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Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

(Futures #6)

Byung-Chul Han,

Erik Butler (Translator)

4.09 · Rating details · 2,836 ratings · 299 reviews

Exploring how neoliberalism has discovered the productive force of the psyche

Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche. In the course of discussing all the facets of ne

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Kindle Edition, 96 pages

Published November 1st 2017 by Verso (first published January 1st 2014)

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May 10, 2020 Michael rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2020, recs

Insightfully thinks through how neoliberalism compels people to voluntarily auto regulate and optimize themselves. Riffing off Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, Han claims that the state, in close collaboration with Big Data, has started to rule by psychopolitics, a new form of power based on controlling not the body but the mind. At times he overstates his case, denying that “psychopolitics” applies best to postindustrial countries, but the argument’s full of interesting contentions to unpack. ...more

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Nov 22, 2018 Trevor (I sometimes get notified of comments) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy, social-theory, psychology

One of the last things Foucault come up with was the idea of biopolitics. The short version is that much of the regulation of society is concerned with the regulation of the body. This book references that idea by Foucault, as should be obvious from the name of this one. The point being that biopolitics, because it focuses on disciplining bodies, is really now an old and outmoded way of social control, and so today social control is better understood as focused more on our souls than on our bodi One of the last things Foucault come up with was the idea of biopolitics. The short version is that much of the regulation of society is concerned with the regulation of the body. This book references that idea by Foucault, as should be obvious from the name of this one. The point being that biopolitics, because it focuses on disciplining bodies, is really now an old and outmoded way of social control, and so today social control is better understood as focused more on our souls than on our bodies.

Now, Foucault would probably just shrug at this. He might, for instance, refer Han to his ‘Discipline and Punish’ which starts off by documenting how punishment had once been about punishing bodies, but has since moved more and more towards ‘the panopticon’ where people became subjects by subjugating themselves to the self-surveillance of social norms and expectations. Han basically says that this is all true enough, but that we have now moved beyond the panopticon. That is, the panopticon was a prison where there was always the possibility that the guard you could not see would one day appear at your cell door and punish you for the transgressions you had made. There was always the possibility that Big Brother would eventually stomp on your face with their jackboot for all eternity. But today’s panopticon is significantly different from that of 1984. We are not forced to install spy cameras in our houses, we actively choose to install them ourselves, we are not required to make confessions, we freely confess all we know and do, and we even attach increasingly more sophisticated measuring devices to our bodies so as to more fully track ourselves, the exercise we do, our location, even photographing what we eat, even measuring the depth of our sleep, so we can more fully report on our state of being.

But even this is only part of the problem. We once made sense of the world less by counting than by recounting – a recount is a story, and stories are never just additive, but rather narrative. Today we are ‘free’ in strange ways. Free in ways that almost avoid the possibility of choice. This sounds strange at first, but the point is that the world of big data is a world of correlations and those correlations stand almost without causation. Rather than us knowing why we do things, big data can predict we will do things. That is, the data can tell us that two things go together, even if it doesn’t tell us why they go together. And what that means is that we can be made to do things, not so much against our will, but without either us, or the people who want to make us do those things, ever knowing why we are doing them. That is, big data is about counting, rather than recounting, it is about knowing we will do certain things even if not know why we might do them – and so big data can get us to do things in ways that make us still feel ‘free’, even though we have had our buttons pressed so that we behave as predicted and as required, even if this remains to us truly subconscious.

All spheres of life are starting to resemble each other. There once had been a distinction between what it meant to be a citizen and what it meant to be a customer, but now those look increasingly alike. Big data, again, has access to our deepest desires and even though it does not necessarily understanding why we desire certain things, it doesn’t care either. All that matters are the correlations, the cause can be left for the sociologists or theologians to argue over, take your pick, both are as irrelevant to the transaction in progress as the other.

And that transaction is also becoming increasingly about desire rather than the thing in itself. We have moved from ‘use values’ to ‘emotive values’, we no longer buy things to satisfy our physical needs, but rather are psychological needs. And this moves through all of society, so that even ‘rational management techniques are being replace by emotional management’ – and the whole EQ movement has become but one manifestation of this.

