Byung-Chul Han: Psychopolitics and The Burnout Society
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- čas přidán 15. 05. 2024
- The advent of neoliberalism has been the central marking for a 21st-century cultural theory. From Mark Fisher to Byung-Chul Han, the message remains the same: we are new people with new socioeconomic and political environments. And for that, a new analysis is needed.
Big shoutout to @ThenNow for lending me his voice! Do go check out his channel!
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Psychopolitics: amzn.to/3F73mfB
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Timestamp:
Intro: 0:00
Marking and History of Neoliberalism: 1:38
Biopolitics to Psychopolitics: 5:53
Violence of Positivity: 10:16
Excess: 13:55
The Burnout Society: 16:34
A Message: 23:56
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Liked the video mate, your pronunciation of Keynes threw me off though. I've always heard it as "canes"
@@sandworm9528 Your use of mate makes me think we're across the pond from each other. Every which way words are pronounced differently.
I know this isn't true across the board, it's never bothered me.
@@epochphilosophy oh shit, I am! If your talking about the same pond I am haha. Where are you?
@@sandworm9528 The US of A.
To be revisited: “The bounds of culture have been completely erased. Your hobbies often hinge on monetization. Advertising is everywhere.”
A CZcams video at a time.
this
Where is this quote from?
So? That’s also the inverse of saying, things you love and would do anyway are now earning you extra income. You lefties are so pessimistic! I agree about CEOs and all that, but this hustle economy with few or no bosses and far more control from the worker is pretty excellent. Even better than a worker co-op in my experience (why don’t more leftists just try that anyhow? You can build communist economic systems inside a capitalist system and start a trend and then legislate later. Not as if any revolutions against the us gov are going to end well for the opposition
Yeah, that kind of summarizes it fairly well.
Wow, that last quote hit me like a truck. Last week I had a conversation with my mum, a Gen Xer in her mid-50s who is thinking about retirement/cutting down on her work hours. One of her biggest fears about retirement or even just working fewer hours is "not being productive", having "nothing to do". She has plenty of personal projects, hobbies and things to do. They're just not "marketable". But in her mind, if she's not selling herself, building "her brand" she feels guilty. It's very sad.
I feel you, friend. It can be really hard when people put that mentality on their children.
Yes, and how people LIKE and WANT to perform tiktok trends, post provocative content on social media, or become a marketed sexual object on the internet via onlyfans - these are forms of self-exploitation in which you become the commodity for the market and you comply because of the internalized dialogue of capital (internal domination). This fits well with the neo-feudalism narrative... How do we escape this? What is the way out for ourselves and for others?
@@chrismuratore4451 yeah I feel this too. This mentality is pushed on first generation kids especially. My parents made sure to keep me in reality around my productivity with time and the dire consequences if i fail to market myself successfully. I never really understood the ambition and dreams of my peers as i failed to grasp my potential or work as my own.
I think a big part of it arises from the uncertainty that arose in the latchkey generation. I'm a X er raised in a so called "broken home" with a "deadbeat" dad that completely disappeared in the early 70's. My mom's experience (she's Silent Generation) was brutal. In one respect, she was viewed as a fallen woman, in another we were demonized as being "on welfare" eating literal government cheese, yellow slabs that showed up in gray cardboard boxes on our front porch. I learned early on that if I wasn't making money, i was wasting time. I'll never forget the day that Reagan came on TV and basically derided my specific life experience and labeled an entire socioeconomic subset as essentially being lost. And I guess many of us were.
@@Charlakin How quickly you two made this about you. He was talking about his mum. The whole point is that we put these pressures on ourselves. That you can recognize others doing it to you is not what this is about.
In a world that could help everyone, keeping people sick and confused is by design.
I had a friend tell me, dead serious, how if anyone in capitalism is not satisfied by being exploited, they can always exploit themselves. He saw this as a positive, by the way, and even listed an example, a single example. He also mentioned, in passing, that opening and running your own company is very difficult and most fail - not realizing this completely undermines his "free to exploit yourself" point.
It's crazy how modern capitalism has brainwashed people.
