Untrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in an atomised society, where the loss of the symbolic structures inherent in ritual behaviour has led to overdependence on the contingent to steer identity.
Avoiding saccharine nostalgia for the rituals of the past, Han provides a genealogy of their disappearance as a means of diagnosing the pathologies of the present. He juxtaposes a community without communication – where the intensity of togetherness in silent recognition provides structure and meaning – to today’s communication without community, which does away with collective feelings and leaves individuals exposed to exploitation and manipulation by neoliberal psycho-politics. The community that is invoked everywhere today is an atrophied and commoditized community that lacks the symbolic power to bind people together. For Han, it is only the mutual praxis of recognition borne by the ritualistic sharing of the symbolic between members of a community which creates the footholds of objectivity allowing us to make sense of time.
This new book by one of the most creative cultural theorists writing today will be of interest to a wide readership.
About Author:
Byung-Chul Han can be regarded as one of the strongest candidates for the philosopher of our time. Although it has been twenty years since the publication of his first book—a readable monograph on the concept of Stimmung, or mood, in Heidegger’s works—his writings have only been translated into other languages since 2009. The introspective tone of that first book has persisted throughout his later works, but a clear turn toward the political—and in particular toward historical models of coercion—became evident only with the publication of What is Power? in 2005. In 2010, Han released his groundbreaking book, translated into English as The Burnout Society, which gradually drew attention outside Germany, where he resides. Since then, his works have been translated into more than twenty languages, and in the past two years, the United States and the United Kingdom have joined this trend: Stanford and MIT have each published two of his books, with three more set to appear in the coming months.
Added Date: 3/10/2025 6:46:27 PM
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بیونگ چول هان را میتوان یکی از بهترین نامزدها برای فیلسوفِ دورانِ کنونی در نظر گرفت. اگرچه ۲۰ سال از زمان انتشار نخستین کتابش میگذرد -اولین کتاب او یک تکنگاریِ خواندنی دربارۀ مفهوم اشتیمونگ۱، یا ملال، در آثار هایدگر بود- آثار او فقط از سال ۲۰۰۹ به این سو به دیگر زبانها بازگردانده شده است. حالت دروننگرانۀ کتابِ نخستش بر کتابهای بعدی او نیز حاکم بوده است، و چرخشی مشخص بهسوی امر سیاسی، و بهویژه بهسوی مدلهای تاریخی اجبار، تنها با انتشار کتاب قدرت چیست؟۲ در سال ۲۰۰۵ نمایان شد. در سال ۲۰۱۰، هان کتاب ساختارشکن خود را منتشر کرد، که با نام جامعۀ فرسوده۳ به انگلیسی ترجمه شده است، و کمکم در خارج از آلمان، کشور محل اقامتش، مورد توجه قرار گرفت. از آن پس، آثار او به بیش از دهبیست زبان بازگردانده شده و، طی دو سال گذشته، آمریکا و انگلیس هم به این جریان پیوستهاند: اکنون استنفورد و اِم.آی.تی هر کدام دو کتاب منتشر کردهاند، و سه کتاب دیگر هم در ماههای آتی منتشر خواهد شد.