hii, loved this piece! first of all, very funny and smart to connect kim and han. secondly, burnout society by han has been on my mind for months now, and it has given me a lot of peace about my own depression/exhaustion because it allowed me to understand the bigger context of it all. your text adds to this, by being very relatable and timely. ugh, i wish i had the attention span and time next to uni and work to read more about this ..... ykykyk haha
hi meret :) thank you for your kind words, they mean alot!
i can totally relate to your experience. something also clicked when i first read han's work: as someone who struggles with mental health, it was liberating to finally a) understand the conditions that frame my depression b) realize that this was an epidemic and not just a me thing. i spent many years thinking i was wack and ungrateful for feeling this way -- after all, i'm a privileged student living in the west. it seemed like there was no real reason for my depression. i guess mulling over han's work has helped me just sit with my turmoil rather than brashly suppressing it with a whole smoothie of drugs and brain numbing media. i wrote this piece in an attempt to share this feeling of relief; so i'm glad you found it incisive or resonant.
Very interesting essay… got me hooked on ur substack, as well as ur recent panopticon blog.
God I wish I wasn’t so hopeless, but pessimism is the only logical consequence of reading authors like you who have a very strong grasp of where capitalism stands today.
Question--why is the picture of mark fisher there? This piece was my first introduction to the idea that our culture of productivity is manufactured and not inherent...I haven't heard of him before and so I'm confused what the picture is for/how he connects to the piece. Also, thanks for writing this!
hi soph! sorry for the late response i just noticed your comment. i put the image of mark fisher in the section on "mental health" because i wanted to shout him out (and chantal akerman for the same reasons). as i briefly alluded in my piece, mark fisher took his own life due to severe lifelong depression -- some postulate it was related to his struggling career.
fisher was a brilliant thinker whose writing gave me alot of answers in my political journey. i think many will find him helpful so i try to highlight his name wherever i can
I liked this essay. I’m not educated greatly on the subject, but I do think there is a mistake in equating neoliberalism with modern work culture. I see neoliberalism as a school of economic thought that pretty much just states that the economy tends to do better without government interference. You could plausibly argue that that provides an ideological base to push back against socially democratic policies that could begin to solve the problems in your essay, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch. I think our struggles with burn out and attention loss go beyond that of just neoliberalism. Modern work culture, and productivity culture is nonetheless an issue that you have done a wonderful job writing about.
P.S.: I once read that trying to multitask, in fact, decreases productivity. You may want to check that yourself, though.
Hi hunter! I really appreciate you taking the time to reflect and share your thoughts on my piece :)
The whole logic behind deregulation, globalization, privatization is to remove any barriers (state interference) that prevent capitalists from accumulating as much wealth as possible. There are several reasons for why this relates to the psychology of our modern work culture. First, financial austerity means cuts to social services which people need to fall back on during hard times — therefore, the lack of security pressures many of to working to the bone. Second, neoliberalism is based on the idea of "freedom" and "meritocracy." The theory goes that since the government is removed from the market equation, people now have unbridled opportunity to make money: anyone can supposedly do anything. This, of course, is a flimsy lie. Systemic issues make it so that most of us will never see a modicum of wealth in our lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy#:~:text=Racism-,The%20myth%20of%20meritocracy%20has%20been%20identified%20by%20scholars%20as,if%20they%20work%20hard%20enough.); but because we think there is an equal playing field, we continue participating in the system only to flail and struggle with minimal return. When we do not see significant gains, we think it's because 'i' haven't worked hard enough, so 'i' have to do better. The modern subject therefore works excessively under this delusional fantasy of potentially getting stacks.
I hope this brief paragraph explains why I think modern work culture is a consequence of neoliberal policies -- hence the reason I use these words interchangeably!
