Books by Byung-Chul Han

Exploring how neoliberalism has discovered the productive force of the psycheByung-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 neoliberal psychopolitics fueling our contemporary crisis of freedom, Han elaborates an analytical framework that provides an original theory of Big Data and a lucid phenomenology of emotion. But this provocative essay proposes counter models too, presenting a wealth of ideas and surprising alternatives at every turn.

"A sharp critique of our contemporary societies in which pseudo-communication and narcissism have replaced community"--

Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything-and everyone-has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. Yet, transparency has a dark side that, ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies.

In this work, cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han looks at how we have exchanged variety with an age of sameness, not characterised by external repression but by depression through the self. Tracing this violence through phenomena such as terrorism, he argues that by acknowledging the Other again, we can overcome a crushing process of assimilation.

Every epoch has its emblematic illnesses, this book argues, and our society is undergoing a silent paradigm shift that has led to the pathological exhaustion commonly referred to as "burnout."

Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corporeal pleasures and 'likes', resulting in a kind of 'pornography' of beauty.

In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time.

I sværmen. Tanker om det digitale er en kulturkritisk, antropologisk tekstsamling om det digitale medium, disintegration af fællesskaber og politisk lammelse. Den tyske filosof Byung-Chul Han tegner stridslystent et panorama over det digitaliserede livs skyggesider – individualisering, respektløshed, skandale og Big Datas panoptikon. På trods af sin mulighed for at samle os fungerer det digitale medium nærmere isolerende. Det har forskubbet produktionen af information og kommunikation til privatsfæren, og samtalens arena er ikke længere massen eller skaren, men sværmen, en ansamling af isolerede individer uden chance for at danne et "vi". Enhver er optaget af tingenes øjeblikkelighed, det spektakulære og at like. For at genetablere fællesskabet og det politiske må det private adskilles fra det offentlige, det indre fra det ydre, borgeren fra konsumenten. Derfor går Han til forsvar for vigtigheden af at værne om det hemmelige, intimiteten og distancens patos.

Den moderne teknologi skaber en illusion om grænseløse mængder af information og fuldkommen oplysning, og begrebet transparens er blevet et fremherskende ideal for demokratisk gennemsigtighed. Enhver har adgang til alverdens information om alting og alle, og det er ikke kun politiske og økonomiske strukturer, der bliver blotlagt og udstillet. Også mennesket bliver transparent, når dets intimsfære og relationer ikke længere er private. Bliver transparenssamfundet til et udstillings- og kontrolsamfund, når frygten for at måtte opgive sin privatsfære viger for behovet for at udstille sig selv?’I denne udgivelse undersøger Byung-Chul Han konsekvenserne af en samfundsorden, hvor alt er blotlagt og stillet til skue: ”I betragtning af den patos for transparens, som har grebet nutidens samfund, er det nødvendigt at øve sig i distancens patos. Distance og skam lader sig ikke integrere i kapitalens, informationernes og kommunikationens accelererede cirkulation. Ellers ville alle diskrete refugier blive tilsidesat i transparensens navn. De ville blive badet i lys og udbyttet. Dermed bliver verden mere skamløs og mere nøgen.”Den tyske filosof Byung-Chul Han går transparenssamfundets paradigme efter i sømmene og undersøger konsekvenserne af dets indvirkning på så forskelligartede sfærer af tilværelsen som sprog, forbrug, sociale medier og personificerede søgemaskiner, pornografi og intimitet. Friheden viser sig at være en form for kontrol, skriver Byung-Chul Han, når man kan belyse alle fra alle sider, fra hvor som helst, og når alle kan gøre det.