We Have Become Exhausted Slaves in a Culture of Positivity

— Comment on Byung-chul Han's 2010 essay "The Burnout Society"

Source: thenextregeneration.wordpress.com/2016/01/04/we-have-become-exhausted-slaves-in-a-culture-of-positivity/

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Who /satorigeneration/ here?

Thanks for the daily reminder of how much I hate the modern positivist culture.

kek

Just goes to show how fucking retarded Buddhism is.
No wonder the Maurya Emperor loved this shit so much.

Sorry taking adderall and reading bordiga for 10 hours isnt as socially acceptable as doing something with your life guys

I see the Americans have awoken

imagine my shock

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Thing about ancoms is, they see porky for the leech that he is, but then they think to themselves, "If he can do that, why can't I? I only want to leech a little bit of others' production"

Look at the mind bending gnarly knots of logical justification they go through for this.

how the fuck do you know my daily schedule?

You literally have no idea what you are talking about, do you. Most people using think before they write stuff, tho I can see your more in favor of just vomiting into your keyboard and rolling with whatever happens. Nice work

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The Satori factor keeps me surprised that people say the culture is achievement focused. Not exactly… There's not much sense that the economy is comprehensibly engageable. "Yes we can!" was a fundamentally defiant slogan, a rebuttal to a world that says, "We can't do nothing."

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Wouldn't be surprised if in the bigger picture we're forced to work or study longer so as to keep us docile with that exhaustion indeed.

I'm sure the ruling class is well aware of the disciplinary nature of alienated labor. That would explain why so many counter-productive jobs are being pushed. "It’s as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working." See: libcom.org/library/phenomenon-bullshit-jobs-david-graeber

Also, it's worth remembering that "the workweek" didn't become a norm as soon as the Industrial Revolution kicked in. Laborers tended to work for a few days and then quit when they decided they had enough money to go by for a while. The bourgeoisie was mad at fuck because of this, and they started a campaign centered around the promotion of Puritan values which implied workers that weren't busy toiling away fell into sin such as being idle or going to the pub.

What is positivism? Do they embrace sex orgies and other kin?

Growth for the sake of growth is the mentality of a cancer cell.

Growth for the sake of growth is the principle that all life operates on.

That doesn't make it a good thing, nor does it make it any less cancerous.

not true in the slightest. Survival is the principle all life operates on, not growth.

Pure Liberalism

Growth for the sake of growth bears a name user.
Cancer. It is a threat to life.

And growth benefits survival, as long as its sustainable.


Cancer basically is life. Cancer is the flipside of healing.

Taking your point to its logical conclusion says we should all just die because we're burdensome, because if growth is bad then reduction is good. This whole thread is preposterous on the face of it, arguing against positivity, and for negativity.

Can you stop with the idiocy? This is not a discussion worth having so start making sense or go back to wherever you came.

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Nice false equivalency.
Life's goal, if you attribute it such intent, is to keep going. Growth is a mean to it. Beside viruses, basically all life forms are in a subtle equilibrium between growth and senescence and even apoptosis.
It is a fundamental mistake to consider growth as an end in itself.

Jesus christ, and he thinks he's being "rational".

I'm not saying you were not using logic I was saying you are not making an interesting point. Discussing the purpose of life is meaningless, discussing how life manages itself has instead meaning. So please have an actual point to bring to the table and leave semantics out of the board.

There is no automatic logical correlation at any stratum between negativity and death, not that this is even the point being discussed.
Within philosophical bounds, the correlation is positivity as Eros and Thanatos (cognitive blocks that denote unifying and mortifying influences affected upon a subject), and negativity as, in this case, entropy or that which subverts through existence an established order. The opposition of negativity to positive essentialism, like, "We know for certain that this is the most natural possible order for people, so we can't change it!", is not asserting that life then should not be defended, but rather that the basis for the organization of life (and death) should not be done in such a way that we are left burdened with this immense surplus of "natural" anxieties.