The chapter of this I found most interesting was the one that came immediately after this idea of the emotions as the productive force of late modern capitalism. It talked about the gamification of society and of capitalism. And this is something else I’ve been reading a lot about lately – how work will increasingly be made to be a kind of game. Where the shift to an information society will mean that finding ways to get people to fill in the sorts of dreary forms necessary for big data to gain its data, will mean finding ways to turn this boredom into challenging and rewarding game frontends. Games aren’t rational, they get us to be emotionally engaged. As he says at one point, this means that the Marxist revolution to transform society is becoming increasingly impossible, because labour is increasingly becoming the kind of game it is becoming harder and harder to ever escape from. Or as he says, we are moving away from being exploited by others to being the main instrument of our own exploitation, from allo- to auto-exploitative.

He ends by talking of the idiot as a possible way out of what looks otherwise as a kind of dystopian labyrinth and nightmare – I didn’t really understand this part of the book at all, to be honest. But the dystopian parts of the book up until then might have already cast me too far into the abyss of despair, so that whatever hope he might have been offering at the end simply wasn’t enough to drag me back out into the light.

And talking of despair, the bit of this book that I have thought about quite a bit since I first read it about two months ago is the idea that there is a difference between anxiety and fear. You see, fear always has an object – and since we have been talking about 1984 a bit in this review, the idea of fear and rats is a case in point. But anxiety might not have any concrete referent at all. We might have no idea why we are feeling anxious, but that doesn’t make anxiety less of a problem than fear, but rather infinitely more of a problem. Anxiety doesn’t go away when you remove yourself from the object you fear – anxiety just hangs around, eating away at your soul, and not providing you with any reason to explain its power.

There is so much more to this book, but I did need to finally get around to writing this review.
...more

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Feb 12, 2018 Owlseyes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: psychopolitics, system-of-domination, neoliberalism-exploits-communicatio, doesn-t-use-oppressive-power, uses-seductive-power, worker-turns-entrepeneur, uses-smart-power, unconscious-submission, profound-freedom-crisis, transparency-dictatorship

"The Panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The scheme of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched" (from the WIKIPEDIA)

(...YOU)

"Facebook is the global Church, Synagogue (literally the congregation) of the digital"
Byung-Chui ...more

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Apr 17, 2018 ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Well, Big Data comes across as waay too villainized here. I believe that instruments, such as Big Data, should not be villainized, their masters should be. After all, no instrument works on its own, always there are some operators behinds the scenes.
Well, well, well... Data as the new sexy... I've always found it funny when I heard of 'sexy' professions. The author takes this feeling to a whole new level of wrong.

Q:
Freedom will prove to have been merely an interlude. Freedom is felt when passing ...more

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Aug 07, 2016 Philipp rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, essays, germany

This is such a mixed bag, frustrating to read.

The first half develops the thought of psychopolitics, the new form of power under neoliberalism. This is an amazing part. It's deliberately named after Foucault's biopolitics, except that under neoliberalism, the threat of bodily harm is eliminated. We believe ourselves to be free, but under neoliberalism, force is put on everyone in a much more nefarious, hidden way - you think you want to optimize yourself, or to become a better version of yoursel ...more

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Dec 26, 2021 Ipsa rated it liked it

The moral of the story is this: by weaponising our excessive intelligence, Neoliberalism with its Ken-Doll-Big-Data keratin treatment smoothens us out into horizontal planes of papers where incessant communication abounds. It straightens us out and transforms us into transparency fetishising losers: making us both the master and the slave of our selves. We sell ourselves - the constantly optimised, live-laugh-love selves. Clearly, the epitome of the archetypal Neoliberal Achievement-Subject is t ...more

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Mar 20, 2019 Wendy Liu added it

