see that there, I finished that, that is the product of my labour, that is the best that I'm capable of creating". We are busy, so busy we are exhausted, but that busyness never amounts to an externalised manifestation of our efforts and so we collapse into ourselves in unhealthy ways - ways that don't produce self-love, but rather narcissism.

And this brings us to where he begins - if much of the 20th century was obsessed with infection (antibiotics, vaccines and so on) today our globalised world means we can't reject the other in quite the same way - that is, kill or be killed no longer is an optimum strategy - instead we have to find ways to hybridise with the other and to welcome in what had otherwise been kept out. I struggle with this idea too - you just look at how Australia treats asylum seekers to see what I mean - but if one limits their view to the wealthy few to whom borders no longer exist, rather than the poor many that Bauman maintains are held in place, then this interpretation has some merit.

Today the illness we confront is not something that can be cured by antibodies or by vaccines. Today's illnesses are self-inflicted and they are inflicted not by negativity (overcoming the other to assert your own primacy) but rather mental illnesses related to stress, and ultimately the stress that comes from over-achievement. This is insanely interesting. Here we are being killed not by negativity - things actively seeking to kill us, but by positivity - by our desire to be good, and then better, and then the best. I like this, because I've long had a distrust of the 'positive psychology' movement, 'no, I will not bloody well whistle while I work'.

Although this book owes more to Nietzsche than it does to Marx, I kept thinking of a book I reviewed recently called 'Labour and Monopoly Capitalism' - and the idea that we are human due to human labour, but not any sort of labour, rather only that kind that allows us to see the completed product of our labour. This book fits more within Nietzsche's ideas of the importance of the work of art in producing the truly human - or even Kant's purposiveness without a purpose, the idea of art as a kind of contemplation on the world that then allows for a depth of perception otherwise unavailable to those of us who are busy multi-tasking. He quotes Cezanne as saying he could visualise the fragrance of things merely from contemplating them. This level of focus, of contemplation, of losing one's self in an object other than one's self is increasingly being denied us, even in our similarly busy leisure. And this is reflected in the kind of tiredness we are confronted with - we are tired to the depths of our souls, rather than tired in the way that is one of life's most pleasurable feelings, tired from having done.

So, with caveats - this is a seriously interesting book.
...more

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Apr 13, 2015 Philippe Malzieu rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A tieredness society.

This is the story of a young man korean who came to study metallurgy in Germany and became philosoph (it's quite normal to be philosoph in Germany)
Interisting man.
Many of my patient are tired. So tired. His vision is particular because he had two culture. In Korea, children are complained to work a lot, competition, ...(with many problems : suicide, dispressed) But in occidental country, it is the same.
For him, our society of performance is in fact the suprem stade of the s ...more

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Dec 24, 2017 Tim Knight rated it did not like it

This book is torture! Thank God it’s small. It’s either a very bad translation from German or a rotten porridge from someone trying to impress people with fancy words—and failing.

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Feb 21, 2019 Paul Ataua rated it liked it

A stimulating and yet not wholly satisfying read. Byuon-Chul Hal presents a short tract suggesting that society has moved on from one in which our behavior is disciplined by those around us to one in which we are freer, self-monitoring individuals who are controlled by the pressure to achieve, to be special. It seems to be this pressure to achieve leads to increases in depressions, attention deficit disorders, and a whole bunch of negatives. Right or wrong, the book is buoyed along by interestin ...more

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Feb 23, 2019 Dominic added it

"Burnout syndrome does not express the exhausted self so much as the exhausted, burnt-out soul."

Recently, one of the podcasts I listen to has started running adverts for an audiobook and e-reader app. The advert goes something like this: Are you too busy to read full books? But do you still want to get ahead? With our app, you can discover the key ideas of the world's best non-fiction books in only 15 minutes. We have summarised and re-written thousands of books so that you can digest them in ju "Burnout syndrome does not express the exhausted self so much as the exhausted, burnt-out soul."

Recently, one of the podcasts I listen to has started running adverts for an audiobook and e-reader app. The advert goes something like this: Are you too busy to read full books? But do you still want to get ahead? With our app, you can discover the key ideas of the world's best non-fiction books in only 15 minutes. We have summarised and re-written thousands of books so that you can digest them in just a quarter of an hour!

