It’s strange to me that this guy keeps popping up when he’s had maybe one actually successful book (_The Burnout Society_) in twenty years. I’ve read _The Disappearance of Rituals_ and _Shanzai_ and found them both “shallow, smoothed and filtered.” There’s not a lot of secondary literature building on his work, just another book of his popped out every couple years.
> If I’ve learnt 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 and other.
This is a perplexing turn to me because _The Disappearance of Rituals_ is, in large part, about how authenticity is The Problem With Society and we’ve all lost our ability to submerge our individuality in ritual-bound communities, each one homogenous in some respect (the ritual itself, at least).
-__---____-ZXyw · 6h ago
I ordered The Burnout Society after seeing his name on here maybe a month or so ago and thinking it looked interesting.
It only arrived recently, and it's very interesting so far. Then when subsequently browsing a few essays about his work, I came across the one I posted, which I thought was quite accessible. Whether it's an accurate or fair overview, I don't know, as I'm only a few chapters in to The Burnout Society. So there you go, in terms of why this article got posted.
As to the mystery of why the HN people upvote it, we may have to live with the not knowing. Generally, I'm not sure if the market success of books is a totally reliable indicator of whether someone is producing good or useful work or not.
TimorousBestie · 5h ago
To clarify, my metric of success is other philosophers engaging with his work, not market profits (those numbers aren’t public anyways). I’ve searched around for professional articles written about Han’s work (beyond asides or mere mentions) but they’re comparatively few and far between.
-__---____-ZXyw · 4h ago
Ah ok, I had misunderstood then, excuse me. That is not unreasonable at all as a metric of success.
When you say professional, you mean philosophical journals, or what? My first thought would be the language - people aren't writing much response to him in English and German too? What is the situation like regarding interplay between the worlds of English language and German language philosophy?
I can see why his books might be popular with a lay audience, in that they're short, and quite manageable in terms of the images and sentences.
lo_zamoyski · 3h ago
> Marshall McLuhan, who warned us that ‘the medium is the message’. (Technology is not just a tool, embedded within it is a message.)
Unless this is an extraordinarily obtuse way of expressing it, that's not what McLuhan wrote. He meant that the medium itself shapes us.
For the “message” of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs. [...] it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action. [...] Indeed, it is only too typical that the “content” of any medium blinds us to the character of the medium. It is only today that industries have become aware of the various kinds of business in which they are engaged. [0]
Funny, I said something similar at that parenthetical remark. I thought to myself - oh, it was only a little remark, no-one will catch it! So I'm a bit thrilled, the careful readers are still out there.
Absolutely, to what you're saying, and I think it's another of those cases where often people know the "meme" (about the medium being the message), but then haven't the first idea what it means - unfortunately. For example, with smartphones, the message is humans as silent consuming spectators and fans - sitting silently, staring, swiping, scrolling, mildly stressed and agitated and worked up sometimes even but not wholly aware of it, maybe mumbling something to whoever is around every now and again.
kouru225 · 5h ago
Is it just me or does pessimist philosophy just immediately scream "I don't actually base my understanding in reality?"
Like I understand that the world is pretty depressing right now, but the underlying assumption here is that our actions/beliefs inherently have a particular (bad) output, and yet there doesn't seem to be much analysis of the mechanics of how our actions/beliefs actually manifest as this output, let alone a proof of how this output is the only possible output in all scenarios (or just the most likely one.) Criticism like this relies on the reader to already agree for the outset, which means it doesn't really have much value.
>Starting with love, Byung-Chul Han 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.
But like... what does any of this actually mean on a mechanical level? These are all buzzwords that don't have any practical meaning.
>Why do we today find what is smooth beautiful? Beyond its aesthetic effect, 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 it’s Against. Any form of negativity is removed.
What mechanism proves that the abstract concept of "positivity" is the problem here rather than, say, political propaganda from a dominant power structure that uses a ton of energy/effort reinforcing these particular beliefs?
I just don't find this stuff meaningful
dfadfdsmflkdsmf · 4h ago
> But like... what does any of this actually mean on a mechanical level? These are all buzzwords that don't have any practical meaning.
That's the problem with trying to address philosophy without doing the work to understand what the philosopher is responding to. This work will take years. These "buzzwords" have meaning to those who do.
kouru225 · 3h ago
I’m familiar enough with the history of philosophy to know that this article, at least, is gobbledygook marketing. Maybe the philosopher isn’t.
cess11 · 3h ago
These lectures, https://rickroderick.org/, are likely to help you better understand what this supposed philosopher builds on, though I suspect they, unlike Roderick, is a charlatan.
-__---____-ZXyw · 1h ago
Oh thank you, I'd never heard of Rick Roderick, he looks brilliant. Always thrilled to hear different accents in and around academia, too!
kouru225 · 3h ago
This site is great though. I’ll definitely watch through these. Thanks
Barrin92 · 3h ago
>Is it just me or does pessimist philosophy just immediately scream "I don't actually base my understanding in reality?"
