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authorSilvio Rhatto <rhatto@riseup.net>2018-02-27 07:00:51 -0300
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Books: The Burnout Society
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+[[!meta title="The Burnout Society"]]
+
+* Author: Byung-Chul Han
+
+## Nano-resenha
+
+Muito interessante. No entando, tomando emprestado a prática do autor de citar
+para contradizer, é muito complicado definir a vigência de paradigmas de forma
+estaque. Paradigmas se sobrepõem, coexistem.
+
+## Excerpts
+
+### The immunological age
+
+ The past century was an immunological age. The epoch sought to distinguish
+ clearly between inside and outside, friend and foe, self and other. The Cold
+ War also followed an immunological pattern. Indeed, the immunological paradigm
+ of the last century was commanded by the vocabulary of the Cold War, an
+ altogether military dispositive. Attack and defense determine immunological
+ action. The immunological dispositive, which extends beyond the strictly social
+ and onto the whole of communal life, harbors a blind spot: everything foreign
+ is simply combated and warded off. The object of immune defense is the foreign
+ as such. Even if it has no hostile intentions, even if it poses no danger, it
+ is eliminated on the basis of its Otherness.
+
+### Multitasking, hyperactivity and boredom
+
+ Excessive positivity also expresses itself as an excess of stimuli,
+ information, and impulses. It radically changes the structure and economy of
+ attention. Perception becomes fragmented and scattered. Moreover, the mounting
+ burden of work makes it necessary to adopt particular dispositions toward time
+ and attention [Zeit-und Aufmerksamkeitstechnik]; this in turn affects the
+ structure of attention and cognition. The attitude toward time and environment
+ known as “multitasking” does not represent civilizational progress. Human
+ beings in the late-modern society of work and information are not the only ones
+ capable of multitasking. Rather, such an aptitude amounts to regression.
+ Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is an attentive technique
+ indispensable for survival in the wilderness.
+
+ An animal busy with eating must also attend to other tasks. For example, it
+ must hold rivals away from its prey. It must constantly be on the lookout, lest
+ it be eaten while eating. At the same time, it must guard its young and keep an
+ eye on its sexual partner. In the wild, the animal is forced to divide its
+ attention between various activities. That is why animals are incapable of
+ contemplative immersion—either they are eating or they are copulating. The
+ animal cannot immerse itself contemplatively in what it is facing [Gegenüber]
+ because it must also process background events. Not just multitasking but also
+ activities such as video games produce a broad but flat mode of attention,
+ which is similar to the vigilance of a wild animal. Recent social developments
+ and the structural change of wakefulness are bringing human society deeper and
+ deeper into the wilderness. For example, bullying has achieved pandemic
+ dimensions. Concern for the good life, which also includes life as a member of
+ the community, is yielding more and more to the simple concern for survival.
+
+ We owe the cultural achievements of humanity—which include philosophy—to deep,
+ contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep
+ attention is possible. Increasingly, such immersive reflection is being
+ displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyperattention. A rash
+ change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes
+ characterizes this scattered mode of awareness. Since it also has a low
+ tolerance for boredom, it does not admit the profound idleness that benefits
+ the creative process.
+
+### Rage
+
+ Rage is the capacity to interrupt a given state and make a new state begin.
+
+### Positivity
+
+ The computer calculates more quickly than the human brain and takes on
+ inordinate quantities of data without difficulty because it is free of all
+ Otherness. It is a machine of positivity [Positivmaschine]. Because of autistic
+ self-referentiality, because negativity is absent, an idiot savant can perform
+ what otherwise only a calculator can do. The general positivization of the
+ world means that both human beings and society are transforming into autistic
+ performance-machines.
+
+### Tiredness
+
+ Tiredness in achievement society is solitary tiredness; it has a separating and
+ isolating effect.
+
+### Psyche
+
+ The psyche of today’s achievement-subject differs from the psyche of the
+ disciplinary subject. The ego, as Freud defines it, is a well-known
+ disciplinary subject. Freud’s psychic apparatus is a repressive apparatus with
+ commandments and prohibitions that subjugate and repress. Like disciplinary
+ society, the psychic apparatus sets up walls, thresholds, borders, and guards.
