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Freedom in late modernity has become a trap of self-exploitation that leads to pathologies such as depression or chronic exhaustion. This is argued by Byung-Chul Han, a South Korean philosopher and reference for contemporary thought, who analyzes how the neoliberal system has replaced external domination with a self-imposition of performance.
According to Han, the current individual is not a subjugated subject, but a “project” that violates itself to achieve an unattainable ideal self, transforming existence into a “mere life” stripped of meaning and contemplative capacity.
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From duty to “yes we can”
Han, born in Seoul in 1959 and trained academically in Germany under the influence of Heidegger and Zen Buddhism, explains that we have moved from Foucault’s “disciplinary society,” based on duty and prohibition, to a “performance society.” In this new paradigm, the economic engine is not the norm, but positive reinforcement.
“To increase productivity, the disciplinary paradigm is replaced by that of performance, by the positive scheme of ‘can do’; ‘yes you can’ is much more efficient than ‘must’,” points out the author of The fatigue society. This transition, however, has a human cost: the subject, by not having an external oppressor, becomes an “exploiter of himself.”
The “hell of the same”
Han’s analysis highlights that we live in an excess of positivity where the “other” has disappeared to give way to an overabundance of the identical. When alterity disappears, that which is strange to us or contradicts us, the individual becomes trapped in a digital narcissism that destroys empathy and real dialogue.
For the philosopher, this lack of negativity manifests itself in neuronal violence. Unlike a viral infection (which comes from outside), this violence is immanent and translates into a heart attack.
“Depression is the disease of a society that suffers from excessive positivity,” says Han, directly linking the economic system with the rise of borderline personality disorder and hyperactivity.
Eros as salvation
Faced with this scenario of “performance zombies”, Han proposes a revolution of time and the recovery of contemplative life. The remedy, according to his theses, lies in Eros: the capacity to be shaken by the other, to love and to recognize what we are not ourselves.
Without that “negativity” provided by silence, pause and analogical thinking, the human being is reduced to data and consumption. Only through listening and the “right not to do” can we recover a freedom that today, under efficiency, seems to have been lost in the present.