It's just you, for two reasons. One is that Byung-Chul Han isn't, and as far as I know does not consider himself, a pessimist philosopher. He's a cultural critic, media theorist and mostly known for being a critic of neoliberalism.
As far as actual pessimist philosophers, like say Schopenhauer go, they generally did not base their outlook on "the world is pretty depressing right now" but usually on more fundamental metaphysical grounds
kouru225 · 3h ago
Well this is why I feel pretty confident in my analysis then because I’m much more knowledgeable about criticism than I am about philosophy and all my alarm bells are going off here. When I’m reading that blurb about how Koons art affects culture I’m sitting here shaking my head knowing that, while it’s entirely plausible that Koons affected the world that way, this statement is still only scratching the surface on Koons, the art world, and the history of his impact on the art world
StefanBatory · 6h ago
This might be a weird question, but OP, are you by any chance The Fire Rises player?
-__---____-ZXyw · 5h ago
No, I've no idea what that is. What's this now? Should I become The Fire Rises player?
StefanBatory · 4h ago
A mod set in modern times for wargame Hearts of Iron, just a bit more crazy. And he's a possible leader there for Germany.
I asked only because I was browsing their subreddit today and spotted something related to him, then I opened HN and saw your post. It was just a random coincidence, but curiosity got me to ask anyway.
-__---____-ZXyw · 1h ago
Hmm, but who is the "him" you're referring to? Still none the wiser as to what gave you the idea. I'm missing something here, perhaps some jargon eludes me...
> If I’ve learnt 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 and other.
This is a perplexing turn to me because _The Disappearance of Rituals_ is, in large part, about how authenticity is The Problem With Society and we’ve all lost our ability to submerge our individuality in ritual-bound communities, each one homogenous in some respect (the ritual itself, at least).
It only arrived recently, and it's very interesting so far. Then when subsequently browsing a few essays about his work, I came across the one I posted, which I thought was quite accessible. Whether it's an accurate or fair overview, I don't know, as I'm only a few chapters in to The Burnout Society. So there you go, in terms of why this article got posted.
As to the mystery of why the HN people upvote it, we may have to live with the not knowing. Generally, I'm not sure if the market success of books is a totally reliable indicator of whether someone is producing good or useful work or not.
When you say professional, you mean philosophical journals, or what? My first thought would be the language - people aren't writing much response to him in English and German too? What is the situation like regarding interplay between the worlds of English language and German language philosophy?
I can see why his books might be popular with a lay audience, in that they're short, and quite manageable in terms of the images and sentences.
Unless this is an extraordinarily obtuse way of expressing it, that's not what McLuhan wrote. He meant that the medium itself shapes us.
[0] https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/mcluhan.mediummessage.pdfAbsolutely, to what you're saying, and I think it's another of those cases where often people know the "meme" (about the medium being the message), but then haven't the first idea what it means - unfortunately. For example, with smartphones, the message is humans as silent consuming spectators and fans - sitting silently, staring, swiping, scrolling, mildly stressed and agitated and worked up sometimes even but not wholly aware of it, maybe mumbling something to whoever is around every now and again.
Like I understand that the world is pretty depressing right now, but the underlying assumption here is that our actions/beliefs inherently have a particular (bad) output, and yet there doesn't seem to be much analysis of the mechanics of how our actions/beliefs actually manifest as this output, let alone a proof of how this output is the only possible output in all scenarios (or just the most likely one.) Criticism like this relies on the reader to already agree for the outset, which means it doesn't really have much value.
>Starting with love, Byung-Chul Han 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.
But like... what does any of this actually mean on a mechanical level? These are all buzzwords that don't have any practical meaning.
>Why do we today find what is smooth beautiful? Beyond its aesthetic effect, 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 it’s Against. Any form of negativity is removed.
What mechanism proves that the abstract concept of "positivity" is the problem here rather than, say, political propaganda from a dominant power structure that uses a ton of energy/effort reinforcing these particular beliefs?
I just don't find this stuff meaningful
That's the problem with trying to address philosophy without doing the work to understand what the philosopher is responding to. This work will take years. These "buzzwords" have meaning to those who do.
It's just you, for two reasons. One is that Byung-Chul Han isn't, and as far as I know does not consider himself, a pessimist philosopher. He's a cultural critic, media theorist and mostly known for being a critic of neoliberalism.
As far as actual pessimist philosophers, like say Schopenhauer go, they generally did not base their outlook on "the world is pretty depressing right now" but usually on more fundamental metaphysical grounds
I asked only because I was browsing their subreddit today and spotted something related to him, then I opened HN and saw your post. It was just a random coincidence, but curiosity got me to ask anyway.