Anti-Networks and a Review of Byung-Chul Han’s Psychopolitics

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Foundations

16 min readFeb 1, 2020

Part of the Verso Futures collection, and in spite of a hideous cover, German philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power is a better-argued and fleshed out improvement upon Gilles Deleuze’s tragically brief essay, “Postscripts on Societies of Control.” Our contemporary societies of control is the subject of Psychopolitics. To Deleuze, Michel Foucault’s notion of a disciplinary society was usefully inaccurate. A precise articulation, but of the recent past, saying “a disciplinary society was what we already no longer were, what we had ceased to be” (Deleuze 1990). Han’s purpose is to echo and add to Deleuze’s correction and to account for what has transpired since “Postscripts” — digital panoptica, Big Data, etc. Control had appeared while the prophetic Deleuze was alive but now Han continues with a Deleuzian observation of its digital form.

Psychopolitics is a fascinating and well-written treatise on subjects that feel beaten to death, and is situated within a radical culture seemingly damned to futility by capitalist realism and one incapable of generating productive, useful strategy or platforms. Enjoyable, original efforts on neoliberalism are hard to come by and Psychopolitics is one of them.

Han draws from the wisdom of a multitude of authors (Nietzsche, Orwell, Marx, Hegel, etc) and unlike many Deleuzians, employs Deleuze’s inspiration usefully. Deleuze is not merely exhumed for philosophical street-cred or because of an obsession with a Deleuzian aesthetic as others have, such as the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit in the nineties. A tradition “online Deleuzians” unfortunately proudly carry on today. Instead, Deleuze’s presence seems natural and pragmatic for the purpose of concise and beautiful description of the present.

All praise given, this work has its fair share of imperfections and sometimes is terribly incomplete or repetitive. At times, the language is nauseatingly romantic and imprecise. Does the Left need yet another rehashing of Big Brother? We know what Big Brother is, roughly. Now tell us how to succeed. Psychopolitics stops short of that, which would usually mean failure, but it ends up useful. Contemporary radical political literature proves to be a false hope, a The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, and leaves us stranded like Winston, awaiting reeducation in Room 101, to go back to work Monday.

Following summaries and thoughts on each chapter, I then offer a strategy of cutting oneself off from digital panotopica as a response via abolition of what I call anti-networks. Closing out the essay, I leave the reader with several questions that fall outside of its scope but came to me while writing and in the weeks following my initial reading of Psychopolitics.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES AND CRITICISM

Most of the chapters in Psychopolitics are very short. There is no reason to have a categorical opposition to extreme brevity. Some of the most brilliant philosophy and art end quickly. Das Kapital-length works and Homeric epics, or lengthy chapters, are not always desirable nor necessary (e.g. Gettier in epistemology). Length alone is not a sufficient metric, though it is often telling. Psychopolitics does much with its 84 pages.

Chapter 1: “The Crisis of Freedom”

This is my favorite chapter. Great explication happens quickly.

“As a [neoliberal] project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the I is now subjugating itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.”

Beginning his work, Han says we are no longer subjects but have been transformed into projects and our psyche has been turned on itself, reducing skepticism of ability, summoning a desire to perform and improve. The self-help genre fills Amazon carts and dominates sales. Jordan Peterson, Weight Watchers, and r/nofap.

“Digital control society makes intensive use of freedom. This can only occur thanks to voluntary self-illumination and self exposure (Selbstausleuchtung und Selbstentblößung). Digital Big Brother outsources operations to inmates, as it were. Accordingly, data is not surrendered under duress so much as offered out of an inner need.”

What is unique about the digital society of control is that “it” no longer must ask nor interrogate but instead the guard, the firm, the state, is sent everything needed. The labor of exploitation has been “outsourced” to us, the “inmates.”

The claim that our data is “offered out of an inner need” is true. Our desire to share our lives, enabling the “dictatorship of transparency” that Han introduces in this chapter, with others is strong. This is evidenced by a variety of habits but also the great profits and popularity of social media networks. We happily produce trace data in credit-card transactions, geo-tag our locations with smartphone photographs, leave on snap-maps for our acquaintances, and care little about metadata while surfing the web or sending files.

