Han writes about how modern society can never escape the dialectic, in the vein of a true neo-Hegelian. This short book concentrates on the dichotomy between the ego and the Other. Han begins, “The terror of the Same affects all areas of life today. One travels everywhere, yet does not experience anything. One catches sight of everything, yet reaches no insight. One accumulates information and data, yet does not attain knowledge. One lusts after adventures and stimulation, but always remains the same…. True resonance presupposes the proximity of the Other. Today, the proximity of the Other gives way to the gaplessness of the Same…. The abolition of distance does not create more closeness, but rather destroys it…. This tension consists in the fact that things are given life precisely by their opposite, by that which is other than themselves.” Hegel could not have said it better himself.
Han has always been concerned with the propensity of neoliberal society to be consumed by commerce. Life has been commodified. Homo Economicus reigns supreme. “Individuals express their authenticity primarily through consumption. The imperative of authenticity does not lead to the formation of an autonomous, self-possessed individual; rather, it is entirely co-opted by commerce.” Modern man has deluded himself into thinking that he is special, different, and unique. “Diversity only permits differences that conform to the system; it constitutes an otherness that has been made consumable. And it perpetuates the Same more efficiently than uniformity does.” Man has also been deluded by his own freedom. “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…. 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.”
Finally, Han critiques the mediums of communication and interaction in the digital age. “Today’s hypercommunication suppresses the free spaces of silence and solitude without which it would have been impossible to say things that were truly worth saying…. Today, the silent voice of the Other is drowned out by the noise of the Same…. Today, we are increasingly losing the ability to listen. It is hampered most of all by the intensifying focus on the ego, by the narcissization of society. Narcissus does not return the loving voice of the nymph Echo, who would really be the voice of the Other…. Listening is not a passive act. It is distinguished by a special activity: first I must welcome the Other, which means affirming the Other in their otherness. Then I give them an ear…. In a sense, listening precedes speaking; it is only listening that causes the Other to speak…. Digital communication connects me, but simultaneously isolates me…. Without the presence of the Other, communication degenerates into an accelerated exchange of information. It creates no relationship, only connection…. Listening means something entirely different from exchanging information…. Without neighborliness, without listening, no community can form. Community is listenership.”
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