Between exhaustion and creativity: The Burnout Society of Byung-

Chul Han1
SOUSA SANTOS, Rafael
Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto, Portugal
rfl.ss.santos@gmail.com

According to Byung-Chul Han, there seems to be a tendency for contemporary society to evolve into a
state of general exhaustion - a society of tiredness. However, although this path towards tiredness
presents itself as an inevitability, it is the way that tiredness is understood and lived that will determine the
character of the future society.
With this paper it is intended to develop a critical reading of Byung-Chul Han’s book The Burnout Society,
seeking to achieve three objectives: 1. to recognize his fundamental ideas – which will constitute the
formulated thesis; 2. to identify his motivations and the followed argumentative structure; and finally, 3.
to highlight his contributions to the understanding of man (both individual and social) in contemporaneity.

Keywords: contemporary society, achievement society, society of tiredness

Cover image - Alberto Giacometti “Têtes” 1950

1 Sousa Santos R. 2019, Between exhaustion and creativity: The Burnout Society of Byung-Chul Han, U3 –
UrbanisticaTre, Università degli Studi Roma Tre.
Link: http://www.urbanisticatre.uniroma3.it/dipsu/?portfolio=between-exhaustion-and-creativity

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According to the South Korean philosopher
Byung-Chul Han (1959-) in Burnout Society
(2015a), there seems to be a tendency for
contemporary society - which he calls the
achievement society - to evolve into a state of
general exhaustion - a society of tiredness.
However, for the author, although this path
towards tiredness presents itself as an
inevitability, it is the way that tiredness is
understood and lived that will determine the
character of the future society.
Han distinguishes two forms of tiredness: one
that he calls "solitary tiredness" or "divisive
tiredness", where "the isolated I [das Ich] fills
the field of vision entirely" (2015a, p. 31), giving
no possibility to see what is outside the subject;
and another that he calls "fundamental
tiredness", as a form of "eloquent, seeing,
reconciliatory tiredness" (2015a, p. 31) with the
possibility to see outside the subject - "the I
grows smaller, the gravity of being shifts from
the ego to the world" (2015a, p. 31). Han uses
the “image of the hands” to explain this double
conception of tiredness: there is a form of
tiredness that immobilizes the hands after work,
but there is also a form of tiredness that makes
the hands stop working and start playing2.
The motivation of the author to support these
ideas – which can be understood as his thesis -
seems to be precisely the possibility of
recognizing in the apparent inevitability of a
future path a favorable alternative to the
development of man (as subject and as
collectivity).
This search for Han by the aggrandizement of
man - which, according to some, would be able
to surpass his nature; or according to others,
would be reconciled with his true nature - has
echoes from a set of German thinkers, present
in Han's formation and widely quoted in this
book (and in his work): Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900), Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) and
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975).
*
It is possible to consider - in a simplified way -
the organization of the book in three main
moments.
In the first moment, Han distinguishes between
the modern society - which he calls, by
reference to Michel Foucault (1926-1984), the
disciplinary society - and the contemporary
society – as already referred, the achievement
society. This paradigm shift is explained by Han
through the immune issue3. While in the past,
society was governed by an immune discipline –
a discipline that understood the difference or
the external as a pathogenetic aggression - the
achievement society has in itself - in the subject
himself – its greatest enemy. This explains why
the paradigmatic disease of the 21st century is
no longer the infection caused by bacteria or
viruses, but the neurological illnesses – as
“depression, attention deficit hyperactivity
disorder (ADHD), borderline personality
disorder (BPD), and burnout syndrome (BS)"
(2015a, p. 1) -, referred by Han as "terror of
immanence" (2015a, p. 6).
From the pathological point of view, it is not
negativity the source of the problem, but rather
the excess of positivity - and for positivity, there
is no possible immune response, because the
problem is immanent to the subject itself4 - "the

2 “After He created it, God declared the Seventh Day holy. That is, the day of in-order-to is not sacred, but rather the
day of not-do, a day on which the use of the useless proves possible. It is a day of tiredness. The interval is a time
without work, a time of, and for, play” (2015a, p.34).
3 The concept is developed by the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito (1950-) in "Immunitas: The protection and the

negation of life" and refers to the elimination of what is strange or simply different.
4 “Burnout syndrome occurs when the ego overheats, which follows from too much of the Same. The hyper in

hyperactivity is not an immunological category. It represents the massification of the positive” (2015a, p. 7).

