Die Untätigkeit, so Byung-Chul Han, macht das Humanum aus. Sie ist das Ferment der Kultur. Wo allein das Schema von Reiz und Reaktion, von Bedürfnis und Befriedigung, von Problem und Lösung, von Ziel und Handlung herrscht, verkümmert...
We no longer inhabit earth and dwell under the sky: these are being replaced by Google Earth and the Cloud. The terrestrial order is giving way to a digital order, the world of things is being replaced by a world of non-things - a constantly expanding...
What we call growth today is in fact a tumorous growth, a cancerous proliferation which is disrupting the social organism. These tumours endlessly metastasize and grow with an inexplicable, deadly vitality. At a certain point this growth is no longer prod...
«La idea de original está estrechamente entrelazada con la de verdad, y la verdad es una técnica cultural que atenta contra el cambio por medio de la exclusión y la trascendencia . Los chinos aplica...
MINIMA MORALIA DER INFORMATIONSGESELLSCHAFT 'Informationen allein erhellen die Welt nicht. Sie können sie sogar verdunkeln. Ab einem bestimmten Punkt sind Informationen nicht informativ, sondern deformativ. Dieser kritische Punkt ist längst...
Our societies today are characterized by a universal algophobia: a generalized fear of pain. We strive to avoid all painful conditions - even the pain of love is treated as suspect. This algophobia extends into society: less and less space is given to...
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...
A philosopher considers entertainment, in all its totalizing varietyâinfotainment, edutainment, servotainmentâand traces the notion through Kant, Zen Buddhism, Heidegger, Kafka, and Rauschenberg.
The days of the Other are over in this age of excessive communication, information and consumption. What used to be the Other, be it as friend, as Eros or as hell, is now indistinguishable from the self in our narcissistic desire to assimilate everything...
Beauty today is a paradox. The cult of beauty is ubiquitous but it has lost its transcendence and become little more than an aspect of consumerism, the aesthetic dimension of capitalism. The sublime and unsettling aspects of beauty have given way to corpo...
In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an imperati...
Byung-Chul Han is one of the most widely read philosophers in Europe today, a member of the new generation of German thinkers that includes Markus Gabriel and Armen Avanessian. In The Agony of Eros, a bestseller in Germany, Han considers the threat to...
A prominent German thinker argues thatâcontrary to âTwitter Revolutionâ cheerleadingâdigital communication is destroying political discourse and political action.
Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone...
Our competitive, service-oriented societies are taking a toll on the late-modern individual. Rather than improving life, multitasking, "user-friendly" technology, and the culture of convenience are producing disorders that range from depression...