Chapter 2: “Smart Power”

“ However, power is not limited to breaking down resistance and forcing obedience. It need not take the form of coercion. Power that relies on violence does not represent power of the highest order.”

A sophisicated understanding of power is demonstrated in this short chapter. The argument that discpline is past is added to.

“Today’s crisis of freedom stems from the fact that the operative technology of power does not negate or repress freedom so much as exploit it.”

Han correctly notes it’s easier to take what is provided and enable easier providing with tempting free services than to act violently.

“It is fundamentally different from nineteenth-century capitalism, which operated by means of disciplinary constraints and prohibitions.”

Another excellent point contra Foucault. The West, and especially American ideology, loves to brag about its freedom. The colonial feminist says, “Silly Afghan women, why would they submit themselves to their husbands and don a burqa?”

“The capitalism of Like should come with a warning label: Protect me from what I want.”

This is where I disagree with Han, though hardly. A strategy is vaguely hinted at here. We do not need to protect — we need to refuse and depart. I provide something of an exit strategy in the next section of this article. In the massive Internet, there are plenty of places to hide.

Chapter 3: “The Mole and the Snake”

An easy to follow metaphor to explain Deleuze’s understanding of the “general crisis affecting all milieus of confinement” is created.

“The mole is a labourer. In contrast, the snake is an entrepreneur.”

The metaphor is incomplete as no animal serves to describe the transition from discipline to control. The lack of a third animal could suggest we have exited the “general crisis,” which is foolish. There is not a country that has abandoned moles and there is not a country where a transition is ongoing. I remain confident that Han either understands (1) our institutions as residing in permanent crisis or (2) that the crisis has not ended. A less favorable or uneducated read could conclude that the crisis has stopped. Digital societies of control are awfully young. The writing style in general makes for a democratic, pleasing read. This mistake jeopardizes that.

Chapter 4: “Biopolitics”

An accurate account of Foucault’s biopolitics is provided.

“That said, disciplinary power does not focus on the psyche. The orthopaedic technology of disciplinary power is too crude to penetrate into the deeper layers of the soul — with its hidden wishes, needs and desires — and take it over. Bentham’s Big Brother only observes inmates from the outside. His panopticon is bound to the optical medium. It has no access to inner thoughts or needs.”

I think this excerpt does this short and sweet chapter justice.

Big Data provides the means for establishing not just an individual but a collective psychogram — perhaps even the psychogram of the unconscious itself. As such, it may yet shine a light into the depths of the psyche and exploit the unconscious entirely.

The claims made here are far too dramatic in their description in the capabilities of Big Data. The alleged magic posessed is rebuked by a Deleuzian understanding of identity. It is importantly remarked in the second sentence of A Thousand Plateaus, “Since each of was several, there was already quite a crowd.” People are several. A coherent individual cannot be constructed and therefore, is not guaranteened to be a pragmatic description. It is easy to imagine that the idea of individuals is helpful but it is not guaranteened. It is least helpful when we confronting cyber-spatalities overrun with inhuman algorithmic actors.

Does the challenge I present to a coherent individual render the entire notion of psychopolitics useless as it relies on a psyche? No. Great philosophy thrives in ambiguity and recognition of paradoxes. Another answer: substitute the word psyche for a different but similar unit of analysis and the writing of Han is useful.

Additionally, this reference to Big Data occurs before the chapter “Big Data.” A definition or further explication should have been provided. Perhaps a note asking directing the reader to jump ahead to that section?

Chapter 5: “Foucault’s Dilemma”

Further criticism of Foucault and then new but not particularly interesting criticism of Agamben is presented.

“self exploitation, is what escaped Foucault”

“Perpetual self-optimization” is again heralded as the technological enabler of neoliberalism.

