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Narratives produce the ties that bind us. They create community, eliminate contingency and anchor us in being. And yet in our contemporary information society, where everything has become arbitrary and random, storytelling shouts out loudly but narratives no longer have their binding force. Whereas narratives create community, storytelling brings forth only a fleeting community - the community of consumers. No amount of storytelling could recr...

Narratives produce the ties that bind us. They create community, eliminate contingency and anchor us in being. And yet in our contemporary information society, where everything has become arbitrary and random, storytelling shouts out loudly but narratives no longer have their binding force. Whereas narratives create community, storytelling brings forth only a fleeting community - the community of consumers. No amount of storytelling could recr...

In our busy and hurried lives, we are losing the ability to be inactive. Human existence becomes fully absorbed by activity - even leisure, treated as a respite from work, becomes part of the same logic. Intense life today means first of all more performance or more consumption. We have forgotten that it is precisely inactivity, which does not produce anything, that represents an intense and radiant form of life. For Byung-Chul Han, inactivity...

In our busy and hurried lives, we are losing the ability to be inactive. Human existence becomes fully absorbed by activity - even leisure, treated as a respite from work, becomes part of the same logic. Intense life today means first of all more performance or more consumption. We have forgotten that it is precisely inactivity, which does not produce anything, that represents an intense and radiant form of life. For Byung-Chul Han, inactivity...

Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but 'the way' (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwellin...

Western thinking has long been dominated by essence, by a preoccupation with that which dwells in itself and delimits itself from the other. By contrast, Far Eastern thought is centred not on essence but on absence. The fundamental topos of Far Eastern thinking is not being but 'the way' (dao), which lacks the solidity and fixedness of essence. The difference between essence and absence is the difference between being and path, between dwellin...

Zen Buddhism is a form of Mah y na Buddhism that originated in China and is strongly focused on meditation. It is characteristically sceptical towards language and distrustful of conceptual thought, which explains why Zen Buddhist sayings are so enigmatic and succinct. But despite Zen Buddhism's hostility towards theory and discourse, it is possible to reflect philosophically on Zen Buddhism and bring out its philosophical insights. In this s...

Zen Buddhism is a form of Mah y na Buddhism that originated in China and is strongly focused on meditation. It is characteristically sceptical towards language and distrustful of conceptual thought, which explains why Zen Buddhist sayings are so enigmatic and succinct. But despite Zen Buddhism's hostility towards theory and discourse, it is possible to reflect philosophically on Zen Buddhism and bring out its philosophical insights. In this s...

The tsunami of information unleashed by digitization is threatening to overwhelm us, drowning us in a sea of frenzied communication and disrupting many spheres of social life, including politics. Election campaigns are now being waged as information wars with bots and troll armies, and democracy is degenerating into infocracy. In this new book, Byung-Chul Han argues that infocracy is the new form of rule characteristic of contemporary informa...

The tsunami of information unleashed by digitization is threatening to overwhelm us, drowning us in a sea of frenzied communication and disrupting many spheres of social life, including politics. Election campaigns are now being waged as information wars with bots and troll armies, and democracy is degenerating into infocracy. In this new book, Byung-Chul Han argues that infocracy is the new form of rule characteristic of contemporary informa...

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 'infosphere' of information and communication which displaces objects and obliterates any stillness and calmness in our lives. Byung-Chul Han's critique of the infosphere highlights the price we...

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 'infosphere' of information and communication which displaces objects and obliterates any stillness and calmness in our lives. Byung-Chul Han's critique of the infosphere highlights the price we...

In the wake of globalization, cultural forms of expression have become increasingly detached from their places of origin, circulating in a hyper-domain of culture where there is no real difference anymore between indigenous and foreign, near and far, the familiar and the exotic. Heterogeneous cultural contents are brought together side by side, like the fusion food that makes free use of all that the hypercultural pool of spices, ingredients a...

In the wake of globalization, cultural forms of expression have become increasingly detached from their places of origin, circulating in a hyper-domain of culture where there is no real difference anymore between indigenous and foreign, near and far, the familiar and the exotic. Hyperculture is a state of the deep intertwining of cultures in which once formerly separate cultural spheres now overlap and interpenetrate. It is a profoundly rhizom...

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 conflicts and controversies that might prompt painful discussions. It takes hold of politics too: politics becomes a palliative politics that is incapable of implementing radical reforms that mig...

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 conflicts and controversies that might prompt painful discussions. It takes hold of politics too: politics becomes a palliative politics that is incapable of implementing radical reforms that mig...

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 productive, but rather destructive. Capitalism passed this point long ago. Its destructive forces cause not only ecological and social catastrophes but also mental collapse. The destructive compul...

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 productive, but rather destructive. Capitalism passed this point long ago. Its destructive forces cause not only ecological and social catastrophes but also mental collapse. The destructive compul...

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 ritu...

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 ritu...