Han Byung-Chul's short book The Burnout Society (2015) helps us make sense of apps like this, as it argues powerfully that twenty-first century advanced capitalism has transformed its workforce into a society of hyper-active, multi-tasking, and excessively exhausted human beings. Always pressed for time, always switched on, never truly resting or encountering boredom, and increasingly becoming self-employed and self-disciplining, today's accelerated world has bludgeoned its burnt-out workers into depressive and suicidal tendencies.

To arrive at this argument, Han wrestles with some of the philosophical big dogs: Nietzsche, Freud, Arendt, and Agamben. He revisits Kafka's 'The Hunger Artist' and Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'. And he also makes two important points about our current moment. Both of these arguments can and should be challenged, particularly so from the vantage point of far-right ascendency in 2019. But even so, here they are:

1) In the wake of the Cold War, Han writes, we have softened our pervasive hatred of the Other. In the twenty-first century, he says, hatred of the Other has become somewhat residual, and in its place we have ushered in a hatred of the Same. Thus if the Cold War was an immunological society, a society in which the West vigilantly protected itself from the negativity of exogenous shocks, then the post-Cold War moment has turned us into an excessively positive society. We are no longer infected by diseases, but develop mental health conditions.

2) Foucault argued that modernity was a disciplinary society (the court, the madhouse, the prison). Deleuze argued that late modernity was a control society (the subject self-monitors their own discipline). Han argues that these disciplinary measures have been exacerbated by what he calls the "achievement society" of today: our bosses are ironic now. They breathe down our necks at the very same moment they tell us to "be ourselves" and practice self care.

And so Han comes to think of contemporary life as utterly burnt-out: If bosses tell us to "be ourselves", then the depressed individual is someone who is tired of having to become themselves. Moreover, "the achievement-subject exploits itself until it burns out." As neoliberalism tells us all to be homo economicus, we work ourselves to exhaustion.

Against the exhaustion and hyper-activity of the neoliberal workplace, Han calls our attention to the significance of "tiredness" and "boredom". To be human, Han suggests, is to experience (Erfahrung, not Erlebnis) profound tiredness and profound boredom. We won't find this boredom in our jobs at the call centre or in the Amazon factory, nor will we be tired from it when we scroll the timeline before we go to sleep. Only meaningful work is boring, and only meaningful rest shows how tired we are. Only these can give us pause and cultivate a more authentic relationship with the world. If this sounds Heideggerian, then that's because Han is a close reader of Heideggers.

At around 60 pages, this is a captivating and striking book that deepens our understanding of contemporary life, even if I am suspicious of its foundational claims. ...more

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Nov 03, 2019 Mariana Ferreira rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This is the best explanation I've ever found on the current mental health crisis in our society. A wonderful work of Philosophy that is both brilliant and accessible, tiny and comprehensive. I'll need to read everything Han has ever written. ...more

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Oct 10, 2020 Catarina Neves rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-and-society, contemporary, non-fiction, short-stories-and-essays

2020 Reading #10 | Fall Readings
(I have mixed feelings about this book. But let me explain.)

Choosing this book to be the first one I completed after a very long time without reading was probably not my wisest decision. It was a hell of a ride: who would say such a "small" book would take such a long time to read? I have a pretty simple answer for that, but a very complex (~~and confused~~) overlook on it.

For context : I have suffered/been diagnosed with burnouts. Yes, plural, more than once. Howe ...more

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Jul 06, 2019 Herval Freire rated it did not like it · review of another edition

The author seems to have collected a series of passages from multiple sources (Nietzche and Arendt being his favorites), and tried to shoehorn their ideas into a nonsensical theory of “positivity vs negativity” that bears no semblance to society. He also comes up with the weirdest defining for burnout and depression, classifying them as caused by “excess of positivity”. Pure nonsense.

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Dec 16, 2018 Lia rated it liked it

Shelves: nietzsche, philosophy, modernism, 21st-century

Not an easy read. I skimmed it about a year ago and I still don't get it, even though I read it slowly and take notes. Even though I picked this up because I think it's relevant to whatever I'm struggling with. Even though I've read a good number of literature it references (Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kafka, Bartleby... but not Agamben, yet.)

