🧵1/6 I have only recently started reading Byung-Chul Han, it seems I am late to the party, but his work beautifully and agonisingly unpacks how the 'achievement society' and the promised freedom for the neoliberal subject traps us in a self-regulating cycle of self-optimization. - ThreadSky

thomasrochow.bsky.social • 192 days ago

🧵1/6 I have only recently started reading Byung-Chul Han, it seems I am late to the party, but his work beautifully and agonisingly unpacks how the 'achievement society' and the promised freedom for the neoliberal subject traps us in a self-regulating cycle of self-optimization.

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thomasrochow.bsky.social•192 days ago

2/6 Han's (2017) concept of Psychopolitics deftly explores how the burgeoning self-improvement society, with endless psychological management workshops and motivational seminars, function as self-exploitation tools to keep us ever more productive and self-sufficient.

thomasrochow.bsky.social•192 days ago

3/6 Bound by the moral obligation of self-actualisation we no longer require the disciplinary regimes Foucault talked of, we are now ever more efficient through self-surveillance. The 'achievement society' teaches that anything other than the persistent growth of the self-brand is worthless.

thomasrochow.bsky.social•192 days ago

4/6 Our time should be consumed by self-optimization because we believe the individual psyche to be the omnipotent power. We continually look inward to maximise capacity and proficiency as constrained neoliberal subjects under the guise of freedom and exponential economic and social reward.

thomasrochow.bsky.social•192 days ago

5/6 Reading:

Han (2017) Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power

https://www.versobooks.com/products/226-psychopolitics?srsltid=AfmBOoqWOyHEniCURQH-B5-RrvxRQG26sh_IC_JnJdSU4soIUqu-sFFg

Alphin and Debrix (2023) Biopolitics in the ‘Psychic Realm’: Han, Foucault and neoliberal psychopolitics

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/01914537211033011?journalCode=pscb

thomasrochow.bsky.social•192 days ago

6/6 These concepts underpin my recent post in The Social Policy Blog:

Internalised Individualism: Young Jobseekers and the Psychologization of Labour Market Participation

https://socialpolicyblog.com/2024/10/16/internalised-individualism-young-jobseekers-and-the-psychologization-of-labour-market-participation/

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