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people living in post-Internet society may no longer have an unconscious

— Byung-Chul Han

ours is an era of decline that has turned from the outward to the inward obsession with identity and “authenticity,” both personal and tribal, fueled by digital connectivity. Paradoxically, social media in this sense is anti-social, leading to the disintegration of community through a kind of connected isolation.

Noema • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

Byung-Chul Han becoming famous is hilarious and tragic - the very things he decries in his books are eating him up and consuming his ideas and even if he has nothing to do with it, he can't stop it from happening

Likes, friends and followers do not provide us with resonance; they only strengthen the echoes of the self.

Byung-Chul Han • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present

To paraphrase Antoine Saint-Exupéry, we may say: rituals are in life what things are in space.

Byung-Chul Han • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present

Today’s terror of short-termism — which, with fatal consequences, we mistake for freedom — destroys the practices that require time.

Noema • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

Insights from Byung-Chul Han: The rise of narcissism, the emphasis on authenticity, and shallow technological experiences are eroding essential societal bonds We need daily and lifelong rituals to help bring narrative structure into our lives In the past, people had time to contemplate information, consider its place within a larger narrat... See more

The inwardly turned, narcissistic ego with purely subjective access to the world is not the cause of social disintegration but the result of a fateful process at the objective level. Everything that binds and connects is disappearing. There are hardly any shared values or symbols, no common narratives that unite people.

Byung-Chul Han • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

What eludes Arendt in the dialectic of being-active [Aktivsein] is that hyperactive intensification leads to an abrupt switch into hyperpassivity; now one obeys every impulse or stimulus without resistance. Instead of freedom, it produces new constraints. It is an illusion to believe that being more active means being freer.

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Noema • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

Byung-Chul Han • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present

Byung-Chul Han • The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present

Noema • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

Byung-Chul Han • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information

Byung-Chul Han • The Burnout Society