Decrying growth is the fool's fig leaf.


Growth is how life manages itself.


Death is an important part of growth, that's obvious to anyone with half a brain. And you mistake positivity for certainty.

Philosophical discussion about the essence, the first principle of life

muh dick

This was your reading of the "logical conclusion" of your detractor, whose base point is that of a critique. The point of this critique, as I said before is not asserting dichotomy between life and death, it's about saying the teleological basis for your argument - that life and death function as part of growth necessarily - is tautological, it only functions consistently if one assumes that it MUST pre-cognitively (naturally/"certainty") function. We don't have that mutual assumption, so your position is, in fact, that of certainty. This idea that life and death flow naturally, in all their possible particularities, independent of mediatory symbolisms like ideology or material conditions is literally just conatus, which is essentialism, just like your argument is.
Otherwise, tell me about the important growth of someone who drank themselves into a coma, and then died. I'd love to hear your prescription on the personal growth achieved here


This. What you're asserting isn't natural or scientific, it's just bad philosophy

I can tell by the way you type you're the "fool's fig leaf" type of guy.

You could not be more wrong. I suspect ideology has blinded you. Getting things done, growth, life, all of that is pointless if you don't first investigate and answer the question of "unto what"? The thing you are doing might be wrong - in a culture like ours, even on the surface benign self improvement is laced with ideology, and might well be destructive at some level. It is not wrong to be suspicious - and any good Marxist is always suspicious.
Advance humanity? Humanity is advancing to be sure, and nowhere good. We should try to change things, but until that time checking out is certainly preferable to out and out then collaboration.

Byung-Chul Han is pretty good, friend of mine lent me "In the Swarm" and it was one of best reads of this year.
A particularly good passage was when he stated that those who control the shitstrom control the discourse and narrative, it does not matter who discusses and for what, just what is being discussed. Also the section on the end of theory was top notch.
Same friend aso shilled the burn out society pretty heavily, I think I'm getting it as a Christmas present for myself.

It's a philosophical argument you're making, expect philosophical return. Not to mention any time I used any term of consequence, I follow that up by saying exactly what I mean by it. So, we're back to the point of you claiming that you're representing reality as it is, though you're not, and everyone else disagreeing, but that's okay because thats all just "theoretical posturing". Also, get a new phrase - "fool's fig leaf" twice over two posts.

Appeals to basic nature are a fool's fig leaf

tell that to animal populations that won't breed unless conditions amenable to survival are met

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Let me guess, you took two years of philosophy and thought you were ready to debate people online? you are wrong

retard

oh wow

/anzugeneration/

Same, I really just want to have a decent-paying job where I can just work and tune out for eight hours. Instead my entire extended family (my parents are mostly cool with my plans) assumes that I'm suited for nothing less than some stress-filled 60-hour desk job where I'm vice-director of sucking off donor cock for a non-profit

If you ever work in anything to do with advertising, this is drilled into you (although they have more formal terms for it)
The whole point of carpet bombing people with ads isn't to brainwash people it's just to get your thing discussed in the first place

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Sorry about the wait: This basically. It's not even a debate.

claims like survival/growth is the first principle of life aren't bad claims if you back it up, generally discussing "first principles" is good as that kind of stuff gets to the essence of difference of opinion instead of just shoddily arguing around the corners