+ For this reason, Freudian psychoanalysis is only possible in repressive
+ societies that found their organization on the negativity of prohibitions and
+ commandments. Contemporary society, however, is a society of achievement;
+ increasingly, it is shedding the negativity of prohibitions and commandments
+ and presenting itself as a society of freedom. The modal verb that determines
+ achievement society is not the Freudian Should, but Can. This social
+ transformation entails intrapsychic restructuring. The late-modern
+ achievement-subject possesses an entirely different psyche than the
+ obedience-subject for whom Freud conceived psychoanalysis. Freud’s psychic
+ apparatus is dominated by negation [Verneinung], repression, and fear of
+ transgression. The ego is a “seat of anxiety” [Angststätte].3 In contrast, the
+ late-modern achievement-subject is poor in negation. It is a subject of
+ affirmation. Were the unconscious necessarily connected to the negativity of
+ negation and repression [Verdrängung], then the late-modern achievement-subject
+ would no longer have an unconscious. It would be a post-Freudian ego. The
+ Freudian unconscious is not a formation that exists outside of time. It is a
+ product of the disciplinary society, dominated by the negativity of
+ prohibitions and repression, that we have long since left behind.
+
+ The work performed by the Freudian ego involves the fulfillment of duty, above
+ all. On this score, it shares a feature with the Kantian obedience-subject. For
+ Kant, the conscience occupies the position of the superego. Kant’s moral
+ subject is subject to “power” [Gewalt], too: Every man has a conscience and
+ finds himself observed, threatened, and, in general, kept in awe (respect
+ coupled with fear) by an internal judge; and this authority watching over the
+ law in him is not something that he himself (voluntarily) makes, but something
+ incorporated into his being.4 The Kantian subject, like the Freudian subject,
+ is internally divided. It acts at the behest of Another; however, this Other is
+ also part of itself: Now, this original intellectual and (since it is the
+ thought of duty) moral predisposition called conscience is peculiar in that,
+ although its business is a business of man with himself, one constrained by his
+ reason sees himself constrained to carry it on as at the bidding of another
+ person.5
+
+ On the basis of this split, Kant speaks of a “doubled self,” or “dual
+ personality.”6 The moral subject is simultaneously defendant and judge. The
+ obedience-subject is not a subject of desire or pleasure, but a subject of
+ duty. Thus, the Kantian subject pursues the work of duty and represses its
+ “inclinations.” Hereby, God—that “omnipotent moral being”—does not appear only
+ as the instance of punishment and condemnation, but also (and this is a very
+ important fact, which seldom receives due attention) as the instance of
+ gratification. As the subject of duty, the moral subject represses all
+ pleasurable inclinations in favor of virtue; God, who epitomizes morality,
+ rewards such painfully performed labors with happiness [Glückseligkeit].
+ Happiness is “distributed in exact proportion to morality [Sittlichkeit].”7 The
+ moral subject, which accepts pain for morality, may be entirely certain of
+ gratification. There is no threat of a crisis of gratification occurring, for
+ God does not deceive: He is trustworthy.
+
+ The late-modern achievement-subject does not pursue works of duty. Its maxims
+ are not obedience, law, and the fulfillment of obligation, but rather freedom,
+ pleasure, and inclination. Above all, it expects the profits of enjoyment from
+ work. It works for pleasure and does not act at the behest of the Other.
+ Instead, it hearkens mainly to itself. After all, it must be a self-starting
+ entrepreneur [Unternehmer seiner selbst]. In this way, it rids itself of the
+ negativity of the “commanding [gebietender] Other.” However, such freedom from
+ the Other is not just emancipating and liberating. The dialectic of freedom
+ means developing new constraints. Freedom from the Other switches into
+ narcissistic self-relation, which occasions many of the psychic disturbances
+ afflicting today’s achievement-subject.
+
+ The absence of relation to the Other causes a crisis of gratification. As
+ recognition, gratification presupposes the instance of the Other (or the “Third
+ Party”). It is impossible to reward oneself or to acknowledge oneself. For
+ Kant, God represents the instance of gratification: He rewards and acknowledges
+ moral accomplishment. Because the structure of gratification has been
+ disturbed, the achievement-subject feels compelled to perform more and more.
+ The absence of relation to the Other, then, represents the transcendental
+ condition for the crisis of gratification to arise in the first place. However,
+ contemporary relations of production are also responsible. A definitive work
+ [Werk], as the result of completed labor [Arbeit], is no longer possible today.
+ Contemporary relations of production stand in the way of conclusion. Instead,
+ one works into the open. Conclusive forms [Abschlußformen] with a beginning and
+ an end prove wanting.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Hysteria is a typical psychic malady of the disciplinary society that witnessed
+ the founding of psychoanalysis. It presumes the negativity of repression,
+ prohibition, and negation, which lead to the formation of the unconscious.