Chapter 6: “Healing as Killing”

The worst chapter of the book as its conclusion, the chapter title, is not defended within and it’s dry re-articulation of points made.

“The neoliberal regime is in the course of inaugurating the age of exhaustion.”

Although, to someone who would pick out this book it may be fluff, this claim is not defended. Bases should be covered. An additional chapter entitled the “The Age of Exhaustion” would have been better, helping us to imagine the consequences of neoliberalism and render drastic climate change less abstract.

Chapter 7: “Shock”

This chapter is a two page criticism of author Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine. I am largely unfamiliar with Shock Doctrine and Klein’s work in general but the claims made about “the essential traits” of neoliberalism are well written.

“Instead of administering ‘bitter medicine’, it enlists Liking. It flatters the psyche instead of shaking it and paralyzing it with shocks. Neoliberal psychopolitics seduces the soul; it preempts it in lieu of opposing it.”

Chapter 8: “Friendly Big Brother”

This chapter refutes Orwell’s 1984. Han argues freedom, not blatant limitations or rewriting the past, is the preferred mechanism of control. Cleverly noted is that “consumption is maximized” in our society. Winston will not have to steal any chocolate from his infant sibling.

“the inhabitants of today’s digital panopticon never really feel that they are being watched or threatened. Consequently, ‘surveillance state’ is an imprecise name for describing the digital panopticon. Here, everyone feels free.”

The last statement may be true but the first two are not. You can buy into the mythology that America, or elsewhere, possesses unique freedom and be aware of Snowden’s revelations or the Patriot Act. The Democratic Party, to some extent, operates like this. Sanders, currently a popular and viable candidate, certainly fears surveillance. That fear is tied into the philosophy that economic inequality is the defining issue of our times. Credit scores, a method of surveillance, perpetuate economic inequality. Contradictory, confused beliefs are possible and accidentally denying their existence, is irresponsible analysis. Ironic, though absolutely expected, the Deleuzian defends rationality and fails to rebuke it.

Chapter 9: “Emotional Capitalism”

A chapter that feels fully written and leaves little to be desired. Interesting commentary on the nature of “feeling.” Criticism of Eva Illouz’s “Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism.” Unfortunately, I must refrain from commenting further on accusations against Illouz as I am completely unfamiliar with her or her work.

“In disciplinary society, where one’s task is to function, emotions represent disturbances.”

Distinction between discipline and control, is again, expanded upon.

Well-grounded speculation and unique commentary on shifting corporate culture is offered.

“A paradigm shift is taking place at the administrative level of companies. Emotions are being granted more and more significance. Rational management techniques are being replaced by emotional management. Managers today are leaving the principle of rational action behind. Increasingly, they resemble motivation coaches.”

Chapter 10: “Gamification”

“Today, the gamification logic of ‘Likes’, ‘Friends’ and ‘Followers’ means that social communication is also being plugged into and subordinated to a game mode. The corollary of the gamification of communication is its commercialization. That said, this process is destroying human communication.”

A good decision on behalf of the author to describe this process as “gamification.” The final sentence in this excerpt is a bit dramatic. Destroying could be easily replaced with something differently charged, such as transformation or altering. Why declare destruction?

“Even though Marx speaks of ‘capital fixe being man himself’, human beings, endowed with ‘general intellect’, are now transforming themselves into Capital. In contrast, true freedom would be possible only if life were entirely freed from Capital — which represents a new form of transcendence. The transcendence of Capital stands in the way of life as immanence.”

Interesting connection of Marx to Deleuze at the end. The chapter consists of and ends with good commentary on and connections to Marx.

Han does delve into the neuroscience that would make clearer what is responsible for the “pleasure” received from the likes and retweets he is concerned with.

Chapter 11: “Big Data”

“Digital surveillance proves so efficient because it is aperspectival. It does not suffer from the perspectival limitations characterizing analogue optical systems.”

A gorgeously written explanation of what makes Big Data unique.

“Although it announces that it is taking leave of all ideology, dataism itself is an ideology. It is leading to digital totalitarianism. Therefore, a third Enlightenment is called for — in order to shine a light on how digital enlightenment has transformed into a new kind of servitude.”

