The Expulsion of the Other by Byung-Chul Han

Author:Byung-Chul Han
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781509523092
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2018-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

Because of the alienation in working conditions, it is impossible for the worker to realize themselves. Their work is a continuous self-derealization.

Today, we live in a post-Marxist age. In the neoliberal regime, exploitation no longer takes place as alienation and self-derealization, but as freedom, as self-realization and self-optimization. Here there is no Other as an exploiter, forcing me to work and alienating me from myself; rather, I voluntarily exploit myself in the belief that I am realizing myself. This is the diabolical logic of neoliberalism. Hence the first stage of a burnout is euphoria: I plunge into work euphorically until I finally collapse. I realize myself to death. I optimize myself to death. Neoliberal domination hides behind the illusion of freedom. The domination is complete at the moment when it coincides with freedom. This feeling of freedom is disastrous insofar as it does not enable any resistance, any revolution. Where should resistance direct itself? There are no longer any Others from whom any repression originates. Jenny Holzer’s truism ‘Protect me from what I want’ is an apt summary of this paradigm shift.

A new form of alienation is coming into existence today. It is no longer an alienation from the world or from work, but rather a destructive self-alienation: alienation from oneself. This self-alienation takes place precisely in the course of self-optimization and self-realization. As soon as the performance subject perceives itself, for example its own body, as a functional object to be optimized, it gradually becomes alienated from it. Owing to the lack of negativity, this self-alienation continues unnoticed. It is not only self-exploitation that has self-destructive effects, but also self-alienation, which expresses itself pathologically as a disorder of the body image. Anorexia, bulimia and binge-eating disorder are symptoms of an increasing self-alienation. By the end, one no longer feels one’s own body.

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