+ Drive-representations [Triebrepräsentanzen] that have been pushed off into the
+ unconscious manifest themselves, by means of “conversion,” as bodily symptoms
+ that mark a person unambiguously. Hysterics exhibit a characteristic morphe.
+ Therefore, hysteria admits morphology; this fact distinguishes it from
+ depression.
+
+ According to Freud, “character” is a phenomenon of negativity, for it does not
+ achieve form without the censorship that occurs in the psychic apparatus.
+ Accordingly, he defines it as “a precipitate of abandoned object-cathexes.”10
+ When the ego becomes aware of object-cathexes taking place in the id, it either
+ lets them be or fights them off through the process of repression. Character
+ contains the history of repression within itself. It represents a determinate
+ relation of the ego to the id and to the superego. Whereas the hysteric shows a
+ characteristic morphe, the depressive is formless; indeed, he is amorphous. He
+ is a man without character. One might generalize the observation and declare
+ that the late-modern ego has no character. Carl Schmitt says it is a “sign of
+ inner conflict to have more than one real enemy.”11 The same holds for friends.
+ Following Schmitt, having more than one true friend would betoken a lack of
+ character and definition. One’s many friends on Facebook would offer further
+ proof of the late-modern ego’s lack of character and definition. In positive
+ terms, such a human being without character is flexible, able to assume any
+ form, play any role, or perform any function. This shapelessness—or,
+ alternately, flexibility—creates a high degree of economic efficiency.
+
+ Psychoanalysis presupposes the negativity of repression and negation. The
+ unconscious and repression, Freud stresses, are “correlative” to the greatest
+ extent. In contrast, the process of repression or negation plays no role in
+ contemporary psychic maladies such as depression, burnout, and ADHD. Instead,
+ they indicate an excess of positivity, that is, not negation so much as the
+ inability to say no; they do not point to not-being-allowed-to-do-anything
+ [Nicht-Dürfen], but to being-able-to-do-everything [Alles-Können]. Therefore,
+ psychoanalysis offers no way of approaching these phenomena. Depression is not
+ a consequence of repression that stems from instances of domination such as the
+ superego. Nor does depression permit “transference,” which offers indirect
+ signs of what has been repressed.
+
+ With its idea of freedom and deregulation, contemporary achievement society is
+ massively dismantling the barriers and prohibitions that constituted
+ disciplinary society. The dismantling of negativity serves to enhance
+ achievement. Matters reach a general state of dissolution and
+ boundlessness—indeed, a state of general promiscuity—from which no energy of
+ repression issues. Where restrictive sexual morality does not prevent the
+ impulses of drives from being discharged, paranoid delusions do not emerge—such
+ as those of Daniel Paul Schreber, which Freud traced back to repressed
+ homosexuality. The “Schreber Case” typifies nineteenth-century disciplinary
+ society, where the strict prohibition of homosexuality—indeed, of pleasure and
+ desire as a whole—predominated.
+
+ The unconscious plays no part in depression. It no longer governs the psychic
+ apparatus of the depressive achievement-subject.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Freud understands melancholy as a destructive relationship to the Other that
+ has been made part of the self through narcissistic identification. In this
+ process, the originary conflicts with the Other are internalized and
+ transformed into a conflicted self-relationship that leads to
+ ego-impoverishment and auto-aggression. However, the depressive disorder of the
+ contemporary achievement-subject does not follow upon a conflicted, ambivalent
+ relation to the Other that now has gone missing. No dimension of alterity is
+ involved. Depression—which often culminates in burnout—follows from
+ overexcited, overdriven, excessive self-reference that has assumed destructive
+ traits. The exhausted, depressive achievement-subject grinds itself down, so to
+ speak. It is tired, exhausted by itself, and at war with itself. Entirely
+ incapable of stepping outward, of standing outside itself, of relying on the
+ Other, on the world, it locks its jaws on itself; paradoxically, this leads the
+ self to hollow and empty out. It wears out in a rat race it runs against
+ itself.
+
+ New media and communications technology are also diluting being-for-otherness
+ [Sein zum Anderen]. The virtual world is poor in alterity and the resistance
+ [Widerständlichkeit] it displays. In virtual spaces, the ego can practically
+ move independent of the “reality principle,” which would provide a principle of
+ alterity and resistance. In all the imaginary spaces of virtuality, the
+ narcissistic ego encounters itself first and foremost. Increasingly,
+ virtualization and digitalization are making the real disappear, which makes
+ itself known above all through its resistance. The real is a stay in the double
+ meaning of the word. It not only offers interruption and resistance, but also
+ affords stopping and support.