The idea is that some of the old social metaphors of sickness/ health/ immune system, that are still extremely popular today, are in fact outdated, and fail to ...more

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Oct 15, 2020 Alejandro Teruel rated it it was ok

Shelves: filosofía, e-libros, sociales, psicología

A very short, eight chapter book that starts out very well indeed, but collapses round about the beginning of chapter four and became absolutely incomprehensible for me soon after, when the author attempts to show the inadequacy of a strange, shadowy version of psychoanalysis to explain the prevalence of depression , narcissistic "disturbances" , burnout and ADHD. I originally evaluated it with one star, which is probably more of a personal over-reaction of disappointment with the last chapters, ...more

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Jan 15, 2022 Hadrian rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy, essays, nonfiction

The opening sentences, read in January 2022, really make me laugh:

Every age has its signature afflictions. Thus, a bacterial age existed; at the latest, it ended with the discovery of antibiotics. Despite widespread fear of an influenza epidemic, we are not living in a viral age. Thanks to immunological technology, we have already left it behind. From a pathological standpoint, the incipient twenty-first century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons.

Well, maybe both pa The opening sentences, read in January 2022, really make me laugh:

Every age has its signature afflictions. Thus, a bacterial age existed; at the latest, it ended with the discovery of antibiotics. Despite widespread fear of an influenza epidemic, we are not living in a viral age. Thanks to immunological technology, we have already left it behind. From a pathological standpoint, the incipient twenty-first century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons.

Well, maybe both pathologies and neurons then. Or neurons leading to other pathologies, as people trick themselves into quack cures.

Han characterizes society has having an "excess of positivity" - and the violence of society comes not from infections, diseases, or "The Other". The human body is subject to consume or experience too many things, and yet must be maintained in perfect order - becoming a "performance-machine" (Leistungsmaschine). As human beings cannot do this, breakdown, fatigue, burnout, etc., are the manifest results.

Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society [Leistungsgesellschaft].

As human beings yield to an overabundance of stimulus and desire and comparison with others, Han suggests that this leads to a kind of neurotic hyperactivity, like exhausted animals that work only to survive. A subject in the achievement society cannot really be creative or free. Han makes extensive comparisons to Bartleby the Scrivener, from Herman Melville's short story.

Han suggests there is a shortage of being able to do nothing, or to experience nothing, and ignoring this leads to an exile from society, or even the simulation of society as seen in the virtual world - and the discussion of Hannah Arendt's distinction between the active life and the contemplative life is stimulating.

The homines sacri of achievement society also differ from those of the society of sovereignty on another score. They cannot be killed at all. Their life equals that of the undead. They are too alive to die, and too dead to live.

Really, a collection of so many thematic essays that make me nod and say 'that's clever', and bolstered by choice references and block quotes. But reminds me of memes shared on Facebook about Narcissus looking at his cell phone. The metaphors can be crude. Comparisons to autism are uncomfortable. But even with all those strong negatives I've listed, he's not entirely wrong, is he? ...more

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Jan 19, 2020 Michael rated it really liked it

Shelves: social-issues, non-fiction, mental-health, philosophy, psychology

Han's argument is that we have transitioned from a disciplinary society in which we are pressured to conform by external forces, into an achievement society in which we are pressured to conform by the introjected requirement to "live your best life", and so exploit ourselves in the impossible task of seeking ever-receding, pointless and illusory life goals, set by Capital. Consumerism requires that we are never satisfied, and so we can only fail to achieve, expending our energy in a fruitless as ...more

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Mar 06, 2021 Yara Elkhateeb rated it it was amazing

A concise yet very rich and interesting study of today's individual. It tries to look into the question of how, in a seemingly more open environment and with more friendly technology, the late modern human being is more prone to a set of different disorders from depression, borderline or the constant tiredness or burnout state.
One might not agree with all the aurhor's arguments, but he introduced new perspectives as well as reported and discussed different points of view.
I also appreciated how ...more

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Dec 17, 2021 Imane rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

I finished this book... but at what cost. And now I have to review this book but it exhausted me so much to get through it that I just feel like taking a nap and forgetting that I ever read these challenging 60 pages lmao.

First, let's start with the obvious: the beginning of this book aged rather poorly. Granted, the author couldn't have known in 2015 that there'd be a global pandemic which would upend his assumption concerning the "immunology" discursive paradigm that he claims has been left in I finished this book... but at what cost. And now I have to review this book but it exhausted me so much to get through it that I just feel like taking a nap and forgetting that I ever read these challenging 60 pages lmao.

