My friend Austin posted the above. The same day, Micah Mattix wrote this in his newsletter. I think the two go together.
Scott Beauchamp writes about the German-Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han: “‘Every age has its signature afflictions.’ So begins Han’s The Burnout Society, his taut tract describing the psychological effects of our technological age. The signature affliction of our time isn’t viral or bacterial, he maintains. Instead, it’s neurological illnesses ‘such as depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), borderline personality disorder (BPD) and burnout syndrome,’ which ‘mark the landscape of pathology at the beginning of the twenty-first century.’ Today’s society ‘is no longer Foucault’s disciplinary world of hospitals, madhouses, prisons, barracks, and factories,’ Han explains. ‘It has long been replaced by another regime, namely a society of fitness studios, office towers, banks, airports, shopping malls, and genetic laboratories. Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society.’ The inhabitants of this society are instructed to be ‘entrepreneurs of themselves.’”