Btw, that single example is - couple of guys make a gaming company, work for a decade like slaves, and then some rich asshole buys the company from them, but keeps them as employees. That rich asshole started his own company with his daddys loan of "just" a 1.5 milion dollars. His dad was a known tax fraud.
That is how low the bar for success is - work yourself to oblivion, and some rich guy will buy your fruits of labor for a fraction of their worth and make you subservient to him. This was all supposedly done to "escape" wage labor and having a boss, btw.
The concepts discussed here are why I’m largely reticent to “make a living” as an artist. I feel the moment I attempt to commodify and survive off of my purposeful creation it will be subject to these corrupting market forces, constant pressure to do what will sell rather than what I wish to express. “Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life”; true, insofar as choosing to do what you love for a living will soon strip you of that love. What we once did because our passions drove us will become what we must do, or else.
As a content creator, I feel this immensely. That said, I have largely pivoted to doing, solely, the videos I want to do.
I completely agree with Han when he talks about "infractions" that we, unfortunately, apply to ourselves by being in a constant state of activity. I don't think the rise of ADD/ADHD is simply due to the fact that people pay more attention to it but to this fact. A bit anecdotal but it happened to me. I was kind of late to have a smartphone and even when I did, it was second hand and couldn't function properly on the internet. A few years ago, I switched to a new one and now had the ability to browse the internet on my way to work. After a while, I could definitely notice my attention span had greatly reduced. I couldn't sit in front of a movie without checking my phone. I had urges to check reddit while working and couldn't concentrate anymore. My memory was affected as well... I decided to just stop, and read books instead on my way to work. It was a struggle at first but now my attention span is back and I manage to concentrate more.
I read several books on addiction and in my opinion, "Dopamine nation" explains this in a simplified way, while citing a lot of good studies. It made me understand the impact of living in a constant entertained state on our brain. Sometimes, less is more :)
I had the same experience. I had a basic phone for a long time whilst my friends around me got smart phones. I noticed how conversations changed, to me they became a bit more shallow in depth and attention spans were not as focussed. I noticed that people felt awkward quicker because they blunted their social skills. Then I eventually got one and I began to notice my attention span was getting affected. Us smartphone users outsource a lot of our memory and skill to
Recently, my battery broke and it took awhile to replace it. For a couple of weeks I simply did not have a smart phone. There was a little inconvenience I felt I was back in the 90s and I felt clear minded, I did not procrastinate, I rested well and I simply did tasks a lot better. I noticed my mood was brighter than it usually is.
My battery came back and I felt the pollution of the phone again. I noticed that there is a difference between having your phone not on you and not having a phone at all - having a phone, say, in the other rooms means you still have the option to use it; when I did not have a phone at all it wasn't even an option, it takes that action and everything that comes with it off the table.
I had the same experience; I thought I might be reading my own comment. In the first decade of smart phone saturation I could see how dependant others had become on these miserable devices. Where before people would talk, joke, tell stories, laugh, now they all stared at their devices.
I had filled my time with creative projects, walks outdoors, reading, learning various topics like language, astronomy, and even some electrical engineering. It was the opposite of boring. You might get bored on occasion, but that's where the creativity would come from. Creativity is the energy the mind exerts to repel boredom. My mind doesn't have to repel boredom anymore, and has gotten weak. I reassure myself that I'll eventually get a flip phone again and everything will be ok. Smartphones the worst addictive drug that humanity has ever struggled against.
The irony of liking this video was not lost on me
It's all about the intersection between necessities and property. If you could opt out of this machine without the reduction of ability to protect yourself against economic exposure, the machine would self regulate/ most people would just choose to work the amount proportionate to what they need.
Instead we have an endless consumer nightmare. Everything is a treadmill that forces you to keep moving or worse yet, take the side of the treadmill by using property as a financial instrument. Sure, you might afford some freedom in terms of escaping employment, but now you've made the world a little worse for everyone including yourself. Multiply that process a few billion times and you arrive in the contemporary landscape.