Shelves: capitalism-etc

Some good points on the novel mechanisms for disciplining used by neoliberalism ("Neoliberalism is the capitalism of 'Like'") and personalised ad targeting as emblematic of neoliberalism's turn toward "psychopolitics" as opposed to merely "biopolitics". ...more

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Mar 15, 2019 Philippe rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, politics

With the intensification of capitalism into neoliberalism - a process initiated barely a few decades ago - a new and subtle regime of coercion, or more precisely auto-coercion, started to manifest itself. We have now internalised the imperative of performance and self-actualisation to such a degree that we have become slaves to our own dear ambitions. Today we pride ourselves on being 'projects' and 'entrepreneurs'. But the energy invested in these ambitions merely responds to the dictate of Cap With the intensification of capitalism into neoliberalism - a process initiated barely a few decades ago - a new and subtle regime of coercion, or more precisely auto-coercion, started to manifest itself. We have now internalised the imperative of performance and self-actualisation to such a degree that we have become slaves to our own dear ambitions. Today we pride ourselves on being 'projects' and 'entrepreneurs'. But the energy invested in these ambitions merely responds to the dictate of Capital and is entangled in the competitive logic of the market.

The resilience of this new regime of control resides in three main features. First, distinctive for this new form of coercion is that it presents itself as freedom. It operates seductively, not repressively. There are no disciplinary constraints and prohibitions. Instead, neoliberalism beams forth in positivity. Hence, we welcome it and embrace it. It is us who subordinate ourselves, willingly, to this new context of domination. "The self-as-a-work-of-art amounts to a beautiful but deceptive illusion that the neoliberal regime maintains in order to exhaust its resources entirely."

Second, this kind of 'emotional capitalism' is supremely disempowering in the way that it erodes our confidence in ourselves and in our communities:
_Success as an entrepreneur pivots on the ability to offer a unique selling proposition, to hold a distinctive position, and we instrumentalise our social relationships to make that happen.
_"People who fail in the neoliberal achievement-society see themselves as responsible for their lot and feel shame instead of questioning society or the system." Class struggle has given way to an inner struggle against ourselves. As a result, disenchantment or disenfranchisement doesn't spark revolution but engenders depression.
_Finally, neoliberalism has turned citizens into consumers who are indifferent to politics and disengage from actively shaping their communities. "Participation now amounts to grievance and complaint."

Third, information technology (the author doesn't talk about life sciences) is a critical factor that reinforces the stranglehold of neoliberalism because it creates a panoptic regime of surveillance. Our daily life creates 'digital exhaust fumes' that someone, somewhere is tracing, labelling, packaging and selling to the highest bidder (*). Those who do not play by the rules or are found to be economically unattractive find themselves curtailed to an ever-shrinking opportunity space. Further, aggregating data from our daily choices and distilling patterns from these Big Data exposes us to ever more powerful mechanisms of influence and control. Han conjectures that Big Data may soon yield the psychogram of the unconscious itself.

What can we do? Given that Capital represents a new kind of transcendence, it is extremely tough to subvert its logic. Han, like other authors who have theorised in this vein, seems to advocate some sort of quietism, a retreat into an asceticism that allows us to decouple as much as is possible from the world of work and consumption. Practically, we can choose to stay out of debt. Debt destroys freedom. "Free from debt - that is, wholly free - we would truly have to act." The author relies on Nietzsche, late Foucault and Deleuze to articulate various modes of resistance to the regime of psychopolitics. Taken to its extremity, this leads to a life that is an embodiment of pure immanence; it exists only in itself. (Patrick White, in his 'Riders in the Chariot', which I happen to be reading, paints a moving picture of four misfits who convincingly embody this ideal).

I have provided here an outline of Han's argument. But this slim booklet includes more captivating ideas. It's written in a compact and forceful idiom that (except for one or two chapters) will also appeal to less philosophically savvy readers. I think Han's analysis is compelling and alerts us to a grave challenge to our freedom and the health of our society. But I keep believing that there are also forms of resistance that rely on a reinforcement of the polis rather than a move away from it. Or maybe subversive 'idiotism' and responsible citizenship are not as opposed as Han leads us to believe ...