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Fig. 1 - Alberto Giacometti “Têtes” 1947
Same does not lead to the formation of
antibodies" (2015a, p. 4). The impossibility of
giving continuity to the immunological paradigm
is, according to the author, related to the
process of globalization, because the
"Otherness provoking an immune reaction
would work against the dissolution of
boundaries" (2015a, p. 3).
In the second moment - the most extensive -
the author seeks to characterize the present
circumstance of society. One of the
characteristics of (achievement) contemporary
society is that man no longer needs to be
disciplined - after all, he has undergone a period
of discipline - and therefore, "the achievement-
subject stands free from any external instance
of domination forcing it to work, much less
exploiting it" (2015a, p. 11). However, "the
achievement-subject gives itself over to
compulsive freedom” that is, “to the free
constraint of maximizing achievement”, leading
to a process of “self-exploitation" (2015a, p. 11).
According to Han, the psychic illnesses of
contemporary society are only manifestations
of this "paradoxical freedom" (2015a, p. 11) - of
(depressed) man's inability to be left to himself.
In a society where “achievement” is the
watchword, acceptance of boredom is
progressively smaller - with acceleration there is
no time to "lose" and non-doing is immorality.
This inability to tolerate boredom - "the
profound idleness that benefits the creative
process" (2015a, p. 13) – could become highly
problematical, since "the cultural achievements
of humanity, which include philosophy" requires
a "deep, contemplative attention " (2015a, p.
13).
Vita activa (or active life), as Han points out,
completely smashes the complementarity
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possibility with vita comtemplativa5 (or
contemplative life) - by "the absolutization of
vita activa" (2015a, p. 20). However, and
paradoxically, the absolutization of activity leads
man to passivity - because he simply does, he
stops thinking about doing, becoming animal
laborans. Quoting Arendt (1998), Han refers
that "all human activities, if viewed from a
sufficiently remote point in the universe, would
no longer appear deeds but biological
processes" (2015a, p. 17).
For the author, it is the capacity to interrupt, to
falter or to slow down - hence, to counter
absolute positivity by negativity - one of the
great faculties of man - a faculty to which the
machine, for example, is interdicted. It is in the
moment that man stops that the possibility of
contemplating arises - to theorize - and to
reflect: to be what he really is. As in Hegel
(through Han) "negativity is precisely what
keeps existence [Dasein] alive" (2015a, p. 24).
And in the third moment, the author foresees
what society will be in the future, from the signs
he finds in the present time: the transition from
achievement society to doping society. It is in
this context that Han proposes his particular
understanding of tiredness - of reflexive and
potentially creative tiredness - as a counterpoint
(and salvation) of the sterile and exhausting
tiredness of production and doping.
*
It seems relevant to highlight three issues
addressed by Han:
The first, the moral issue or the moral
construction of societies. When Han refers to
achievement society and then to doping society,
the principles that support these paradigms are
precisely moral principles - of a morality built by
a particular society in a given circumstance. In
5 Concerning vita contemplativa, Han quotes Gregory the Great: “Be aware: while a good plan for life requires that
one moves from the active to the contemplative life, it is often useful if the soul returns from the contemplative to
the active life, in such a way that the flame of contemplation which has been lit in the heart passes on all its
perfection to activity. Thus, active life must lead us to contemplation, but contemplation must set out from what we
inwardly considered and call us back to activity” (2015a, p. 36).
achievement society the moral imperative is the
(absolute) optimization of production - the non-
producer or the mediocre producer acts
contrary to the determined "good”. In the same
way, in doping society, the consumption of this
type of substances becomes a moral imperative
- the one that does not use doping is not giving
the maximum of itself and it is not trying to
reach the maximum of its productivity.
Like Nietzsche, Han - at least considering a
practical ethics - underlines the lack of
metaphysical foundation of morality, which is
beyond (or short) of good and evil. Morality -
which Nietzsche refers as the "Circe of the
philosophers" (1969a) – seems to be then
understood by Han as a creation of (social) man
for the control and regulation of himself - to
lead man to do not what he wants, but what
"should" be done.
The second, the annulment of the fundamental
(metaphysical) doubt. For Han, the metaphysics
absence of contemporary man is due, to a
certain extent, to the positivist absolutization,
that is, to the interrogation and awe
substitution by the Cartesian doubt - that only
accepts answers from the scientific method. As
Han refers, "the modern loss of faith does not
concern just God or the hereafter […] it involves
reality itself and makes human life radically
fleeting […] life has never been as fleeting as it is
today" (2015a, p. 18).
The third, in relation to the previous theme,
the question concerning contemporary art.
The absolute protagonism of the Apollonian
dimension of man in contemporary society
in relation to the Dionysian dimension -
dichotomy formulated by Nietzsche
(1969b) -, represents a problem in the very
conception of art, as one of the most
important aspects of human life, according
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to Han. On this subject, Han formulates the
parallel between walking and dancing:
dance, as opposed to walking, cannot be
explained in its utilitarian sense - dancing is
a totally useless action, a (negative)
reaction to the positivity of walking. And as
Han argues, it is dance, like art, one of the
exclusively human activities - "only human
beings can dance" (2015a, p. 14).

References

Arendt, H. 1998. The human condition.

University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Han, B. 2015a, The Burnout Society, Stanford
University Press, Stanford.
Han, B. 2015b, The Transparency Society.
Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Nietzsche, F. 1969a, Ecce homo, Vintage
Books, New York.
Nietzsche, F. 1969b, On the genealogy of
morals, Vintage Books, New York.

Images

Cover image – Alberto Giacometti “Têtes” 1950

– Source:https://www.lemonde.fr/
culture/portfolio/2019/02/01/exposition-a-
paris-alberto-giacometti-sous-le-regard-de-
peter lindbergh_5417532_3246.html
Fig. 1 – Alberto Giacometti “Têtes” 1947 –
Source:https://www.smithsonianmag.c
om/smart-news/two-lost-alberto-
giacometti-drawings-found-antique-
dealers-collection-180964472/