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For better or worse, language evolves. The Oxford English Dictionary added the word \u2018google\u2019 as a verb in 2006 \u2014 as in \u201cI googled it\u201d. Along with creating new words, our techno-centric way of life also changes the meaning of existing words. A \u2018friend\u2019 used to be a very close personal acquaintance. But these days, the term can also refer to a digital connection with a near stranger. Once positive and personal, friends in 2024 can also be distant and negative. Like google, friend can also be a verb \u2014 deployed in the imperative mood no less. Someone might issue \u201cfriend me\u201d as a command, the same way your mother once shouted: \u201cClean your room\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s no wonder the world feels less friendly by the day.<\/p>\n
Plenty more words are changing too. The social networking platform Instagram has a \u2018stories\u2019 feature. In their words, this allows \u201cyou to share everyday moments and grow closer to the people and interests you care about through photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours\u201d. On Instagram, stories are about \u2018moments\u2019. That is to say, an Instagram story is the exact opposite of an actual story, which once referred to the parts in-between otherwise isolated occurrences. For their part, disappearing photos also contradict the concept of a story \u2014which is meant to convey past happenings into the future.<\/p>\n
Distortions of language like this are examples of technology attacking culture. In his new book The Crisis of Narration, <\/em>philosopher Byung-Chul Han focuses on the ways culture and technology team up to destroy narratives. Notably, Han distinguishes the concepts of narratives and storytelling. While narratives are an \u201cexpression of the mood of time\u201d today\u2019s \u2018micro-narratives\u2019 \u2014 or stories \u2014 \u201clack gravity\u201d. There is a difference in both depth and breadth. Narratives \u201ccreate a community\u201d while storytelling \u201cbrings forth only a fleeting community \u2014 the commodified form of a community\u201d. Han\u2019s argument, and his terminology, is rooted in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who himself relied on Aristotle in coining the term \u2018bringing-forth\u2019 in his 1954 essay The Question Concerning Technology<\/em>. As Heideggerdefined it, bringing-forth is \u201cbringing [something] out of concealment into unconcealment\u201d. To Han, narratives bring-forth, while stories do not.<\/p>\n Han is not the first to worry about the decline of narratives or narration. As he notes, another contemporary of Heidegger, the twentieth century intellectual Walter Benjamin, shared similar preoccupations. In Benjamin\u2019s estimation, the kind of hyperactivity associated with people relocating to cities, the increased ease of traveling distances by railway and habitual ingestion of radio content displaced the contemplation essential to assembling coherent narratives. In short, he blamed the early twentieth century rise of capitalism and the \u201ccomplete ascendancy of the bourgeoisie\u201d. Han does not totally disagree, but rather than the end of the process he points to Benjamin\u2019s era as the starting gun in a race to the bottom that has accelerated in recent years. In our digital Information Age, the pre-existing modernist dilemma has been exacerbated further, prompting Han to characterize our current epoch as \u2018late-modernity\u2019.<\/p>\n For Han, information is the enemy of narratives. Information is momentary, its relevance\u00a0 exhausted as soon as we move on to the next piece of information. Today, Han writes: \u201cReality itself takes on the form of information and data.\u201d Though there are similarities between the modern and late-modern eras, there are also some key differences. Unlike modernists, we late-modernists \u201clack the spirit of departure\u201d and the \u201crevolutionary pathos of the new or of fresh beginnings\u201d.<\/p>\n Modernist thinkers rejected the Enlightenment concept of rationalism, but in doing so emphasized humans\u2019 ability to impact their environment, celebrating humanity\u2019s agency to change things.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n In contrast, in this late-modern era, we are at once unhappy with society while lacking the belief that there is anything we can do about it.<\/p>\n Analog issues<\/strong><\/p>\n As Han argues, we no longer narrate life because we do not have the \u201ccourage to create a world-changing narrative\u201d. Narratives have been replaced by storytelling, which has become \u201ca matter of commercialism and consumption\u201d. Distinct from the overt repression associated with 1930s modernity, our new \u201cinformation regime works not through repression but through seduction\u201d.<\/p>\n For Han, digital tools like social media platforms are not so much the problem themselves, as they make many problems much worse. Social media, he writes, is a \u201cmedia of information, not narration\u201d. Put another way, not only are Instagram stories not narratives but they are not stories either. They are simply information. \u201cFor digital platforms, data are more valuable than narratives,\u201d Han writes. And the ethos of these digital platforms is contrary to human interests. Han harkens back to another modernist, Sigmund Freud \u2014 who once argued that a primary function of consciousness was to protect one\u2019s self from external stimuli. But what happens when, as digital platforms do, stimuli attack at a pre-conscious level?<\/p>\n \u201cIn the modern age,\u201d Han writes, \u201cthe shock aspect of individual impressions has become so intensified that our consciousness is forced to be permanently active as a shield against stimuli.\u201d The human psyche necessarily evolves new methods to protect itself from external shocks. For one, we increasingly avoid experiences themselves. Second, even when we do have genuine experiences, we have trouble feeling them, because \u201cas the psychic apparatus gets used to the increased stimuli\u2026 the cortex of the brain where our defenses against stimuli are located becomes calloused\u201d. It is worth noting that, etymologically speaking, the word screen <\/em>(rooted in the German Schirm<\/em>) refers to a protective barrier. In the Information Age, screens are things that literally separate us from reality.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Polity Press has published 14 of Han\u2019s books in English in the past seven years. His previously best known text, The Burnout Society<\/em>, targeted the collective social malaise created by cultures of convenience and multitasking. It has been translated into dozens of languages. The Crisis of Narration <\/em>was published in German in 2023, and is available in English as of April. Han himself is an interesting if elusive character. Hailing from South Korea, he studied philosophy in Germany in the 1980s. As all his books attest, he took a liking to the aforementioned Heidegger, Benjamin and Freud, among others in the Germanic philosophical canon. Han still lives in Berlin and, from the looks of things, wears a cool black leather jacket and long ponytail everywhere he goes. His books are short and his writing aphoristic and thought-provoking, though he does not always justify his propositions with evidence.