The Burnout Society

Front Cover
Stanford University Press, Aug 12, 2015 - Philosophy - 72 pages

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 to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.

 

Contents

Neuronal Power
1
Beyond Disciplinary Society
8
Profound Boredom
12
Vita Activa
16
The Pedagogy of Seeing
21
The Bartleby Case
25
The Society of Tiredness
30
Burnout Society
35
Notes
53
Copyright

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The Burnout Society
Byung-Chul Han
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Common terms and phrases

acceleration achievement soci achievement society action active ADHD Agamben allo-exploitation Arendt attention auto-aggression Bartleby Bartleby’s become boredom BURNOUT SOCIETY burnout syndrome Cambridge Carl Schmitt compulsion conflict constraints contemplative contemporary contrast death depression disciplinary society disorder domination doping ego ideal Ehrenberg entirely excessive positivity exhausted exploits foreign Freud Freudian Gewalt Giorgio Agamben goes missing gratification Handke homines sacri homo sacer human hyperactivity hysteria I-tiredness Ibid immune defense immunological imperative individual Jean Baudrillard Kant laboring lack late-modern achievement-subject longer melancholy ment moral subject Muselmänner narcissistic negation negative potency neuronal Nietzsche not-to obedience-subject occurs one’s oneself paradigm pathological Peter Handke positive potency positivization possible presupposes the negativity production proves psychic apparatus psychic maladies psychoanalysis represents Richard Sennett sacratio self-exploitation sense singular social society of achievement sover sovereignty speak stands Stanford superego thinking tion tired tiredness trans unconscious University Press viral violence vita activa vita contemplativa Walter Benjamin

About the author (2015)

Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han teaches philosophy and cultural studies at Berlin's University of the Arts (UdK). In the past few years, his provocative essays have been translated into numerous languages, and he has become one of the most widely read philosophers in Europe and beyond. His work is presented here in English for the first time.

Bibliographic information

TitleThe Burnout Society
AuthorByung-Chul Han
Editionillustrated
PublisherStanford University Press, 2015
ISBN0804797501, 9780804797504
Length72 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Philosophy / Movements / Phenomenology
  
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