in the 1980s there were a series of writers who challenged the way people thought of the then growing popularity of colour television and news media i've written before about neil postman and his fear of our world becoming a trivial society and marshall mcluhan who warned us that the medium is the message i've been searching for a modern author who can do in our times what they did then challenge assumptions lift up the veil of technology and help us understand what lies underneath enter pyeongchao han han is a south korean-born german philosopher and is one of
the most daring philosophers i've read in recent years what's more bianchal han is telling the stories that need to be told today stories about modern technology about where we are as a society and where we are heading this winter i dug into five of young telhan's most recent books to discover the definitive philosophy of [Music] beyonce if there is an overall thesis in han's recent works it's this we are living in a shallow achievement society where all negativity has been erased edges smoothed and filters applied we are showing more of ourselves often in close-ups and
seeing less of the other in a constant pressure for achievement success and self-gratification we are becoming isolated and mentally ill detached from nature authentic experience and other people in his most famous work the burnout society han lays out the key framework for his argument [Music] in the 20th century we lived in a disciplinary society han says in the 21st century we live in an achievement society we have moved from being obedient subjects to achievement subjects or in other words entrepreneurs of the self what has remained consistent is the pressure to produce more what has changed
is the language instead of being subjected to an order that we should do something we are being subjected to an imperative that we can do something but can is much more effective than the negativity of should therefore the social unconscious switches from should to can the achievement subject is faster and more productive than the obedience subject however the can does not revoke the should the obedient subject remains disciplined [Music] in our constant drive for achievement for achieving anything we can do we get sick and burnt out the achievement subject works manically to maximize achievement leading
to self or exploitation we start fighting ourselves alan ehrenberg one of han's many quotations in the book says it succinctly the depressed individual is unable to measure up he is tired of becoming himself it's a beautiful line we cannot just be ourselves anymore we have to become ourselves and this process is exhausting to become ourselves we have to constantly keep achieving more and more leading to further exhaustion and burnout because our achievement is performative we lose touch with other people and start indulging in narcissism and self-love this leads neatly onto bianchialhan's other works on love
beauty and entertainment starting with love bianchohan tells us that today we're in a crisis of love this crisis is caused by the growth of narcissism and the separation between us and the other the world is increasingly appearing not as something other to us but as an innumerable number of reflections of ourselves we see perfectly crystallized digital images without any vagueness or ambiguity but it is in this very vagueness and ambiguity that we can most connect with someone else it is in the negatives han says that we discover the other an easier way of understanding this
is the more common idea it is someone's imperfections that make them beautiful in a digital world without imperfection with just a screen with no past or future only now there is no beauty [Music] here young chalhan's next book on my reading list comes into play saving beauty to me this book has the best english translation and is therefore the strongest of the five i read han starts with an exhortation of the artwork of jeff coons who i've written about before the artwork of coons and the modern aesthetic of much of modern culture has a certain
smooth characteristic says han why do we today find what is smooth beautiful beyond its aesthetic value it reflects a general social imperative it embodies today's society of positivity what is smooth does not injure nor does it offer any resistance it is looking for like the smooth object deletes its against any form of negativity is removed here he brings up his familiar themes today we have lost the negative for the positive we must be positive at all times this however traps us into a banal shallow passivity when we look at a coon's artwork the only response
we can have is wow there is no negative thing to react against as a result we lose introspection and contemplative distance the aesthetic of smooth abolishes distance this idea resonates with me in part because it's so present in the types of media we see today instagram with its perfect images or television with its make up laden news presenters according to han all digital media has this smooth quality it turns even nature into a window of itself what else do we see on our instagram feed but a recursive look at ourselves in vyan chalhan's words a
smooth space of the same today the entire globe is developing into a panopticon there is no outside space the panopticon is becoming total no wall separates inside from outside google and social networks which present themselves as spaces of freedom are assuming panoptic forms today surveillance is not occurring as an attack on freedom as is normally assumed instead people are voluntarily surrendering to the panoptic gaze they deliberately collaborate in the digital panopticon by denuding and exhibiting themselves the prisoner of the digital panopticon is a perpetrator and a victim at the same time herein lies the dialectic
of freedom freedom turns out to be a form of control this is another way of reinforcing his achievement subject argument earlier in the society of achievement we end up exhibiting various aspects of ourselves to the extent that every subject is also its own advertising object we become our own commodity while at the same time selling ourselves as entrepreneurs reading the philosophy of bianchohan has made me really confront my own assumptions of where we are as a society there is so much to lose in our push for constant achievement production and consumption and there is also
a lot to gain surprisingly from the negatives in life if i've learned anything from han it's that we don't need perfection smooth lines and filters to feel complete we need the authenticity that comes from the negative the imperfect the hidden and the simply beautiful instead of falling in love with ourselves we should be falling in love with others and the world not to see ourselves in them not to commodify them not to achieve friendship or marriage or love but to appreciate what makes them different to us instead of thinking about what we can or should
do we should try to dislodge ourselves from imperatives especially if they lead to the same outcome it takes a lot of introspection to be authentic to connect to the world and to connect to our own instincts outside of social imperatives but han reinforces the idea of this is essential to be free we need to let go of achievement the imperative to be positive at all times we must just be us with the negativity and imperfections that come with that it would sound banal if it weren't so difficult you