First, let's start with the obvious: the beginning of this book aged rather poorly. Granted, the author couldn't have known in 2015 that there'd be a global pandemic which would upend his assumption concerning the "immunology" discursive paradigm that he claims has been left in the past. But even then, I disagree with his premise. I don't feel like really getting into it because unraveling his thoughts would require a lot more energy than I'm willing to expand but I'll just summarise the bulk of my thoughts by saying that the defensive discourse around the "Other" cannot be dismissed so easily, and that the rise of fascism worldwide testifies to the fact global socio-political discourses still heavily rely on the us (the Self) versus them (the Other) dichotomy to foster fear and hatred. The author says that refugees aren't seen negatively because they're perceived as a threat but rather as a burden. I fundamentally disagree with his statement and see in it a cop-out to make his assumption obscure reality to continue his argument.

Now I don't disagree with the larger argument that he's making... It's just that I don't think I care about his highly abstract angle. I was expecting musings grounded in empirical observations concerning the burnout society, but what I got was an avalanche of abstractions with a lack (to my non-expert philosopher mind) of logical sequencing of the information. I didn't fully hate the book and I can see its brilliance in some way, but I also don't think this is a book that actually dissects what the burnout society is like. It's more of a series of long-winded philosophical musings about the place of the ego in relation to the "surplus of positivity" (à la Yes we can!) i.e. in a world where one cannot say no anymore.

Parsing through the very opaque academic-speak, I could discern some interesting points, but they were completely obscured by the unintelligibility of the text. "No-longer-being-able-to-ableable" is not a proper term yet the author will gladly use such weird-ass convoluted mashup of words completely unprompted, rather than properly unraveling whatever thought he's trying to convey. Now I don't know if this book was simultaneously too vague and too niche to make any kind of impactful point but I can definitely tell you that the semantics are harder to decipher than the actual overall arguments of the book, and it's a shame.

I try not to make value judgments on academic texts that are somewhat harder to read and interpret because I think their somewhat difficult language can actually help you expand your vocabulary and broaden your understanding of specific/difficult concepts. Having to re-read a paragraph to decipher its meaning isn't necessarily bad. But the author toed a dangerous line here between making valid (although too abstract for my pragmatic mind) points and talking in circles for the sake of it. Maybe it's a philosophy thing. But if you're looking for a more instructive text, do not pick this book up. It is too abstract and convoluted for anyone who wants an empirical diagnosis of the so-called burnout society, and all the arguments are made a contrario, basing themselves on opposing something that someone said rather than making actual first-hand observations. But if you don't mind feeling like you're talking to a sphinx who piggybacks off of other cherry-picked philosophical text with which he fundamentally disagrees, go ahead! ...more

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Sep 15, 2021 Tara Brabazon rated it it was amazing

A short book. A brilliant book. Oh. My. Goodness.

Han explores the achievement society, and what it is doing to us. The isolations of exhaustion are discussed, alongside how the oversharing of achievements and multi-tasking is creating an 'undead' workforce.

This is absolutely brilliant. If I ever needed a reminder about how valuable the short book can be - then this is it.

Powerful. Incisive. It slices through the rubbish and probes what is happening, environmentally, contextually and socially. ...more

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May 14, 2021 Ostrava rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-5-stars, non-fiction

The book is clearly inspired by Zen Buddhism, which I think was brought up at some point. Other than that, a bit of Heidegger, a bit Russell, and even a bit of Arendt which caught me off guard.

Quite frankly, I agree with many of Byung-Chul's observations, we do live in a society of the performance, one that kills the soul. It clouds our view of the world, of what we need, and of what we must abandon. We don't live with enough interruption. Though I don't find the distractions necessarily bad (ha ...more

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Dec 01, 2021 Faaiz rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, interesting, philosophical, read-in-2021, we-live-in-a-society, criticism, cultural, hmm, psychology, ok

As usual continental philosophy is doing the most for what otherwise could be said in fewer and simpler words. Still, this was an interesting read although not much helpful in explaining the phenomenon it seeks to address - most likely due to its short length although I also suspect the author wouldn't really know how anyways.

According to the author, we live in an achievement society which is markedly different from a disciplinary society in that while the elements of a Foucauldian society stil ...more

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Feb 17, 2022 Anmol rated it liked it

Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive
positivity.

The capitalist system is switching from allo-exploitation to auto-exploitation in order to accelerate.

There were a few parts of this I didn't care for (particularly the opening section), but I adore its sociopolitical perspective on depression in late-capitalist society - which reminded me of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism - and also its discussion on how the civilisational necessity of the vita contemplativa has be Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive
positivity.

The capitalist system is switching from allo-exploitation to auto-exploitation in order to accelerate.