It's a ghetto of character. Nobody is willing to go without because the consequences are so painful. Don't want to work? Enjoy death through the teeth. Don't want to use social media? Enjoy eternal boredom and loneliness and consequently madness. Don't want to participate in civilization? How? It's all owned.
These days I find I just don't like anything because everything is on the playing field of technological industrialization by context. The regular cultural idea of sharing interest becomes instantly transaction oriented and thus hyper competitive. It's tedium multiplied by boredom.
Even this comment - what's the point?
Great comment and you're absolutely right in your analysis. I also feel your pain/despair about it, it's tough. For me, there's still a couple things which are untainted by this treadmill.
For instance, face-to-face conversations with friends, family, my girlfriend, random strangers. This cannot be commercialised and it cannot be productive. Conversation, to me, is the most beautiful thing in human life, a collective artform transcending art. And, to me, having great conversations and maintaining relationships in which I can have those kinds of conversations, is an important way of resisting. Our society is built to destroy relationships, social gatherings, conversations. I'm trying to fight back by having as much of that as possible, and nourish them to be the best that they can be..
Another thing I try to do is create for creating's sake. I love writing and I try do it at least once a weak. Maybe one day some of my stuff will get published, but if it doesn't, that's okay. I'm doing it because I love doing it. I guess you could call it 'production', but it's not productive because it doesn't make money to anyone and it only takes time away from 'productive' 'endeavours'.
I don't know man, I don't have all the answers, but I'm trying to identify the ways in which capitalism tries to maneouver us and then I deliberately try to swim against the stream as much as I can.
What's the point of commenting? Maybe we can have a nice online chat with random strangers. Much love from The Netherlands.
I don't care if the machine bursts into flame at this point. I just want to survive long enough to see and hear the despair. I hate people viciously, now more than ever. They've trapped me in this cage, whether through malice, ignorance or cowardice, they've all played their part. I don't care what happens to us anymore. I just want it all to stop forever.
@@Dunge0n They've all played their part but you're the victim? No. We're all victims, of the elite and their system. If you feel any compassion to yourself, feel compassion to the people around you. We're all in this shit together.
Thanks for taking the time to write. Your comment helps me not feel so alone.
@@Enzaio My man.
(Expanding on my previous comment because there's a few here who appreciated/were affected for better or worse:)
Great antidote to the nihilism and despair, which wasn't the point of my comment (not that I don't feel these things on occasion/ all the time haha)
Who knows what happens, as much as we can try to quantify. It's a prideful to assess, even if it seems accurate what life is and what it all means. It's a type of blindness.
As much as I'm tempted to write it all of and become embittered, this is fear and in the face of fear one has the opportunity to be courageous. Of course it's confusing when you're able to understand the extent of the problem, which is what I think we all share. So be kind to yourself.
As an artist, I love it. There's nothing that could act as a more adequate soil to grow art. As a human I just wish the pain would stop - but of course not quite enough to actually do the work to fully transcend. So, this is likely my own hubris and masochism addiction exercising itself. Can anyone truly blame anyone for this though? It's painful to not only be alive, but to know it.
I wish you all the strength of character to overcome this world. It seems impossible and that's of course it's genius. It only seems insurmountable. With a little faith we can not just make it through, but triumph.
Godspeed brothers.
I am 1000000% down for more collabs with Then & Now!! Great work!
Great video! I think this is a really good introduction to Han's work. I think Zizek is right when he says (in 'Pandemic!') that Han's criticisms only really apply to certain highly-industrialized countries (and that this burnout is only possible due to the exploitation of the Global South since it allows these countries to shift from material to immaterial production) but even he admits that, in those societies, Han's critiques are very pertinent.
One thing I think is relevant to your point at 19:43 is that, for Han, the abscence of negativity removes any sense of narrative or progress. For him, narrative requires negation to order events (since negation allows one event to end and another to begin) but in achievement society, excess positivity only allows for a collection of disjointed presents. He uses the Twitter timeline as an example -- it's not a "true" timeline in the sense of an ordering of events, but simply an endless collection of presents that do not form a whole. Because of this, no future can be imagined, only an optimization of the present (as Mark Fisher also said). I don't remember if he discusses this in 'The Burnout Society' or 'Psychopolitics' but he does in 'In the Swarm' (which is an incredible work -- his comparison of swarms vs crowds is very relevant imo).
