This is Han’s latest treatise directed against the age of modernity. The book returns to many of his previous themes—thinking, lingering, ritual, time, community, and technology. Translated from German, it has less of his usual neo-Hegelian influence and more of a Heideggerian flair.
Han begins with his concept of Things and their displacement in modernity, “Things are the calm centres of life. They have now been wholly enveloped by information. Information is anything but a calm centre of life. It is not possible to linger on information. It is relevant only fleetingly. It lives off its capacity to surprise. Information’s fleetingness alone can account for the fact that information destabilizes life. It constantly attracts our attention. The tsunami of information agitates our cognitive system. Information is not a stable, uniform entity. It lacks the solidity of being…. Things are increasingly receding into the background of our attention…. We are obsessed not with things but with information and data. We now consume more information than things. We are literally becoming intoxicated with communication…. The industrial revolution solidified and expanded the sphere of things, distancing us from nature and the crafts. But only digitization puts an end to the paradigm of the thing. It subordinates things to information…. The informatization of the world turns things into infomatons, that is, into information-processing actors.”
Many moderns celebrate the fact that they have become less materialistic. They prefer to live a life of experiences rather than compete with the materialism of their ancestors. Han sees a dark side. “Today, we prefer experiencing to possessing, being to having. Experiencing is a form of being…. We no longer want to be tied to things or people. Ties are untimely. They restrict the space of possible experiences, that is, freedom in the sense of consumption…. We even expect the consumption of things to provide us with experiences. The informational content of things, for instance their brands, is more important than their use value. We perceive things primarily with regard to the information embedded in them…. What determines the value added is the distinguishing information that promises the consumer a special experience — or even the experience of specialness…. The aesthetic-cultural content of a commodity is the actual product. The economy of experiences replaces the economy of things.”
The modern perspective of art has transformed the artistic process. “Artworks are things…. Art that is committed to meaning is hostile to pleasure…. A work of art, being a thing, is not just a bearer of meaning. It does not illustrate anything. The process of expression is directed not by a clear concept but by an indeterminate fever, a delirium, an intensity, an urge or desire that cannot be articulated…. What is problematic about today’s art is its inclination to communicate a preconceived opinion, a moral or political conviction: that is, its inclination to communicate information. Conception precedes execution…. Art is no longer handwork that forms matter, without intention, into a thing, but thought work that communicates a prefabricated idea…. It wants to instruct rather than seduce.”
Han returns to the intimacy of personal ties—between people and objects. “Intense ties are becoming less and less important. First of all, they are unproductive, for consumption and communication can be accelerated only by weak ties. For this reason, capitalism systematically destroys ties. Things that are close to our hearts are also rare today; they are increasingly being replaced by disposable items." Han quotes Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore.” Han concludes, “A re-romanticization of the world would presuppose its re-materialization…. Ecology must be preceded by a new ontology of matter, one that views it as something that lives.”
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