“Vita contemplativa” by Byung-Chul Han (translated by Daniel Steuer)

This is another of Han’s short treatises, peppered with references to Heidegger, Arendt, and the German Romantics. His theme is, obviously, the life of contemplation. He first promotes inaction, “Life receives its radiance only from inactivity. If we lose the ability to be inactive, we begin to resemble machines that must simply function. True life begins when concern for survival, for the exigencies of mere life, ends. The ultimate purpose of all human endeavour is inactivity.” He continues with his definition of culture, “Culture sits beyond functionality and usefulness. The ornamental dimension, emancipated from any goal or use, is how life insists that it is more than survival.” He brings his theme around to happiness, “We owe true happiness to the useless and purposeless, to what is intentionally convoluted, what is unproductive, indirect, exuberant, superfluous, to beautiful forms and gestures that have no use and serve no purpose…. Ceremonious inactivity means: we do something, but to no end.”

Han describes living a life fully and presently here on earth. “The politics of inactivity liberates the immanence of life from the transcendence that alienates life from itself. Only in inactivity do we become aware of the ground on which we rest, and of the space in which we are…. Immanence as life is living in the mode of contemplation. Life as immanence is a capacity that does not act…. Immanence denotes a life that possesses itself, that suffices itself. This self-sufficiency is bliss.” Han promotes a life of reflection. “We must therefore increase the proportion of action that is contemplative, that is, ensure that action is enriched by reflection…. The compulsion to be active, to produce and to perform, leads to breathlessness. Under the weight of their own doings, humans suffocate…. Forgetfulness of being, resulting from the lack of reflection, takes our breath away. It reduces the human being to an animal laborans.”

Humans are creatures that unite with each other together through the common stories they tell. “The human being is an animal narrans, a narrating animal. But our lives are no longer determined by a reliable and binding narrative that provides meaning and orientation. We are very well informed, yet, in the absence of narrative, we are without orientation…. Truth is narrative. Information, by contrast, is additive…. Symbols create shared things that enable a We: cohesion within society…. In a symbolic void, society is diffracted into a collection of mutually indifferent individuals.” Han brings this back to having the time and space for inactivity, rest, contemplation, and reflection. “The future of humanity depends not on the power of people who act but on the resuscitation of the capacity for contemplation—that is, on the very capacity that does not act. If it does not incorporate the vita contemplativa, the vita activa degenerates into hyperactivity, and culminates in the burnout not only of the psyche but of the whole planet.”