Psychopolitics
Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
by Byung-Chul Han · first published 2014
8mentions
4recommended by
6HN commenters
2022–2026first – last mentioned
67% recommend33% neutral
La psicopolítica es un poder inteligente, sutil y silencioso, que es capaz de penetrar en nuestra psique para explotarla y controlarla sin que nos demos cuenta, seduciéndonos incluso para que colaboremos con ella voluntariamente.
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Further reading: Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han[1]. 1. https://www.versobooks.com/books/2505-psychopolitics
on “Neoliberalism can reduce well-being by promoting a sense of social discon (cont)” ↗…to it; I had never even heard of those other authors. Thank you so much! Another rec: Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism, on how we can't imagine alternatives to capitalism any more. Byung-Chul Han's Psychopolitics, on how modern neoliberalism turned us into self-exploiters. There's no 'upper class' suppressing the 'lower classes' anymore, we've moved to self-exploit, to push ourselves as our own horrible boss,…
on “The Tyranny of Structurelessness (1970)” ↗…age. Living through the information age I do subscribe to his views of information being only additive, incapable and incomplete to form overarching narratives for us to hinge on. Recommend the read of "Psychopolitics", "The Crisis of Narration", and "In the Swarm", those books eloquently described feelings I've had since the social media boom of mid-2010s. We are living through a data totalitarianism, missing overarching…
on “The top 10% owns 87% of the stocks” ↗Off-topic: have you enjoyed "The Disappearance of Rituals"? I went on a binge of Byung-Chul Han last year, reading "The Crisis of Narration", "In The Swarm", "Psychopolitics", and "The Burnout Society". Really enjoyed all of them, and given how dense it can be I set myself to read them at least twice which I'm just finishing, was on the lookout for what else to read from…
on “Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself” ↗I recommend reading "In the Swarm" by Byung-Chul Han, and also his "The Crisis of Narration"; in those he tries to tackle exactly these issues in contemporary society. His "Psychopolitics" talks about the manipulation of masses for political purposes using the digital environment, when written the LLM hype wasn't ongoing yet but it can definitely apply to this technology as well.
on “How elites could shape mass preferences as AI reduces persuasion costs” ↗I think it becomes more a religious and philosophical question than an economic question. We need to separate economics from the neoliberal religion. Byung-Chul Han - Psychopolitics should be standard text that everyone is discussing right now but instead we will probably do nothing and the future will suffer the consequences of our collective intellectual laziness. neoliberal ideas…
on “Management as AI superpower: Thriving in a world of agentic AI” ↗In his 2017 work Psychopolitics, Byung-Chul Han writes of how power today has grown reliant on manipulating psychological states, uniquely made possible by technologies of control. Its symptoms are of the mind, like burnout and diseases…
Given your interest in BCH, you may enjoy Non-places: An Anthropology of Supermodernity by Marc Augé. BCH draws on a lot of Augé's ideas from this book in Psychopolitics. It is obtuse and either poorly-translated or badly-written but the ideas are excellent.
on “Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself” ↗