There were a few parts of this I didn't care for (particularly the opening section), but I adore its sociopolitical perspective on depression in late-capitalist society - which reminded me of Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism - and also its discussion on how the civilisational necessity of the vita contemplativa has been eroded by the hyperattention of technology, in addition to its central critique of our modern, self-exploitative "achievement society" that creates burnouts.

Today’s society is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories. It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society. Also, its inhabitants are no longer “obedience-subjects” but “achievement-subjects.” They are entrepreneurs of themselves.

Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers.

It is not the imperative only to belong to oneself, but the pressure to achieve that causes exhaustive depression. Seen in this light, burnout syndrome does not express the exhausted self so much as the exhausted, burnt-out soul...In reality, it is not the excess of responsibility and initiative that makes one sick, but the imperative to achieve: the new commandment of late-modern labor society.

The depressive human being is an animal laborans that
exploits itself—and it does so voluntarily, without external constraints. It is predator and prey at once.

We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep, contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible. Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention. A rash change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes characterizes
this scattered mode of awareness.

Following Schmitt, having more than one true friend would betoken a lack of character and definition. One’s many friends on Facebook would offer further proof of the late-modern ego’s lack of character and definition. In positive terms, such a human being without character is flexible, able to assume any form, play any role, or perform any function. This shapelessness—or, alternately, flexibility—creates a high degree of economic efficiency.

Increasingly, virtualization and digitalization are making the real disappear, which makes
itself known above all through its resistance.

...burnout represents the pathological consequence of voluntary self-exploitation. The imperative of expansion, transformation, and self-reinvention—of which depression is the flipside—presumes an array of products tied to identity.

...more

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May 03, 2021 Strathclyde rated it liked it

We live in a (society that is no longer disciplinary in nature, but a new and terrifying "achievement") society.

Yet again, I don't feel like I understood enough of the phil reading to give a definitely good or bad rating. Brainlets rise up. ...more

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May 07, 2021 Chant rated it liked it

I've seen these arguments better articulated in other works (see Technological Slavery ), however, Han does bring up some salient points on the current state of affairs in Western culture . ...more

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Nov 28, 2019 Daniel Supimpa rated it really liked it

Shelves: modern-culture

A sharp and demanding book—dipped into continental philosophy in its substructure. Han’s main point is that late-modernity is characterized by a shift from an immunological towards a positive self paradigm. The immunological (up to the 20th century) is one in which society and the self breaks out in war against some form of 'Other' in measurable negativity. The latter paradigm, in contrast, is one in which the self is obese by positivity, and ends up raging war against itself. From a time of a d ...more

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Apr 15, 2017 CR rated it it was amazing

This is undoubtedly one of the most important essays I've read in my life. You must read this.

The nice thing about authors who criticize economic exploitation is that they tend to keep their books online for free. It's like 50 pages, this link has an excerpt: http://theorytuesdays.com/wp-content/... ...more

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Jan 05, 2021 Abhinaba rated it really liked it

[not a review]
The burnout society

We are suffering from excess of positivity, not from lack of it.

“Obesity of all current systems” of information, communication, and production. And this excess doesn't trigger any immune response (taking analogy of excess fat accumulation). The violence of positivity doesn't presume or require hostility. It unfolds specifically in a permissive and pacified society.

21st century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society [leistu ...more

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Feb 02, 2022 kelly added it

Shelves: 2022

often hyperbolic, sometimes reductive but always bedazzling — i may not agree with all of han's ideas but to me, he's definitely one of the most interesting contemporary thinkers. in a world of excess noise, information overload but little originality, the burnout society is a breath of fresh air that inspires new ways of thinking about modern malaise.

"The late-modern achievement-subject is subject to no one. In fact, it is no longer a subject in the etymological sense. It positivizes itself;

"The late-modern achievement-subject is subject to no one. In fact, it is no longer a subject in the etymological sense. It positivizes itself; indeed, it liberates itself into a project. However, the change from subject to project does not make power or violence disappear. Auto-compulsion, which presents itself as freedom, takes the place of allo-compulsion. This development is closely connected to capitalist relations of production. Starting at a certain level of production, auto-exploitation is significantly more efficient and brings much greater returns than allo-exploitation, because the feeling of freedom attends it. Achievement society is the society of self-exploitation. The achievement-subject exploits itself until it burns out. In the process, it develops auto-aggression that often enough escalates into the violence of self-destruction. The project turns out to be a projectile that the achievement-subject is aiming at itself."