Have you read '24/7' by Jonathan Crary? He touches on a lot of the same topics as Han, but I think he highlights some of the more explicitly coercive elements of achievement society and at least hints towards a way out. It's a great supplement imo.
Thank you! But, absolutely. Virtually all of Han's cultural theory (in this video at least) is in a contemporary, service-focused context.
I have not read him though!
@@epochphilosophy It's a great book for sure. It takes a more explicitly Marxist/Deleuzian approach than Han does, but it makes similar observations about autonomy and nonstop production/consumption (with some great points about its impact on sleep). There's an interesting part where Crary argues that the introduction of TV shows that disciplinary societies and societies of control exist side-by-side with each other since TV provides choice while still contraining you in time and space.
Crary also released a book this year called 'Scorched Earth' but I haven't read it yet.
@@hueymanolojust finished reading great reviews on 24/7, including a very compelling one written by a sleep scientist, and I just ordered it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I am most of the way through 24/7 (just finished the TV section) following Psychopolitics; I must thank you for the recommendation.
Thanks this clarifies some things for me. I've been thinking about the proclivity many have to tell kids they are "highly intelligent" or "gifted". How it's not truly a compliment but an implicit threat. Like you're telling your child, a CEO will get a lot of added value from you one day.
Use your intelligence for what you think is best, not necessarily for what a CEO thinks is best. If I had a child I'd say to them.
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying, if anything its more the pressure where they tell those kids they’ll be the next doctors, lawyer, etc.
I'm going to overly simplify this, but basically you want to recognize the hard work they put into it, which gets them to enjoy working hard. Telling them they're smart or gifted creates a situation where hard things become extremely difficult mentally because a "truly smart/gifted" person wouldn't struggle.
The implicit threat of working less hard, having more perks, and making more money than someone who has to work for minimum wage or in the skilled trades? I don't get it
Glad someone made a video regarding Byung Chul Han's philosophy :). I think his idea strikes what globalised, industrialised, modern society very well, he talks about what we common people deal everyday on daily basis without being too complicated specialized for those 'upper people' generally do. It is very intelligible indeed
This was wildly interesting and the best video I have seen on this topic. You're one of the most underrated CZcamsrs I know. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much!
Nice to hear then&now in this video, great as always
Parallels very well with Baudrillard's points in The Agony of Power. Great video!
Degrowth, or death. In every arena, it really comes down to that. ( I am of course referring to the developed nations, not the victims thereof.)
I feel like we have to frame degrowth a bit differently. I think it alienates people living in poverty in the global north and south because all they hear, espexially when someone who is not a socialist/communist/collectivist anarchist is: you will have to make do with even less, even if "less" is no longer livable.
@@lisaw150 Thank you for making me realize that, though it's clear in my head, I failed to fully state my position. I have edited my comment accordingly. Best.
As soon as I liked the video I was like agh I can’t escape haha
People have passed the burnout stage...
Trying to get ahead financially has put a lot of people in debt...
People have just had it with working for minimum wages or working 2 jobs just to break even...
Pfft people have had it with working just one decent paying job. With higher wages comes more work and stress. Sure, you get a decent paycheck, but you’re not really happy or fulfilled; a lot of people are the opposite.
I feel the burnout, I hate today's society
I feel nauseous and disoriented even watching it from aside.
Its tempo and structure is similar to that of robotic ants on fast rewind.
@@bmxt939 It is an ant colony, you're right.
Thank you for sharing, phenomenal idea, will need to read the book itself too!
This video is so amazing. Great edits and material. Subbed
Jeez! this was enlightening. Thank you! I wasn't familiar with Han. Thank you for just blowing my mind!
hell yeah incredible work!
This may be my favorite video so far!! Thank you for putting this together 🎉
Amazing production and spot on analysis ! Keep up the good work
This was extremely enjoyable. Now I’m off to find these Han books.
these videos deserve more views, vvv good stuff!!
