The Burnout Society of Byung Chul Han

Toon Joosen Art

Hallöchen!, I am @lfeprofe and here are some thoughts about burnout in the workplace!

As an educator 👩‍🏫 with a remunerated job*, I have recently felt the need to research about this (burnout), as it is always important to educate ourselves about our working conditions.

Byung Chul Han, in his book 📗 'The Burnout Society', describes us as animal laborans and as a contemporary 'achievement subject'🚶‍♀️, who inflects violence upon itself. We are the achievement society, no longer the survival society. We don’t fight for our lives, but we fight our lives. B. Chul Han defines this self-violence as self-exploitation - a kind of existential hyperactivity - which ultimately takes the form of 'overwhelming fatigue'. Does this relate to you?

This makes us become the 'I-tiredness' creature and, even worse, this tiredness is solitary: isolates us. It makes us feel out of place in this achievement society. B. Chul Han talks about being then, in contrast, a ‘We-tiredness’ community, which I understood as a way of activism. If we acknowledge together what doesn't work in this system/job market, we can make reality better. Do you have any other idea about how we can stop being this burnout society?

In summary, I leave you here a last quote from B. Chul Han:

‘The attitude towards time and environment known as 'multitasking' does not represent civilizational progress. People in the late modern society of work and information are not the only ones capable of multitasking. In fact, such an ability is a step backwards. Multitasking is commonplace among wild animals. It is a mindful technique that is essential for survival in the wild’.

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* Many educators 👩‍🏫 don't necessarily have a paid job.