The days of the Other are over in this age of global over-communication, over-information and over-consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our society's narcissistic desire to assimilate everything and everyone until there are no boundaries left. The result of this is a feeling of disorientation and senselessness that needs to be compensated for, be it by self-harm or, in the extreme, by harming others through acts of terrorism. In his new work, the renowned cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han builds on his previous critique of neoliberalism, arguing that in this absence of the Other, our times are not characterised by external repression but by depression through the self. In his characteristically concise style, he traces this violence of the identical through phenomena like fear, globalization and terrorism. He also argues that by returning to a society of listeners, by acknowledging the Other, we can seek to overcome the isolation and suffering caused by this crushing process of total assimilation.
Author
Byung-Chul Han, also spelled Pyŏng-ch'ŏl Han (born 1959 in Seoul), is a German author, cultural theorist, and Professor at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK) in Berlin, Germany. Byung-Chul Han studied metallurgy in Korea before he moved to Germany in the 1980s to study Philosophy, German Literature and Catholic theology in Freiburg im Breisgau and Munich. He received his doctoral degree at Freiburg with a dissertation on Martin Heidegger in 1994. In 2000, he joined the Department of Philosophy at the University of Basel, where he completed his Habilitation. In 2010 he became a faculty member at the HfG Karlsruhe, where his areas of interest were philosophy of the 18th, 19th and 20th century, ethics, social philosophy, phenomenology, cultural theory, aesthetics, religion, media theory, and intercultural philosophy. Since 2012 he teaches philosophy and cultural studies at the Universität der Künste Berlin (UdK), where he directs the newly established Studium Generale general-studies program. 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. Han's current work focuses on transparency as a cultural norm created by neoliberal market forces, which he understands as the insatiable drive toward voluntary disclosure bordering on the pornographic. According to Han, the dictates of transparency enforce a totalitarian system of openness at the expense of other social values such as shame, secrecy, and trust. Until recently, he refused to give radio and television interviews and rarely divulges any biographical or personal details, including his date of birth, in public. Han has written on topics such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline, burnout, depression, exhaustion, internet, love, pop culture, power, rationality, religion, social media, subjectivity, tiredness, transparency and violence.