A second enlightenment, dataism, is rightly derided as a false enlightenment that attempts to reclaim the view from nowhere, which was undermined by criticisms of the terrible epistemology supporting a human, therefore necessarily flawed, view from nowhere.

“The digitus is starting to play the part of the phallus.”

Adorno is properly recalled to criticize dataism but then the chapter closes with awkward and vague speculation about the sexualization of data.

Chapter 12: “Beyond the Subject”

Sad to say one of the most interesting chapters is so brief.

“Accordingly, the art of living, as the praxis of freedom, must proceed by way of de-psychologization. This serves to disarm psychopolitics, which is a means of effecting submission. When the subject is de-psychologized — indeed, de-voided (ent-leert) — it opens onto a mode of existence that still has no name: an unwritten future”

Foucault’s “experience”, “the art of living” is discussed. The author proposes it as an escape from neoliberal psychopolitics and then stops to say, what lays beyond the subject is unknown.

Chapter 13: “Idiotism”

“The history of philosophy is a history of idiotisms. Socrates knows only that he does not know; he is an idiot. Likewise, Descartes — who casts doubt on everything — is an idiot”

A limited discussion of a second, perhaps complementary, escape — Deleuze’s conception of the Idiot.”

“As a heretic, the idiot represents a figure of resistance opposing the violence of consensus. The idiot preserves the magic of the outsider. Today, in light of increasingly coercive conformism, it is more urgent than ever to heighten heretical consciousness.”

ANTI-NETWORKS

Now, to introduce the concept of the anti-network. The anti-network and the digital panopticon Han speaks of are entangled. Multiplicities (in the Deleuzian sense) that are quite similar but different enough to justify their division. Anti-networks are the networks we create, join, or are forced into but do not engage in meaningfully or perhaps so meaningfully that they begin to remove meaning from elsewhere so we may focus on them. They are vampiric and suck data out. The vampire, who wishes to suck your data, cannot enter a cyber-spatiality until you invite the vampire inside. Your cellmate may let him in by forgetting to private her friend-list on Facebook. An even better way to resist vampires, do not produce data they wish to drink, attempting to satisfy their thirst for actionable insights, and avoid cyber-spatialities, disconnect from anti-networks to the extent possible.

Similar to the concept of the anti-library, produced from Umberto Eco’s work by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. An anti-library is a library of books one collects but does not read. The books can provoke inspiration and provide hope. Or, they can collect dust and not do much.We find ourselves registering for services or participating in cyber-spatiliaties that add nothing to our lives nor bring us fulfillment we could not find elsewhere.

These two plain-text arborescent diagrams that can be absolutely twisted, skinned, deep-fried, and turned outside in.

Anti-network / Network → Digital Panopticon → Cyber-spatiality → Cyber-space

Anti-network / Network → Unforgiving Refusal → Where does this take us?

Unforgiving refusal is unapologetically refusing to peacefully reside within the digital panopticon. Perhaps this is Deleuze’s Idiotism or Foucault’s experience. It is most certainly remaining annoyingly conscious of your position within the digital panopticon. Reminding others, forcing your future-self to type in absurd passwords and locate keyfiles, and hopefully be so successful in your attempts at unforgiving refusal, you eventually lose access to your machine’s drive entirely, achieving enlightenment.

WDTTU (Where does this take us?) is the “unwritten future” Han (and Deleuze) speaks of in the twelfth chapter. WDTTU is the anti-networker’s WWJD mantra.

“Cyber-space has its own spatiality, governed by the difficulty of getting from one place to another, just as in real space spatiality” (Hallo 2019).

The anti-network is perhaps, the halls, of the digital panopticon. Delete all your bookmarks and turn off auto-co. You are free to roam them and encouraged to do so, bringing forth transparency.