Degrowth for capitalist companies would mean paying their fair share in taxes; and finding a sustainable level of profit that pleases investors, respects resources, and pays workers a living wage... instead of chasing growth every quarter at ANY price.
Degrowth for governments would mean reassessing priorities, meeting material conditions, investing in infrastructure, and subsidizing sustainable development... instead of maintaining more than 800 military bases around the world to the tune of almost 800 billion dollars a year to achieve a misguided sense of primacy.
Degrowth for individuals with more than one comma in their bank accounts would mean paying your fair share in taxes, wearing what's in your walk-in closet for at least 3 years, owning just ONE yacht, plane-pooling the private aircraft, and paying your house staff living wages.
Best channel on CZcams. Thanks for exposing me to such thought provoking material and countering cultural hegemony.
Thanks an absolute ton for this. Very glad you enjoy, and am happy to provide!
Very compelling insight. Thank you
Another great video!
Well done, very well done, thank you.
I’m in my mid 30s and have taken 2023 off of work to recuperate from life so far. I feel almost whole again. I can’t believe more people don’t or can’t do this. Movies make it seem like if you don’t work, you’re a loser on your way to drug addiction and whore-dom but it’s been literally the healthiest things I’ve done. To be in quietude - I can finally understand how I am when no one’s prodding me to perform. It should be a requirement - like a midlife retirement that helps you to digest, take what you like, get rid of what you don’t. I’m only just now starting to feel like I can and _want to_ go back to work again. When I talk to people trying to schedule every single second of their day to try and achieve a good quality of life, I shudder. There’s so much desperation in that. It’s like they can never get to that place where they’re doing what they want to do be doing and think that maybe it’s because they’re not doing enough so they do even more. I don’t do much of anything and it’s been a dream come true but the pride and superiority with which people around me declare their busy-ness appears empty to me every single time. Consider doing _less_ to create space for what really matters.
🎯
Absolutely excellent introduction to your channel! All well said
Thanks so much!
Great vid, mate!
That was intense, i liked it, thank you 💙🙏
this was fun i really appreciate the bass & jungle
The king is back! Been waiting for something for a while, and this was from an intellectual I have not heard from. Thanks for showing me someone new and insightful!
Brilliant!
"It means that exploitation is possible even without domination."
The monetary market system itself has become the master and we are all its slaves.
Sick video 🔥
Great video! I feel honoured having my music included :)
Absolute banger track, dude. Big fan of the album as a whole.
Thanks a lot!!! Han is one of the most important philosophers of our time for me!!
He actually is South Korean-born but moved to Germany after wishing to study philosophy after studying metallurgy at university. I love that his goals were big; to study in philosophy Germany and to learn the German language in order to achieve that!
So entrepreneural of him 😍😍
Nice choice of background accompaniment. I could pick at this music selection for a while. But in the interests of keeping it mercifully short I'll just leave a thumbs up from me.
Man that last quote was a heavy one.
Really fantastic summary of some of Byung-Chul Han's most important ideas. I'm curious whether the voice over for the book excerpts was a real voice or an AI one! 😝
I think thats the channel Then & Now doing the excerpts great channel
Loved the ad in-between haha. thanks for making quality content.
Very sorry! Forgot to turn off ads for early access from the get go! All of you guys who view early should get ad free content! I turned off ads likely right after you watched.
*EDIT: I'm stupid. Thank you for the praise and support as always.
@@epochphilosophy I think he's taking about 17:54 not the literal ad.
@@rohitbhisikar7914 Oh, yeah, you're right. Sorry, I'm dumb.
@@rohitbhisikar7914 hi Rohit are you from India?
pure greatness
Theodore Kaczynski got it right. But also Aristotle and the Church Fathers on Usury. That and the practical protection by the Law by the Government granting Corporations Personhood. Craftsmen who are private property owners as well as Kulaks were the ones not alienated from the Labor back in the 20th Century.