(*) The irony is that, while I am penning this review, my 'private browser' alerts me to dozens of trackers that Goodreads is unleashing on its unsuspecting users. ...more

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Aug 30, 2018 Mikaellyng rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: post-leftists, jacobin readers, foucaldians

Shelves: psychology, philosophy, politics

This book has some good takes expanding on the concepts of Benthams Panopticon, Benjamins Optical Uncounsiness and Foucaults discipline society, in the terms of modern neoliberalism. Han continues where Foucault left of and makes some good observations of the lack of freedom in the face of modern technology (The shift from biopolitics to psychopolitics).
He however dismisses the marxist concept of class in the first chapter by proclaiming that we all own the means of production now since we prod This book has some good takes expanding on the concepts of Benthams Panopticon, Benjamins Optical Uncounsiness and Foucaults discipline society, in the terms of modern neoliberalism. Han continues where Foucault left of and makes some good observations of the lack of freedom in the face of modern technology (The shift from biopolitics to psychopolitics).
He however dismisses the marxist concept of class in the first chapter by proclaiming that we all own the means of production now since we produce more 'immaterial' products than ever before - if we look at what this actually means its clear that its a false assertion or a misunderstanding of the concept of class and the production of market valueables.
His critique of neoliberalism is alright with the exception of some strange statements on emotions: "Emotions have become a means of production" This of course makes no sense, since value can't be produced psychologically - although emotions play a role in advertisements this becomes weird take. He later on mentions "The dictatorship of emotion" which is equally meaningless.
The essay is finished with an homage to Deleuzes concept of "idiotism" which is just as baffeling as it sounds. In it Deleuze claims that all great philosophers were idiots (which here is defined as something positive, like a genius or savant) in a typical postmodern fashion. This term never leads anywhere or play any ethical role in Han's essay. In other words, a very unsatisfactory conclusion (if you can even call it that) to an eclectic and somewhat incoherent essay. Nothing more than vague assertions and observations made in a very foucauldian langauge, that being difficult to decipher and lackluster in terms of content.
The 'politics' of psychopolitics seem to be some sort of rejection of the use of social media? Han never really explains any alternative, any radical politics etc. He merely tries to analyze the current form of modern capitalism, but his own analysis becomes symptomatic of this current. All in all this book is pretty bad, and made me more reluctant to study more Foucault, thanks Han.

Not to mention this gem:
"Quantified Self is being run with an almost libidinous energy. The dataism itself is starting to develop libidinous, pretty much pornographic attributes. Dataists copulate with data. Now people talk of 'data-sexuals'. They are supposed to be 'adamantly digital' and hold data to be 'sexy'. The digit is moving closer to the phallus." ...more

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Jan 24, 2020 Eren Buğlalılar rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sosyalbilim

An updated version of "We are doomed there is no working class anymore so communism is impossible yes capitalism is bad but omnipresent and forever thus resistance is futile and
[enter Dave Mustaine vocals]
the only thing you
candoistoisolateyourselfbeagoodpersonreadthinkalot
and die."

Sex sells. Radical pessimism sells even better. ...more

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Sep 01, 2018 Jorge Rodighiero rated it really liked it

I am an existentialist. I believe that existence precedes essence, and that we don’t have a unique predetermined way to be ourselves that is right, but that we create ourselves daily. We are our project; we are what is projected into the future.

However, there is a risk in that understanding that we have to consider. In this book by Byung-Chul Han explains how focusing on our free will and on the liberation from external coercions, we may be blind to a new form of coercion, one that is internal a ...more

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Nov 01, 2018 Dominique rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics

3.5 stars

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Aug 25, 2021 Mason Masters rated it it was amazing

Absolutely outstanding philosophy. Short and easy to digest, but big ideas. The aspects of psychopolitics are 100% applicable to the current Pandemic-State we live in.

