excessive positivity
i recently read finish burnout society by byung-chul han, and it made me think about: achievement society, self-exploitation, different types of tiredness, and what it would take to change the way things are. the ending was not too optimistic with the author arguing that the internal logics of the achievement society will naturally evolve it to become a doping society. where life is reduced to its bare essentials and we numb everything else. in place of traditional religion, health is then seen as the new subject to worship. i do see signs of living in a doping society already, especially as a working adult in singapore. so many people signing up for hyrox/marathons, learning how to rock climb or play pickleball or take spin lessons, its like everywhere i look there is someone doing something to stay active. i myself am somewhat entering into a "health" era, i try to assuage myself that i'm doing this for myself, not capitalism. but really the line is not so clear cut.
also watched sg insecure by the necessary stage last week and was reminded of the book with how (forced) cheery the sg insecure taskforce members are. how tiring and isolating it must be to have to follow a script they personally don't believe in. being pressured to achieve targets with a positive spirit, no room for disagreements only consensus! okay i'm projecting a little as someone who works in a similar field. i cannot imagine myself smiling so brightly and talking with an enthusiastic tone all the time. (self) policing is a theme that stood out to me while watching the play. how we end up internalizing the police figure and act it out in our day to day interactions. it truly is more efficient for all of us to have a cop in our head, monitoring/enforcing ourselves before anyone has to step in.
quotes/highlights from the book:
"Harm does not come from negativity alone, but also from positivity - not just from the Other or the foreign, but also from the Same."
"depression is the pathological expression of the late-modern human being's failure to become himself. [...] It is not the imperative only to belong to one-self, but the pressure to achieve that causes exhaustive depression."
"Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive positivity. It reflects a humanity waging war on itself."
"If one had only the power to do (something) and no power not to do, it would lead to fatal hyperactivity. If one had only the power to think (something), thinking would scatter among endless series of objects. It would be impossible to think back and reflect for positive potency, the preponderance of positivity, only permits anticipation and thinking ahead."
"the society of achievement and activeness is generating excessive tiredness and exhaustion. These psychic conditions characterize a world that is poor in negativity and in turn dominated by excess positivity."
"Tiredness in achievement society is solitary tiredness; it has a separating and isolating effect."
"The depressive is tired from the constant "need for initiative"."
"burnout represents the pathological consequence of voluntary self-exploitation. [...] The more often one changes one's identity, the more production is dynamized. Industrial disciplinary society relied on unchanging identity, whereas postindustrial achievement society requires a flexible person to heighten production."
"Violence does not stem from the negativity of clash or conflict alone; it also derives from the positivity of consensus. Now the totality of capital, which seems to be absorbing everything, represents consensual violence."
"The achievement-subject stands free from external instances of domination forcing it to work and exploiting it. It is subject to no one if not to itself [...] Exploitation now occurs without domination. That is what makes self-exploitation so efficient."