Couldn't you consider this "Satori factor" more a reaction to the stressful, rigid, opressive work ethic and structure that east asian countries have? I don't see them having that "yes you can do it if you work hard anything is possible" self-help bullshit ingrained in their culture as much. They're much happier (not only Porky, but everyone else) if you just accept that you're just another cog in the machine.
Also this "sense" that the economy is engageable is not truly necessary for a culture of achievements, you don't truly need people to comprehend the economy for them to buy into self-help ideology and try to continously advance in their company's ranks and earn more and more money by their own efforts. In fact it's actively harmful to it, if the general populace understood how the economy and market forces worked they would stop seeing everything as their fault and quit pretending we all have an equal chance at the game of capitalism. What i believe is Han's point is not that people truly and honestly believe anyone can do anything, but that self-help ideology, in it's vapid hopefulness, leads us to believe that our (and other people's) failures and shortcomings are the result of our will being too weak to succeed, so therefore we must exert ourselves as hard as we can, strive for more and more "success" in the capitalist way, remain focused in our task and future at all times, give the best of us every day, and that of course when you couple this with reality or anything from the material realm the individual succumbs into "neuronal" (depression, ADHD, burnout syndrome, social anxiety) conditions. What is truly horrifying about it though is not it's ability to affect individuals but groups as a whole. It's harder to say no to "just work hard and life will be great ;)" than to "fuck you, do what we say or we kill you", no? And the former is more easily spread through groups and therefore harder to contest by nature.

Most of the Idolm@ster franchise is hot niwaka garbage but I thought it was a nice touch in the Cinderella Girls anime when Anzu turns out to be a math whiz and everyone is blown away by this useless NEET being smart

You're one hundred percent right, but this functions primarily if both sides are willing to acquaint themselves with both the empirical conditions (that of striving for growth and survival) and the philosophical (the correlative relations to how we should embody our relation to empiricisms within daily life, society, culture, etc.). In this case, the other user stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the philosophical dimensions, so he must lay claim to an unwavering natural empiricism that forecloses all meaningful discussion - leaving us merely probing the corners, as you said.

Excellent concept, weird I haven't heard about it. It sounds extremely relatable and like a good way to analyze the experience of living in contemporary western society.

Has anyone actually read the book? I'm a little interested in giving it a read myself? Is this German Korean guy any good in general?


huh yeah, pretty good of the summation

Life is about self-reproduction, not growth. You could make the argument that growth enables more self-reproduction, but it comes with loads of caveats. Limitless growth isn't something you find often in nature because it's a poor reproductive strategy.

Read two of his books(in the swarm and the agony of eros), while he tends to repeat some arguments, he is pretty good and easy to understand. Simple sentences, very condensed prose and explains any term or new concept he is introducing. A fair warning: he uses french post modernism a lot, particularly Baudrillard where he got his style. He won't give any praxis or action recommendations but will give you a great analysis.
Friend of mine read Burnout Society and got hooked pretty hard on him, shilled so hard the guy that I ended up reading and getting hooked as well.

And is burnout society worth the read?

This place sometimes.

According to my friend, yes. It's short and a great read.

thanks will read him

It's just so depressing and it makes everyone's lives hell of everyone involved, Im juet glad I had my grabdma otherwise there wouldn't have been any alternative voice.

Who /wagelaborphobic/ here?

#WeGotThis

I uploaded "The Burnout Society" to libgen

gen.lib.rus.ec/search.php?req=Byung-Chul Han&column=author

I wish I could say I was. Work makes me want to kill myself most days.


Thank you, kindly!

FYI user 'positivism' is already a jargon word, and doesn't mean 'positive thinkers' (in the same way that 'reactionary' means more than 'person who reacts to events'). I don't mean to scold you, just want to make sure you know so you don't say it one day and get weird looks and wonder why.

That said, go and look up the (philosophical) positivists, you'll find reasons to hate them too.

Oh I know that positivism is a philosophical current. I did use the term improperly, but to be honest I think it reflects well the modern approach many take with the current socio-economical situation.

I am, it's been a year I quit college (I failed the second year of my master degree) but I also did not start to work because I'm afraid of it, so I'm just a broke ass NEET until I will completely ran out money and force myself to get a job.

I went through and got my master's and I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. If I had my time back I'd just go get a job painting houses or whatever.

Nice job, she knows how to do arithmetic.
*applause*

taking adderall and other performance drugs is precisely part of the culture you love so much

Just thinking about work makes me suicidal. How can people endure it?