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Mar 16, 2018 so fi rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

i dug it. a sexy little book from the outside and a stressful bummer inside. like, same. got me thinking about bio-vs-psychopolitics and pleasure vs disciplinarian dystopias. internet is scary big data v scary

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May 02, 2021 Drgnkingdom rated it it was amazing

Love when a books moral is “the only way to escape a digital panopticon is by being stupid”

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Feb 26, 2021 Markus rated it it was ok · review of another edition

It is not that Han doesn't make good points, they are plenty here. But there are so many glaring stupidities in this that I just can't stand, starting with the "refutation" of Marx that, to make the identitarian argument, can only come from someone with a permanent professorship at an university. Or to make the intellectual argument, from someone who wants to refute Marx by abandoning materialism completely. In general, Han will not quote anyone who isn't some German buddy of his who no one ever ...more

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Feb 19, 2022 ax rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

pretty impenetrable quickstart guide on all of the topics within its scope and certainly the best deconstruction of neoliberal psychology i’ve come across — the chapters are dense but surprisingly short, which really grants the reader a more vivid picture of how all of these concepts begin to layer. especially appreciated the chapters on big data and emotional capitalism, which are truly incredible. also loved the last chapter where han describes the necessity of the idiot while proceeding to pr ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 --- rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sociology, politics

I got the same hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling while reading Psychopolitics as I did reading Foucault for the first time. I always love Foucaultian power theories, because they bring me back to that feeling that every undergraduate has when they have their first brush with Discipline and Punish: "I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING AND THIS IS PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF A WORLD BENEATH THE WORLD." Of course, Foucault wasn't perfect, and books like Psychopolitics bring an excellent new lens to I got the same hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck feeling while reading Psychopolitics as I did reading Foucault for the first time. I always love Foucaultian power theories, because they bring me back to that feeling that every undergraduate has when they have their first brush with Discipline and Punish: "I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING AND THIS IS PERFECT DESCRIPTION OF A WORLD BENEATH THE WORLD." Of course, Foucault wasn't perfect, and books like Psychopolitics bring an excellent new lens to the questions of today - how does Neoliberalism shape us in new and terrifying ways in the realm of "control" and "power"?

And once I start reading, that's where the dark-screen filter drops over my field of vision; it's when I break into a cold sweat; it's when I realize that I am everything that the author is criticizing. I monitor my life down to the minute! I have apps that track my usage of other apps; I wear a fitbit that monitors my location; I have an app that tracks whether I've remembered to use my fitbit to monitor my sleeping (and whether I've gotten enough sleep); if it's not on my Instagram, it didn't happen!

I am also often depressed by a feeling of FOMO or of not being able to keep up with the Joneses. I am this way because of how "plugged in" I am. But more than just realizing that I am a victim of Neoliberalism, I appreciated Han's criticism of Marxism's outdated power descriptors. If we are all entrepreneurs, both selling our labor (to ourselves) and constantly viewing self-improvement (or masturbation, as Tyler Durden would call it) as a job demanding labor, then how do we rise up against "Capital"? We don't; Neoliberalism has trapped us in an extremely malleable and adaptive web. I've been organizing and committed to socialism now for the better part of a year, and this book lays out the argument of why, exactly, the system is so problematic better than any leftist tract from the ML or MLM perspective could have.

Ultimately, like Foucault, I think this essay is AMAZING and needs to be read, but I hope that Han has another book in the works answering the question "What Then Must We Do?" Because after reading this book I feel like my eyes have been opened to an insurmountable foe - a system itself with no head; more terrifying and universal than a Hydra; a "Skynet." One that could screw us all further if we can't turn this reliance on data and the second Dark Enlightenment around. ...more

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Apr 01, 2018 Kiera Lucy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 10 chapters of this book - very engaging and completely rang true (to me). The idea of psychological manipulation for political gain and societal control, and the exploration of neoliberalism in this text are excellent! I would recommend the first 50 pages to everyone as a mandatory read. However, the final three chapters I found went over my head a little and they didn’t quite resonate as much with me. Yet, overall, this was a very quick, informative, and provocat ...more

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Nov 19, 2019 Anna rated it it was amazing

Psychopolitics is introducing some very timely ideas building on top of Foucault's concept of biopolitics. Whatever would've happened if Foucault didn't die when he did you might think :D

At the same time the writing style is very laconic and you almost feel like you are reading a bunch of bold slogans one after the next, but almost all of them are straight to the point.