"We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep, contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible. Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention. A rash change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes characterizes this scattered mode of awareness. Since it also has a low tolerance for boredom, it does not admit the profound idleness that benefits the creative process. Walter Benjamin calls this deep boredom a “dream bird that hatches the egg of experience.” If sleep represents the high point of bodily relaxation, deep boredom is the peak of mental relaxation. A purely hectic rush produces nothing new. It reproduces and accelerates what is already available."

...more

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Oct 04, 2020 Ulzii rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Idea in the book is mind-blowing. But a very difficult read for non-philosophy major. When you somehow grinds through the difficult sentences, gems await you. So totally worth the effort.

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Feb 19, 2021 Alessandra rated it liked it · review of another edition

Interesting ideas, a good starting point for some introspection and self-analysis; yet I honestly expected more from this internationally acclaimed essay.

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Nov 04, 2021 Harooon rated it liked it

“Every age has its signature afflictions,” writes Byung-Chul Han. “Despite widespread fear of an influenza epidemic, we are not living in a viral age. Thanks to immunological technology, we have already left it behind. From a pathological standpoint, the incipient twenty-first century is determined neither by bacteria nor by viruses, but by neurons.” (1).

Immunological explanations focus on what is foreign or other: other people, foreign cultures, ideological enemies, viral diseases. If the Self ...more

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Aug 20, 2018 Ethan rated it it was ok

Shelves: theory, media, sociology

Dating itself quite a bit with its argument that modern neuroses can be explained by the disappearance of alterity, or of the Negative (prohibitions, foreignness, social limitations) -- such a position doesn't exactly hold water in light of renascent far-right movements in America and in Europe (and I assume elsewhere). And while there's quite a bit to his conception of the shift from disciplinary society to achievement society -- the former being characterized by exterior, prohibitive forces an ...more

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May 05, 2015 Anouk rated it liked it · review of another edition

A book review is perhaps not the best place to write an entire counter-essay, and so I will try to refrain from doing just that (despite rather wanting to).

This is, without a doubt, a refreshing take on modern society. As a thought experiment, a minor array of eye-openers or as a genuine attempt to better understand the world in which we live, it's a good book to read.
The language never becomes too dense for lay(wo)men like myself to throw in the towel, yet the concepts that language is used for ...more

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Jun 21, 2018 Reix rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I would probably say that this is one of the best books by this author, a brief analysis of how our current society affects our health and makes us feel sick.

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About Byung-Chul Han

Byung-Chul Han

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Byung-Chul Han, also spelled Pyŏng-ch'ŏl Han (born 1959 in Seoul), is a German author, cultural theorist, and Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) in Berlin, Germany.

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 Fre Byung-Chul Han, also spelled Pyŏng-ch'ŏl Han (born 1959 in Seoul), is a German author, cultural theorist, and Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) in Berlin, Germany.

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.

In 2000, he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, where he completed his Habilitation. In 2010 he became a faculty member at the HfG Karlsruhe, where his areas of interest were philosophy of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, ethics, social philosophy, phenomenology, cultural theory, aesthetics, religion, media theory, and intercultural philosophy. Since 2012 he teaches philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he directs the newly established Studium Generale general-studies program.

Han is the author of sixteen books, of which the most recent are treatises on what he terms a "society of tiredness" (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), a "society of transparency" (Transparenzgesellschaft), and on his neologist concept of shanzai, which seeks to identify modes of deconstruction in contemporary practices of Chinese capitalism.

Han's current work focuses on transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on the pornographic. According to Han, the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust.

Until recently, he refused to give radio and television interviews and rarely divulges any biographical or personal details, including his date of birth, in public.

Han has written on topics such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline, burnout, depression, exhaustion, internet, love, pop culture, power, rationality, religion, social media, subjectivity, tiredness, transparency and violence. ...more

Books by Byung-Chul Han

Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (Verso Futures)

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Quotes from The Burnout Society

“The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.” — 55 likes

“The acceleration of contemporary life also plays a role in this lack of being. The society of laboring and achievement is not a free society. It generates new constraints. Ultimately, the dialectic of master and slave does not yield a society where everyone is free and capable of leisure, too. Rather, it leads to a society of work in which the master himself has become a laboring slave. In this society of compulsion, everyone carries a work camp inside. This labor camp is defined by the fact that one is simultaneously prisoner and guard, victim and perpetrator. One exploits oneself. It means that exploitation is possible even without domination.” — 41 likes

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