Fantastic video. Every time I come across a discussion of Byung-Chul Han I'm reminded that I need to read his work. I found the last quote especially fascinating and reminiscent of some of Judith Butler's discussion of the ongoing relevance of Hegel to contemporary life and theory. Specifically, they wrote this in their 1997 book The Psychic Life of Power, a book that often gets overlooked despite including some important self-critiques of their position in Gender Trouble as well as this call for a reappraisal of Hegel's thought:
"The transition in the Phenomenology of Spirit from the section 'Lordship and Bondage' to 'The Freedom of Self-Consciousness: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness' is one of the least interrogated of Hegel's philosophical movements. Perhaps because the chapter on lordship and bondage secured a liberationist narrative for various progressive political visions, most readers have neglected to pay attention to the resolution of freedom into self-enslavement at the end of the chapter. Insofar as recent theory has called into question both the assumption of a progressive history and the status of the subject, the dystopic resolution of 'Lordship and Bondage' has perhaps regained a timely significance."
A significant portion of that book deals with the way that power becomes internalized, the ways that libidinal investment in repression is foundational to subjects who then go on to regulate their own behavior, turning self-repression into a pleasurable activity in its own right. This seems like a useful way of analyzing grind ideology in working people and CEOs and other subjects-supposed-to-be-free sleeping under their desks and working intensely long hours as though they are the laborers in the companies they own. Self-regulation becomes a sign of virtue and a source of real libidinal pleasure so that subjects live primarily as accessories to the seemingly autopoietic reproduction of capital.
The world would be a better place if we viewed the rich as unhealthy, unbalanced people and grudgingly tolerated them rather than worshipping them.
I think many people become rich *because* they are well-liked. Attractive, able-bodied, socially conforming in some way, who by chance have access to things you want. Someone who starts off that way has an easier time attracting and growing wealth.
Speaking from my own experience, I don't recognise this absence of negativity or control. It's very much still there, it's just that we are more afraid than ever to confront it.
The internalised control comes from knowing the potentially disastrous consequences of non-conformity or rebellion. Those in power have constructed such an efficient, overpowered, insightful system of control that we feel powerless to challenge it.
I don't feel like this is a new situation that requires new theories. The only solution to our problems is the same as its always been: a critical mass of people refusing to follow orders and, if necessary, using force to unseat the ruling class and decentralising power.
and then?
The most important thing to know about Capitalism is. "The House Always Wins" 😢
I think a better phrase for our current system would be psychopathic politics.
The natural desire for more freedom and control over our lives was subverted by linguistics that paid lip service to those desires, but in reality just expanded the system-we continued to spend crazy amounts at the government level while expanding the debt load to individuals.
It succeeds by hijacking our limbic system. I think limbic-capitalism is a good term to describe what is going on.
We all work so hard to barely scrape by. I hate this lifestyle. It leaves me disappointed and dissatisfied with life. No amount of therapy will change the way society functions
Therapy is there to help you adapt to this sick society. It would defeat its purpose if therapy told us to change society, wouldn’t it?
Turned on the VPN to get some ads on this. Also commenting for engagement.
I can't say that I disagree with the idea of positive exploitation that you describe of Chul's work. A lot of that rings true. I don't buy the idea that we're entering that as a discreet phase from the negative exploitation described by Foucault. The negative repression is always, always the foundation. The positive happens because being homeless or put in jail is just not an option most people are willing to entertain for some strange reason. You can smile and pretend you're not exploiting yourself, or you can starve. The threat of the latter undergirds the former. It's like Contrapoints once quipped about now not even being able to openly hate your job. You're alienated from your work *and* from yourself. That's some scary shit.
I am inclined to agree. Negative exploitation is arguably just as impactful, and I'd probably argue Han downplays it's relevance a bit much for my taste.
The last quote from Byungchul is where I think he is most interesting. I feel he is leading us to question attachment and is addressing the crisis in meaning. And I think we have had this crisis through all of modernity. When we moved off farms and into factories we lost community, family, location, and meaning. The rise in mental disorders followed and have only continued to grow. This is the central issue: meaning.
The things that matter the most are family, local community, and faith (some type of metaphysics). Reason alone is not comfort. Materialism alone is no comfort. Eating well, physical exercise, being with family, being with our children, community, and faith(contemplation, meditation, truth, beauty, and the good). These are things that matter.
