The Burnout Society

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Han points out that “The society of the 21st century is no longer disciplinary, but a society of the performance. Nor are its inhabitants called ‘subjects of obedience’, but ‘subjects of performance’. These subjects are entrepreneurs of themselves.” The underlying question is therefore one of telos, of ultimate aim. What is the purpose of all this effort? Why maximise achievement to this end? Why pursue function without disturbance, to what end? A. We need information to be silenced. Otherwise, our brains will explode. Today we perceive the world through information. That’s how we lose the experience of being present. We are increasingly disconnected from the world. We are losing the world. The world is more than information, and the screen is a poor representation of the world. We revolve in a circle around ourselves. The smartphone contributes decisively to this poor perception of the world. A fundamental symptom of depression is the absence of the world. Slow down and learn to live in the present. Calmly enjoy each and every activity and every moment with the people around you. Practice mindfulness as a lifestyle. Good works, in Calvinist theology, cannot earn you salvation, but they can be signs of election. That is, God’s elect will perform good works as an outgrowth of their blessed status. So if you are curious about your election, examine your actions. Are they saintly? Or sinful?

Vom Verschwinden der Rituale: Eine Topologie der Gegenwart. Ullstein, Berlin 2019. ISBN 978-3550050718. What is uncanny about Covid-19 is that those who catch it suffer from extreme tiredness and fatigue. The illness seems to simulate fundamental tiredness. And there are more and more reports of patients who have recovered but are continuing to suffer severe long-term symptoms, one of which is “chronic fatigue syndrome.” The expression “the batteries no longer charge” describes it very well. Those affected are no longer able to work and perform. They have to exert themselves just to pour a glass of water. When walking, they have to make frequent stops to catch their breath. They feel like the living dead. One patient reports: “It actually feels as if the mobile were only 4 percent charged, and you really only have 4 percent for the whole day, and it cannot be recharged.” Greek edition: Η ΚΟΙΝΩΝΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΡΗΓΟΡΙΑΣ. Athens, Opera publications, 2021, ISBN 978-618-5400-26-2. About a third of US workers are, according to Gallup. To managers who accept the survey’s findings, the two-thirds of workers who are not engaged are a serious problem. One business writer claims that disengaged employees cost employers an additional 34% of their salary through absenteeism and lost productivity. Another describes them as “silent killers”. Gallup warns that unproductive, complacent workers might even be lurking, unnoticed, in upper management. The actively disengaged will even destroy others’ time and accomplishments. “Whatever the engaged do,” Gallup asserts, “the actively disengaged try to undo.” In short, they are villains, bent on undermining our heroes’ mission.Depression is also a symptom of the burnout society. The achievement subject suffers burnout at the moment it is no longer able “to be able.” It fails to meet its self-imposed demand to achieve. No longer being able “to be able” leads to destructive self-recrimination and auto-aggression. The achievement subject wages a war against itself and perishes in it. Victory in this war against oneself is called burnout. English edition: The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2020) ISBN 1509542760. This change, which apparently empowers and is liberating, actually becomes a boomerang that soon beats us with all its strength because it hides a great psychological risk of which we are not aware. Books and knowledge) 'Society of Tiredness' author Han Byung-Chul and Do-ol Kim Young-oak meet]. JoongAng Ilbo. 24 March 2013 . Retrieved 30 May 2018.

Byung-Chul Han - La Société de la fatigue, Traduction de l'allemand par Julie Stroz". editions-circe.fr (in French) . Retrieved 30 May 2018. The “corona blues” is the name the Koreans have given to the depression that is spreading during the pandemic. Under quarantine conditions, without social interaction, depression deepens. Depression is the real pandemic. The Burnout Society set out from the following diagnosis: Han is the author of sixteen books, of which the most recent are treatises on what he terms a "society of tiredness" (Müdigkeitsgesellschaft), a "society of transparency" (Transparenzgesellschaft), and on his neologist concept of shanzai, which seeks to identify modes of deconstruction in contemporary practices of Chinese capitalism. Question. How is it possible that in a world obsessed with hyperproduction and hyperconsumption, at the same time objects are disappearing and we are moving toward a world of non-things? At a time when other professional colleagues question the narrator (who remains anonymous throughout history) about why he keeps a useless employee in the office, the boss decides to take strong but ineffective actions toward his clerk.

Such rhetoric is not just laughably absurd; it’s also inhumane. The fact is, American workers are more engaged than those in every other rich country, by Gallup’s own measure. Their level of engagement may indeed approach the human limit. (In Norway, the engagement rate is half the level it is in the US, and yet Norwegians are among the richest and happiest populations on earth.) The book culminates with a section in which Han uses Peter Handke’s Versuch über die Müdigkeit ( An Essay on Tiredness) to finally explain how he thinks we should deal with the issue. There is a danger of grind and fatigue leading to what he calls “an infarction of the soul”, and worse still, this is an individual affliction pushing people apart. Handke describes a need to make a space in the world, to change the “I-Tiredness” to “We-Tiredness”, or a “communal tiredness”, a comfortable one that will actually promote happiness.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I might just end there – you see, after all that philosophising, I’m suddenly feeling very, very tired … Engaged employees are the best colleagues. They cooperate to build an organization, institution, or agency, and they are behind everything good that happens there. These employees are involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work. They know the scope of their jobs and look for new and better ways to achieve outcomes. They are 100% psychologically committed to their work. And, they are the only people in an organization who create new customers.

Han writes: “the society of achievement and activeness is generating excessive tiredness and exhaustion.” Constant Zoom meetings also make us tired. They turn us into Zoom zombies. They force us permanently to look into the mirror. Looking at your own face on the screen is tiring. We are continuously confronted with our own faces. Ironically, the virus appeared precisely at the time of the selfie, a fashion that can be explained as resulting from the narcissism of our society. The virus intensifies this narcissism. During the pandemic, we are all constantly confronted by our own faces; we produce a kind of never-ending selfie in front of our screens. That makes us tired.