<\/p>\n Han rarely gives interviews, but The New Yorker<\/em> magazine profiled him earlier this year, labeling him \u201cthe internet\u2019s new favorite philosopher\u201d. For whatever reason, the magazine\u2019s resident tech writer, Kyle Chayka, completely missed the point of this book. In that article, Chayka criticizes Han for a failure to \u201cacknowledge that digital spaces can also produce meaningful experiences\u201d. To be clear, Han does not seem enamored with Snapchat or Tic-Toc, but his critique is not directed at digital technology itself but at the society building these new technologies. Walter Benjamin once published a book called One Way Street<\/em>, but interactions between culture and technology actually flow in at least two directions.<\/p>\n Cultural cause<\/strong><\/p>\n As Andrew Feenberg, another notable thinker in the philosophy of technology, puts it: the development of technology is guided by \u201csocial codes established by the cultural and political struggles that define the horizon under which the technology will fall\u201d.<\/p>\n New technological tools do alter culture, but culture also dictates the types of tools and technologies that are created. Furthermore, culture and politics set the rules for who gets to use those technologies and what for.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Technologies are alternately acceptable or abhorrent depending on context. Speaking on a mobile phone is fine, so long as it is not in the middle of the second act of Don Giovanni<\/em> at the National Theater. In the twenty-first century, it is generally acceptable to use a radioactive isotope for medical testing, somewhat acceptable to use one for generating electricity and unacceptable to use one in explosive devices that vaporize cities. Culture dictates where and when harnessing the power of a radioactive isotope is appropriate.<\/p>\n Contrary to Chayka\u2019s interpretation, Han is not so interested in whether or not \u201cdigital spaces\u201d are capable of generating meaningful experiences. He is saying that the cultural and economic conditions that animate the development of these platforms virtually guarantee that they are not. Every new device and platform that is created comes about via social activities and as such reflects social interests. Our digital devices are imbued with the flaws of the society around them, and their growing sophistication further distills society\u2019s inherent flaws. \u201cPosting, liking and sharing content are consumerist practices that intensify the narrative crisis,\u201d Han writes. But, importantly, they are not themselves the<\/em> crisis.<\/p>\n Writing an autobiography is a conscious act that demands reflection. No autobiography intends to be a complete replay of an individual life. Autobiographers contemplate their lives and decide what to include and omit in the narrative they share. Online platforms are different. Not only do they hope to capture everything about a person, but their main purpose is to collect information about pre-conscious behavior. They want data about people when they are not actively thinking \u2014 pure-libido, as Freud might say. They do so to \u201cscreen a person\u201d and \u201ccontrol their behavior at a pre-reflexive level,\u201d Han writes. This is the most effective method developed to date for getting people to purchase things they do not need and that they never knew they wanted. \u201cNarratives,\u201d as Han writes, \u201cnow mainly serve commercial interests.\u201d<\/p>\n This instrumentalization of narratives for profit alters the concept of narratives beyond recognition. And such developments are related-to, but not synonymous-with, digital technologies.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As Han notes, in an example unrelated to the Internet, the labeling of products as \u2018fair trade\u2019 serves to \u2018embellish\u2019 those products \u201cwith moral narratives\u201d. That label imparts a story, but that story does not intend to prompt contemplation. Rather, the intent is to sell something. In this embellished state, storytelling becomes \u2018storyselling\u2019 and one encounters any number of other similar examples in daily life. A favorite of mine is the word \u2018wellness\u2019 \u2014 which is little more than a method for commodifying a state of being (well) for sale in gym memberships, massages, spas or saunas. Are you well? If not, you can be for \u20ac50.<\/p>\n Narratives and stories are not exclusive to digital spaces. No matter the medium, in late-modern society they are primarily a means of commodification \u2014 a key feature of capitalism, the dominant cultural-economic system.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So far as this system generates coherent narratives of its own, those narratives fail to execute the essential community building role of narratives and instead \u201cdisintegrate into private narratives, models of self-realization\u201d. Unlike traditional narration, stories like these divide rather than bind communities together. Though not quite individual in scope, \u201cconservative and nationalist narratives\u201d also fit this pattern. The decline of contemplative narratives, made worse by consumption and the speed of digital communication, has left a vacuum. That space is being filled with \u201cexclusionary and discriminatory\u201d storytelling. \u201cPopulist, nationalist or tribal narratives, including conspiracy theories\u2026 offer meaning and identity,\u201d Han writes, even as they \u201cdo not have any strong binding force\u201d.<\/p>\n As Han puts it, \u201cnarration and advertisement\u201d have become \u2018indistinguishable\u2019 to most people. In the culture of late-modernity, the stories we listen to or tell ourselves target our pre-conscious instincts so that we buy something \u2014 a new laptop computer, some fancy sneakers or a rogue political candidate. \u201cBecause we lack sufficiently strong communal narratives, our late modern societies are unstable,\u201d Han writes. \u201cWithout a shared narrative, the political, which makes shared action possible, cannot properly form.\u201d In the end, our inability to tell contemplative stories that connect past and present is limiting what might be accomplished in the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Crisis of Narration\n
\n
\n
\n
\nByung-Chul Han
\nPolity Press, 2024
\n76 pages
\nBy Benjamin Cunningham<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,143,90,105],"class_list":["post-9885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nezarazene","tag-central-europe-reloaded","tag-culture","tag-social-media","tag-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9885"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10841,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9885\/revisions\/10841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}