In the episode she does that in about three seconds (and a conversion to km/h in one)
NEET strong

the media IS the deep state

I've just finished his book, what a waste of time! At least it was short, but it was still long enough to burn me out. All this empty talk about philosophers and their arcane concepts, criticising them for not observing "capitalist relations" and systemic violence while he also barely talks about them! Never touching the how or the why it is just some dick-waving contest between philosophers. Completely useless if you want to interpret your own life and the society you live in, or if, God forbid, you actually want to act on it.

That's probably because that wasn't the point of the piece. If one continually confronts the same anxieties and effects time and time again under the assumption that, because the system functions that way, they can either never escape or might have a different experience - we will surely never escape the phenomenon precisely because we mistake it for the natural course of things, and that is what the book is for: Dissecting the illusory assertions of modern capital and how we relate to it through work. It's an incredibly unsatisfying process to enter expecting edification and clarity, when proper philosophy is always the question of, "Why must it be the way I'm told?", and at least you've the impetus to search. Just remember that any proper answer to this question falls into the realm of philosophy, so you're never going to be able to skirt it - as even the 'non-philosophe' answers are all actually based in philosophy.

As I said, I understand it was supposed to be a dick-waving contest between professional philosophers™, what I don't get is why would anyone on Holla Forums recommend it. It does not dissect anything, it just regurgitates some thinkers' concepts and blames others for not realizing what he is saying. It does not analyse anything, it doesn't try to explain, it just proclaims some vague sentiments and then blames others for not doing the same. It suggests that the change happened at the end of the cold war but ignores the question of how it happened, what changed, and how it actually works now. It's like he expects us to already agree with something that he failed to tell us and is now just presenting the consequences of that. If it was some blog post or university assignment I could understand it and would say there's potential in it, but I can't understand how could anyone publish this half-assed garbage and what's worse, people actually think it's a good book!

yeah, I know what you mean. Just kind of cursory passes at what is happening, the majority of the argument is predicated by you already agreeing with him, nominally.

Same the though of me using my electrical engineering degree to work at fast food restaurant makes my stomach scream in pain.

Where do you live that there is no job for an electrical engineer?

Or were you subjected to the drudge of getting a degree without being taught actually marketable skills?

Or do employers reject your resumes on a regular basis?

who is she?

Thought of sorts although it's going to validate a movement I loathe:
The problem with a promissory society is that rebellion ceases to be possible, in the form of minor forms of rebellion. Nobody is particularly shocked anymore by outlandish fashion styles, sweary music, or iconoclasm.
The reason, of sorts, that it is enjoyable to post Nazi things to normal social forums - for Holla Forums - is that this is one of the few avenues of such rebellion left, because it's not yet something that has been overcome. While all sorts of other desires can be incorporated into society, the Nazi desire for genocide cannot, without immediately destroying the power-fantasies of others in an overt (rather than covert) way. (i.e. "if i take charge, you are going to be gassed to death" vs "if i take charge, you can continue to try to replace me but it's completely legitimate for me to pull the ladder up.")
The case of communists is a more interesting one. On the one hand there is the lingering revulsion that prevents full, overall, social acceptance. On the other, because the ultimate goals of communism are laudable it becomes possible to render if a movement of immaturity instead of transgression. As to whether this has any real implications for revolution (since it is a particularly surface level gloss on things) I have no idea lol.

On the other hand to a large degree I have to wonder of the lodestone might shift. If the process of ironically identifying with one's hopelessness and desperation can create a new situation where people suddenly snap out of "haha i'm depressed" into anger mixed with hopelessness. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your lives and you were going to take that anyway…

Tbh i value free time more than money, and part time jobs at engineering is rare thing and jobs are dry due to the economic crisis, so i am fucked anyway and angry about it.
+full time jobs with my degree are better at salary by a slim different than their MacDonald tier jobs so i better stay a farmer than do any of this bullshit.