The cost of a nicotine addiction is simple mathematics. The price of vape juice or the cost of a cigarette pack, the frequency at which the addict indulges, health risks, and healthcare costs incurred are all accessible. The costs associated with an addiction to social media are not as simple. The difficulty of calculation is exponentially increased. “Your mileage will vary.” You smoke a cigarette by lighting one end and place the other end in your mouth, taking deep breathes. Social media, and our anti-networks, escape a simplistic biomedical narrative. There are many platforms, gamification on these platforms vary, and the content varies. Facebook contains everything from traditional Catholics ranting about Norvus Ordo and Pope Francis to trolls raiding livestreams, asking over and over, “When does the couch auction begin?” This explication of the complexity at hand cannot do it justice but hopefully illuminates the issue.

In The Garden of Forking Paths, the intelligence officer has captured the spy but is still on his tail. Another one of Borges’ tales to play around with the concepts of infinity, time, and labyrinths. His experiment in fiction can be meant to convince us that strands of time bifurcate (much like Deleuze’s rhizome).

“Absurd though the gesture was, I closed and locked the door.”

The feeling may arise when we are reminded, or when we first learn of, malicious actors, conscious and unconscious, human and inhuman, impersonal and personal, attempting to gain access to our activites and files. The Post-68' Left claims, the mesmerizing spectacle, wants to manipulate our will and decision-making.

In Psychopolitics and Theses on Algorithmic Accountability Fan’s editorial team wrote last month, a sense of absurdity in resistance is palpable. The Borges spy’s anxiety updated:

“Absurd though the gesture was, I closed [my tabs] and locked the [computer].”

Anything short of taking up residence in a cloistered monastery, surviving on locust with John the Baptist, or sipping ceremonial tea with Buddhist monks: you will likely remain a neoliberal project. What are you going to do to resist surveillance? Use a different username on every site, own thirty different emails, replace macOS or Windows with Linux, cover your webcam with duct-tape?

“While we may be able to pretend we are separate now, as we go into the future our interconnectedness is becoming undeniable.”

Hallo Saluton, in Exploring Cyber-Spatiality, predicts interconnectedness as undeniable. Interconnectedness does not have to be at odds with disconnection, or perhaps a reimagining of wu-wei that concedes nothing.We are not assigned consumer at birth nor prisoner of the psychopolitical digital panopticons or participants of anti-networks. Despite the world system of totalizing, forty-hour work week, neoliberal capitalism, we still exist in a world in flux, we possess the agency to limit our exposure. Encryption, false identities, etc remain possibilities.

Chapter Three of Gia-fu Fung’s translation of the Tao Te Ching:

Not exalting the gifted prevents quarreling.
Not collecting treasures prevents stealing.
Not seeing desirable things prevents confusion of the heart.
The wise therefore rule by emptying hearts and stuffing bellies, by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.
If men lack knowledge and desire, then clever people will not try to interfere.
If nothing is done, then all will be well.

The instruction of chapter three in the Tao Te Ching is useful for grasping the anti-network notion. “If nothing is done, then all will be well.” If you do not connect, then all will be well. “If men lack knowledge and desire, then clever people will not try to interfere.” If users lack connections and desire, then malicious actors are limited in their attempts to interfere.

In reaction to the bizarre state of affairs, a degree of paranoia is called for but ultimately distracts from fufillment of the stomach. Paranoia motivates one’s refusing to be encumbered by anti-networks and digital panotopica. Two options (misre)present themselves: live in fear or live little? Hopefully, paranoia can kill paranoia and wu-wei will be the result and the paranoia.

FOUR RELEVANT QUESTIONS

How does the ancient fear of the wrath of a divine differ from and resemble the newer fear of the panopticon and psychopolitical phenomenon?
How should other seemingly relevant Deleuzian concepts, such as nomadology, image(s) of thought, etc, factor into releasing oneself from anti-networks and analysis of digital societies of control?
How to go about locating and limiting (daringly, eliminating) anti-networks?
How to incorporate and promote the use of Eastern philosophy into efforts of resistance and ruthless kritik against hypercapital and psychopolitics?