+
+ The late-modern achievement-subject, with a surplus of options at its disposal,
+ proves incapable of intensive bonding. Depression severs all attachments.
+ Mourning differs from depression above all through its strong libidinal
+ attachment to an object. In contrast, depression is objectless and therefore
+ undirected. It is important to distinguish depression from melancholy.
+ Melancholy is preceded by the experience of loss. Therefore it still stands in
+ a relation—namely, negative relation—to the absent thing or party. In contrast,
+ depression is cut off from all relation and attachment. It utterly lacks
+ gravity [Schwerkraft].
+
+ Mourning occurs when an object with a strong libidinal cathexis goes missing.
+ One who mourns is entirely with the beloved Other. The late-modern ego devotes
+ the majority of libidinal energy to itself. The remaining libido is distributed
+ and scattered among continually multiplying contacts and fleeting
+ relationships. It proves quite easy to withdraw the weakened libido from the
+ Other and to use it to cathect new objects. There is no need for drawn-out,
+ pain-filled “dream work.” In social networks, the function of “friends” is
+ primarily to heighten narcissism by granting attention, as consumers, to the
+ ego exhibited as a commodity.
+
+ [...]
+
+ Seen in this light, depression no longer represents the “lost relation to
+ conflict,” but rather the absent relation to an objective instance of decision
+ that would produce conclusive forms and thereby assure an instance of
+ gratification.
+
+### Burnout
+
+ Burnout, which often precedes depression, does not point to a sovereign
+ individual who has come to lack the power to be the “master of himself.”
+ Rather, burnout represents the pathological consequence of voluntary
+ self-exploitation. The imperative of expansion, transformation, and
+ self-reinvention—of which depression is the flipside—presumes an array of
+ products tied to identity. The more often one changes one’s identity, the more
+ production is dynamized. Industrial disciplinary society relied on unchanging
+ identity, whereas postindustrial achievement society requires a flexible person
+ to heighten production.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The late-modern achievement-subject is subject to no one. In fact, it is no
+ longer a subject in the etymological sense (subject to, sujet à). It
+ positivizes itself; indeed, it liberates itself into a project. However, the
+ change from subject to project does not make power or violence disappear.
+ Auto-compulsion, which presents itself as freedom, takes the place of
+ allo-compulsion. This development is closely connected to capitalist relations
+ of production. Starting at a certain level of production, auto-exploitation is
+ significantly more efficient and brings much greater returns [leistungsstärker]
+ than allo-exploitation, because the feeling of freedom attends it. Achievement
+ society is the society of self-exploitation. The achievement-subject exploits
+ itself until it burns out. In the process, it develops auto-aggression that
+ often enough escalates into the violence of self-destruction. The project turns
+ out to be a projectile that the achievement-subject is aiming at itself.
+
+ [...]
+
+ In view of the ego ideal, the real ego appears as a loser buried in
+ self-reproach. The ego wages war with itself. The society of positivity, which
+ thinks itself free of all foreign constraints, becomes entangled in destructive
+ self-constraints. Psychic maladies such as burnout and depression, the
+ exemplary maladies of the twenty-first century, all display auto-aggressive
+ traits. Exogenous violence is replaced by self-generated violence, which is
+ more fatal than its counterpart inasmuch as the victim of such violence
+ considers itself free.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The capitalist system is switching from allo-exploitation to auto-exploitation
+ in order to accelerate. On the basis of the paradoxical freedom it holds, the
+ achievement-subject is simultaneously perpetrator and victim, master and slave.
+ Freedom and violence now coincide.
+
+ [...]
+
+ The life of homo sacer in achievement society is holy and bare for another
+ reason entirely. It is bare because, stripped of all transcendent value, it has
+ been reduced to the immanency of vital functions and capacities, which are to
+ be maximized by any and all means. The inner logic of achievement society
+ dictates its evolution into a doping society. Life reduced to bare, vital
+ functioning is life to be kept healthy unconditionally. Health is the new
+ goddess.31 That is why bare life is holy.
+
+ The homines sacri of achievement society also differ from those of the society
+ of sovereignty on another score. They cannot be killed at all. Their life
+ equals that of the undead. They are too alive to die, and too dead to live.