When we disconnect from reality (from family, friends, and nature), we fragment ourselves and create immense conflict within us. We increasingly work only with ideas which are again disconnected from reality. It's that simple, we are burdened by conflict and thus are not free. To love and to care, one has to be free; to feel joy, one has to be free; to find meaning and joy in our work, we have to love. Love and conflict can't coexist. However, we can observe this conflict with attention to see it, to perceive its danger ourselves. Ideas can also make us un-free. Philosophers cleverly make up ideas and more ideas and pretend to explain the unexplainable, but the truth is beyond ideas. The word/image is not real; their nature is fragmentary. Why live a second-hand life accepting of second-hand ideas of others? Nonetheless, thanks for the effort you put into explaining Han's ideas.
very good, thank you
Not relevant but is the track playing during both the Violence of Positivity & Excess sections of the video Witness Response by Lightbath or something else? I was completely entranced by the track but can't seem to pin it down.
Other than that, great video. Been a big fan of your work for a while & this one definitely got to me. So much so that I actually went ahead & bought Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism & New Technologies of Power right after listening to this video.
Please keep up the good work, I'm rooting for you in both power & spirit. :)
Yup! That is lightbath. I'm a huge fan of his.
@9:50 “Why we are seeing such a heavy emphasis [on] and *medicalization* of the mental.”
Can you point us to some relevant Marcuse and Fisher texts? Thanks!
Psychobiology sounds much like Zizek's definition of ideology - that which we have have internalised to the extent that we participate in it "willingly".
I love this Channel!! It is whithout a doubt one of the Best Channels I have seen in recent mounths
Could you talk about Anarchism sometime AND other alternatives to capitalism?🏴🏴
Saludos desde México 🇲🇽👋😁
Thank you for the praise! Yes, I've wanted to do some videos explicitly on Anarchism. Can't give a sure fired answer when that will happen, but it likely will in the future!
I have read about Catholic Distributism recently, and wondered if it was workable.
On the arch of technological advancement, what is the next progression of labor considering we are in the improved stage of “exploitation without domination?”
Thanks!
Thanks so much!
yes!
Great content! Thanks for producing 🙏
Some constructive feedback - I found the film dirt overlay effect r quite distracting and annoying and would have enjoyed it more without it.
19:00 "infarction" is read as "infraction"
Infarction is the obstruction of something vital, infraction is the violation of something
It doesn't change the tone of what's being said, but is a minor discrepancy
Also like, this analysis kinda does ignore that good old "breaking labourers backs and dumping them without healthcare" is still very alive and kicking.
It has been my life for the last 23 years. Now, the rest is failing. My hands, my mind 😢
I can't even scream anymore. 😢
Great video, thankyou :)
As long as we Must Work, we are Not Free! (Bob Dobbs)
It would be good to credit Lew Waller of Then and Now who is providing you with narration of thetexts you are referencing, dont you think?
Wow! I have been writing about these patterns based on a lot of the same thoughts from philosopher's a like after having serious issues with "the they". I have found a antidote for solving the core issues raised -- create youre ubermensch.
Solid video!
I love that he plays the Metal Gear Solid sound as I play Metal Gear Solid 2
this is great!
i do think your explanation of foucault as only focusing repressive mechanisms of power is not quite correct. although han’s theory extends foucault’s biopolitics for the contemporary condition. you prob know this already but i think agamben’s necropolitics, and jasbir puar’s work on debility, disability, and ability would be great theoretical additions to expand this concept to a globalized perspective.
ice video but actually it lacks a reading of Foucault's 80's bio-power (positive-power) notion, which is related to technologies of self, that is in parallel with Chul Han's neoliberal entrepreneurial productive subjectivity...
Holy hell I hate the world.
The good old "Trickle Down Theory"
I feel like a lot of this critical theory only applies to the only western society.
Yeah I would agree but then on the other hand for the Global South classic Marx still applies cause they still make all our shit.