We are all stuck in a self-perpetuating panopticon of social network sharing and big data, but how amusing is that! Let's carry ...more

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Sep 10, 2021 Amira MT rated it really liked it

biopolitics? wait till u get a full load of psychopolitics up ur ass

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May 10, 2021 Berk rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, our-library

This is a true self-help book given that it is not a self-help book.

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Dec 20, 2021 J rated it it was amazing

Really enjoyed this book

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Apr 19, 2018 Margaret Tran rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

Mind. Blown. I was kind of sick today, and I didn't want to study so I read this book instead (picked it up from Brazos Bookstore, not having any clue what it was about). What a fantastic read during a time in which Mark Zuckerberg has to testify before Congress regarding data breaches, and in which "social media and internet have become fundamentally different from mass media of the past" (p. 27).

I'm a sucker for concise, strong thoughts and in this slim book, Byung-Chul Han does not mess arou ...more

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Mar 11, 2018 Alexandre Coates rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bought-but-not-yet-read

A quick, focused piece on the ways neoliberalism interacts with technologies to affect us. Mainly covering the shift from the idea that power is leveraged with the threat of force or the removal of privileges to the newer threat of positive coercion.

I was not particularly struck by some of the earlier chapters but as the book goes on its arguments feel like they become tighter, its insights deeper, and its conclusions about how we should react more vital.

Particularly valuable were its insights ...more

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Nov 16, 2019 David rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2019, life-syllabus

Sparking with ideas on every page. It’s a short, intense read, so not every path is pursued to its end. Probably none are. But it’s so fertile and fresh. This feels like the kind of sharp pithy intervention that should be being made now, in the spirit of the old Frankfurt School, but responding to the new material conditions which are even more dire (as Han well explains) than what Adorno and the gang foresaw.

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Jul 02, 2019 Chelsie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Interesting read. I don't agree with every point, but there is a good bit of useful information. It also includes references to other works on the topic, so you know where to go for more information/ other perspectives. ...more

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Aug 14, 2019 Florence rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, politics, philosophy

Had some good points but felt really over the place? The whole Big Data thing is just randomly introduced with very little intro right in the middle and is almost a non sequitur from the first half?? But still readable and short thankfully

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Aug 01, 2019 Martin Hare Michno rated it it was amazing

Shelves: critical-theory, non-fiction

If you're a Marxist searching for a modern critique of neoliberalism, then this book is worthy of your attention. ...more

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Dec 08, 2020 Ze Diogo rated it it was amazing

As an economics student, I’ve long been interested in the ways through which modern day capitalist society so successfully manages to guide and steer our actions, often rendering us unable to choose freely. I found the author makes a very compelling point in this book, as he goes through what he calls ‘technologies of power’ to explain just how the whole neoliberal system controls our most basic needs and desires.
The subjectification of the self, the idea that we need to sell ourselves as if we ...more

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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

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“Neoliberalism makes citizens into consumers. The freedom of the citizen yields to the passivity of the consumer. As consumers, today’s voters have no real interest in politics –in actively shaping the community. They possess neither the will nor the ability to participate in communal, political action. They react only passively to politics: grumbling and complaining, as consumers do about a commodity or service they do not like. Politicians and parties follow this logic of consumption too. They have to ‘deliver’. In the process, they become nothing more than suppliers; their task is to satisfy voters who are consumers or customers.” — 23 likes

“Quien fracasa en la sociedad neoliberal del rendimiento se hace a sí mismo responsable y se avergüenza, en lugar de poner en duda a la sociedad o al sistema. En esto consiste la especial inteligencia del régimen neoliberal.” — 15 likes

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