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Comment by l33tbro | Hacker News Reader

Is he really saying anything new here with this concept? I've read a few of his books, and I can't think of one original or incisive idea or framework that is genuinely interesting or provocative. Eg, he talks about us today being aspirational subjects in a neoliberal world. I do agree, but this is not exactly illuminating .

I don't mean to dump on him, but he's mentioned so often now when subjects like this are brought up.

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Maybe he's just not for you. This is actually really unfair to anyone writing philosophy these days. That the dude has to revolutionize the way we think with some deep and original insight otherwise his work is worthless. Is that really the only value taken from philosophy? How about hermeneutics or social communication? I believe Han excels in the latter and is bringing more and more thinkers from different fields to think about the fundamental problems of society, people with technical and scientific backgrounds that would otherwise not join the debate and help design a better society.

It's a fair question. I'm not sure that I need to have my mind blown. There's certainly philosophy I read where somebody will be writing broadly about a school of thought or a niche aspect. I think what I find dull about Byung-Chul Han is that he writes with the affect of gusto, but there is no insightful pay-off to match. There's nothing to grab on to, at least for me.

IMO this means that your internal "algorithm" is over-trained for novelty.

The truth, once discovered, ceases to be new. Does that mean the truth is not worth anything after an initial moment of discovery? Or (this is rhetorical, obviously), is it possible that the things that our mind tells us are worth pursuing/engaging and those things that are ACTUALLY worth pursuing/engaging are not always (or even OFTEN) commensurate?

The way I see it, engagement with concepts that you have fully understood is meaningless in that you’ll only marvel at your ability to understand things, rather then come up with a new insight from the engagement.

But most of the time, we don’t actually fully understand things, and intimately reflecting on something will often yield new facets, insights you didn’t have before, and deepen your understanding.

Maybe I didn't make myself clear enough. I read all kinds of philosophy (time permitting!) and it certainly doesn't have to be novel. However, when a philosopher adopts a rhetorical tone, I expect there to be some kind of catalyzing payload to justify it. Is that not reasonable?

I'd say truth is always being either discovered and recovered, and there's usually not too much difference. There's rarely anything new under the sun.

> However, when a philosopher adopts a rhetorical tone, I expect there to be some kind of catalyzing payload to justify it. Is that not reasonable?

I'm with you on this.

You can just use simple, gut-level curiosity to justify this. It's directly satisfying to check out things that look interesting. No rationality or neuroticism about truth necessary. I don't know why you're making new problems to torture yourself with.

> I believe Han excels in the latter and is bringing more and more thinkers from different fields to think about the fundamental problems of society, people with technical and scientific backgrounds that would otherwise not join the debate and help design a better society.

He had one hit book fifteen years ago and now exists primarily as a meme. One doesn’t really see people deeply engaging with his arguments; they tend to agree that whatever the object of the new book is “a problem” and fill in the details with their own ideology.

Or maybe I’m wrong! I’d be interested in a link to someone actually taking him seriously, whether within or without philosophy.

Why do you need a proxy? Can't you just go read his materials and see for yourself if you should take him serious or not? Do the work if you are really that interested, I think you won't be disappointed.

I think he's taken pretty seriously. He was tenured at UdK for a while, which is a very prestigious European university. But somehow he has pushed Chomsky off the mantle to become the poster-boy for the criticism of neoliberalism. This is really not helping him shed the meme of being some kind of K-pop philosopher.

By “taking him seriously” I meant “engages with his ideas/texts/critiques deeply, on more than a surface level” which is different than “acknowledges him as a competent, popular, professional philosopher.”

Geez, how did I miss this. I must be underexposed to whatever medium this is happening on.

On which platform is Han considered to be Chomsky 2.0? Any links to this, or to other "hip" critiques of neoliberalism, from him or others? Memes welcome.

If his notion of psychopolitics (as opposed to Foucault's still dominant notion of biopolitics) is nothing new, than what do you consider new? I also remember what he wrote about AI and I have not heard anyone else bring a phenomenological argument forward against the "AI can think" hype.

Burnout Society came out back in 2010 so maybe it's a Seinfeld Isn't Funny situation.

yes

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