The Burnout Society

Product Information

Secular, 21st-century residents of wealthy countries don’t worry much about whether we’re God’s elect. But we’re still trapped in the Calvinist cage. We are anxious to demonstrate to potential employers, and to ourselves, that we are work saints. Like divine election, this type of status is an abstract condition that we cannot assign to ourselves, but one we hope others will recognize.

Answer. There is without a doubt a hyperinflation of objects, meaning they are everywhere. However, these are disposable objects that we cannot really bond with. Today we are obsessed not with things, but with information and data, that is to say, non-things. Today we are all infomaniacs. We even have the concept of datasexuals [people who obsessively collect and share information about their personal lives]. Juan David Almeyda Sarmiento: Hacia una ética del jardín. Estudios filosóficos sobre el pensamiento de Byung-Chul Han. Editorial Universidad Industrial de Santander. 2023. ISBN 978-958-5188-64-8This race to excel leads to a new kind of depression. While Herman Melville’s Bartleby – an employee of a Wall Street law firm and protagonist of Bartleby the Scrivener (1856) – was depressed because he was too isolated, controlled and passive, modern Bartelby – any actor of the Performance Society – is instead depressed because he is too connected, free and active. Q. Why, despite growing precarity and inequality, does the everyday world in Western countries seem so beautiful, hyper-designed and optimistic? Why doesn’t it seem like a dystopian or cyberpunk movie?

Portuguese edition: A Sociedade da Transparência, Relógio D'Água Editores, 2014, ISBN 9789896414634.In the present context, it is not surprising that we are witnessing another curious phenomenon: the emergence of what can be called self-referential optimism. This is a widespread, almost religious belief that you have to be optimistic all the time. This optimistic attitude isn’t grounded into something real or actual, but only in itself. You should be optimistic not because you actually have something concrete to look forward to but just for the sake of it. 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.