Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

I think having read The Burnout Society and The Scent of Time I've gotten the gist of Byung-Chul Han. Indeed this feels like an extension of his thinking from those earlier works. Here Han argues we've gone from a disciplinary world of limitations and commandments to one of freedom and self-expression. We've moved from should to can. But Han reveals the trap. We've simply replaced God with capitalism. We're no longer living under firm edicts and weighty “thou shalls” but have instead become commodities trying to maximize our market value while being traded as packages of data for economic use.

This existence in Neoliberal society is one where we are free to achieve our dreams, to become successful or rich — we just need to put in the work, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, and grind. We have only ourselves to blame for our failings. If we're not rich and famous it's because we lack hustle or we didn't want it badly enough. We are filled with self-loathing and guilt because we aren't better. And this constant focus on work and optimization inevitably leads to burnout, anxiety, and depression.

Throw in ideas of the necessity of narcissism, politics as an extension of shopping with the electorate treated as consumers instead of citizens, the digital panopticon that sees us as both slave and master willingly throwing all of our information onto the internet, Neoliberalism as the capitalism of like with our smartphones serving as rosaries, and you're getting a hell of a lot of philosophical bang for your buck.

But I like that Han doesn't simply throw his hands in the air in desperation. He advocates for a world of contemplation, quiet boredom and playing at the idiot — someone veiled in silence, who doesn't need to say anything at all.