The more I read mark fisher the more I find he has written everything that I would want to and it’s better than I could have done
hii, loved this piece! first of all, very funny and smart to connect kim and han. secondly, burnout society by han has been on my mind for months now, and it has given me a lot of peace about my own depression/exhaustion because it allowed me to understand the bigger context of it all. your text adds to this, by being very relatable and timely. ugh, i wish i had the attention span and time next to uni and work to read more about this ..... ykykyk haha
hi meret :) thank you for your kind words, they mean alot!
i can totally relate to your experience. something also clicked when i first read han's work: as someone who struggles with mental health, it was liberating to finally a) understand the conditions that frame my depression b) realize that this was an epidemic and not just a me thing. i spent many years thinking i was wack and ungrateful for feeling this way -- after all, i'm a privileged student living in the west. it seemed like there was no real reason for my depression. i guess mulling over han's work has helped me just sit with my turmoil rather than brashly suppressing it with a whole smoothie of drugs and brain numbing media. i wrote this piece in an attempt to share this feeling of relief; so i'm glad you found it incisive or resonant.
This was an amazing read, made me think of how much I need to do and how much better my bed looks... Bravo!
thanks kaisa :)
Very interesting essay… got me hooked on ur substack, as well as ur recent panopticon blog.
God I wish I wasn’t so hopeless, but pessimism is the only logical consequence of reading authors like you who have a very strong grasp of where capitalism stands today.
Looking forward to your future posts (((:
Thank u so much <33
Huge SLAY !! Love what u guys are doing and would love to collaborate one something how can I contact u ?
Question--why is the picture of mark fisher there? This piece was my first introduction to the idea that our culture of productivity is manufactured and not inherent...I haven't heard of him before and so I'm confused what the picture is for/how he connects to the piece. Also, thanks for writing this!
hi soph! sorry for the late response i just noticed your comment. i put the image of mark fisher in the section on "mental health" because i wanted to shout him out (and chantal akerman for the same reasons). as i briefly alluded in my piece, mark fisher took his own life due to severe lifelong depression -- some postulate it was related to his struggling career.
fisher was a brilliant thinker whose writing gave me alot of answers in my political journey. i think many will find him helpful so i try to highlight his name wherever i can
I liked this essay. I’m not educated greatly on the subject, but I do think there is a mistake in equating neoliberalism with modern work culture. I see neoliberalism as a school of economic thought that pretty much just states that the economy tends to do better without government interference. You could plausibly argue that that provides an ideological base to push back against socially democratic policies that could begin to solve the problems in your essay, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch. I think our struggles with burn out and attention loss go beyond that of just neoliberalism. Modern work culture, and productivity culture is nonetheless an issue that you have done a wonderful job writing about.
P.S.: I once read that trying to multitask, in fact, decreases productivity. You may want to check that yourself, though.
Hi hunter! I really appreciate you taking the time to reflect and share your thoughts on my piece :)
The whole logic behind deregulation, globalization, privatization is to remove any barriers (state interference) that prevent capitalists from accumulating as much wealth as possible. There are several reasons for why this relates to the psychology of our modern work culture. First, financial austerity means cuts to social services which people need to fall back on during hard times — therefore, the lack of security pressures many of to working to the bone. Second, neoliberalism is based on the idea of "freedom" and "meritocracy." The theory goes that since the government is removed from the market equation, people now have unbridled opportunity to make money: anyone can supposedly do anything. This, of course, is a flimsy lie. Systemic issues make it so that most of us will never see a modicum of wealth in our lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy#:~:text=Racism-,The%20myth%20of%20meritocracy%20has%20been%20identified%20by%20scholars%20as,if%20they%20work%20hard%20enough.); but because we think there is an equal playing field, we continue participating in the system only to flail and struggle with minimal return. When we do not see significant gains, we think it's because 'i' haven't worked hard enough, so 'i' have to do better. The modern subject therefore works excessively under this delusional fantasy of potentially getting stacks.
I hope this brief paragraph explains why I think modern work culture is a consequence of neoliberal policies -- hence the reason I use these words interchangeably!