It is certainly most applicable to the United States. I don't think it is wholly irrelevant to the rest of the world. To a large degree, what happens in the US is emulated in other places.
11:00 this is why ADHD is a social construct
DUH
@@richardscathouse sorry, I didn't realize it was common knowledge in the CZcams space:) I thought we all agreed it was due to a dopamine deficiency...
Edward Bernays is a good person to study - he was an American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda .. basically he mainstreamed the psychology of Freud (his uncle) into what we refer to as marketing
I have a simple formula to prevent becoming burned out: work for 10 minutes, take a 1 - 2 hour break. This way productivity increases because each 10th minute added to the last one becomes one hour free of stress where you are working on something you are passionate about.
Regarding the last parallel with marxist theory on the alienation conception and we having now a more prominent role in owning and being responsible for our own labor, as far as service providing at least, but the whole thing being too individualistic and bearing a lot of the same psychological hazards as the typical labor dynamics under capital owners, I would advise to take a look on Varoufakis' theory on technofeudalism. Not only do we not have as much ownership as we think we do, algorithms and engagement metrics dictate our output and how we feel about ourselves and our relationship with our own labor. Those algorithms are put in place by the platforms we need to expose ourselves and materialize/promote our work, platforms which are not owned by us, see where I'm getting at? It's the same thing all over again, just under a slightly different framework and less labor regulations, which make it all the more predatory and exploitative for the individual. While Varoufakis suggests this is the new system that we've already ended up moving onto from capitalism and leftists usually get mad at him for saying they're late in the whole overthrowing capitalism thing because it's been over, just not in the way we wished for, I just think this is actually any neoliberal's dream, like an ultimate capitalist final boss fight and also, as marxist theory suggests, the capacity of capitalism to reinvent itself and bending its rules to adjust to the times, which are now heavily determined by big tech companies. In that sense, Han's work regarding burnout stays relevant as ever, as it is applied to both interpretations and ultimately cannot be dissociated by the concept of alienation.
I need the name of the tune at 6:00 what a banger.
The Coming Insurrection. Have a link to their Bandcamp in the description of the video! Very good stuff.
@@epochphilosophy Love you pal, also the video is amazing, you just got a new loyal suscriber
Awsome
lmao we say we are burned out now, a hundred years ago we would've said "man makes plans and god laughs"
These two things aren't really synonyms at all though.
6:20 you drop an amen break. Rinse out!
Wealth like power is deceptively nuanced towards those who actually know...🌹
The font transitions are a bit hard on the eyes
Like!
Hey, I love jungle, but found it pretty distracting under your narration.
Otherwise, great content.
The internet is the modern Panopticon...
So what's the answer to the last quote? As a people we need to remind each other to chill the fuck out?
The excess of positivity thesis is at odds with infraction/violation.
Didn’t Marx talk about the concept of exploitation occuring without domination? I’m pretty sure his holistic critique of Capital addressed that issue. A lot of the video I agree with and find interesting, but the stuff about Marx failing to consider individuation I think is misinformed. I would love to be corrected though!
Yes. He did. And that's not where the critique is levied. I'm not sure where you found Marx's individuation being critiqued? One of the centerpieces to Marx's alienation was industrial capitalism's division of labor. With this people had specialized jobs in the manufacturing process, extremely specific, discrete, and isolated academic disciplines, etc. Simply put, this played one of the big roles in why workers felt alien to their labor.
However, in the 21st century, we've shifted drastically toward a service sector economy in the west. With that, more and more people take on "creative" roles that encompass a labor that's less divided than it used to be. Firms will hire "consultants" for ideas, and even contract workers have to shift to new jobs every year. And the lower-end contract work creates an environment where you work on your "own terms" via applications like Uber, DoorDash, etc. Exploitation is way broader and more encompassing than it used to be, ironically because people control more of their economic output. (And yet, their pay is being siphoned off more than ever.) This type of labor is drastically different than the type of industrial capitalism in the west during Marx's writing. This is the systemic approach to Han's idea of an entrepreneurship society. It has nothing to do with Marx "failing to understand" something.
This is a great video but the music was incredibly distracting.