Week 15: The Burnout Society

Byung-Chul Han’s writings, especially the sections on “Vita Activa” and “The Burnout Society” are bleak descriptions of how modern-day society and the world have evolved into something that no longer cares about achieving a happy life, but is rather achievement and efficiency based. Han describes how life has become bare and resembles something of an undead life. He states that people have become, “..too alive to die, and too dead to live” (Han, 6).

While I agree that today’s world has become very fast-paced I argue that modern commodities have also brought many good things into the world. For example, advancements in medicine have evolved to save millions of lives, and everyday tech like cell phones allows us to keep in contact with loved ones even from the other side of the world. I believe that the outcome of your life is what you make of it. Because if you view the world as nothing but negative, then your life will also be nothing but negative. I’m not excusing the fact that there is a large amount of evil out there, but in order to reduce it we’d have to do the opposite in our everyday lives (i.e. reduce, reuse, recycle, and treat everyone with kindness).