Tag: Philosophy

Byung-Chul Han

The French philosopher Gilles Deleuze once said: “There is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons.”

‘Weapons’ may give us the wrong associations, but what he refers to are concepts that, like a brick, can be used to destroy what is hindering the growth of our lives, and at the same time, help us build or create something sustainable.

The Burnout Society

The Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han’s work can be seen a toolbox aimed at helping us understand our contemporary society, while also presenting us with concrete ideas, thoughts or ‘weapons’ that might help us overcome or resist our own weak desires and vanities.

Han was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1959. He studied metallurgy in Korea before moving to Germany in his early twenties to study philosophy, German and theology. Today, Han is a professor at the University der Künste in Berlin. His initial fame sprang up with the publication of his book Müdigkeitsgesellschaft (2010), which, directly translated, means ‘the fatigue society.’ In English, this was cleverly translated to The Burnout Society (2015).

Han’s thesis is that today’s neoliberalism has made politics psychological or mental. The logic of neoliberalism has invaded our minds. It’s our ability to be present in our lives, to think and to love that is threatened by this invasion. Neoliberalism—for many, at least—has become an uninvited guest that refuses to leave our minds.

Han declares, in all of his work, that we have become narcissistic. For this reason, it’s time for citizens to care more about society’s welfare than their own egos. “Responsibility for the community defines citizens. Consumers lack responsibility, above all,” Han writes in his 2018 book, In the Swarm: Digital Prospects. The result of this narcissistic development is well-known: stress, burnout and depression. “Depression is a narcissistic malady,” Han states in The Agony of Eros (2017).

Eros or love is the only thing that may conquer our contemporary depression. As Han writes, “Depression represents the impossibility of love.”

Experiencing sublime beauty hurts

Still, it’s difficult to love, because we are not really free. It’s not just that society pressures us to fit in, perform faster and achieve more, but rather that we ourselves want this. We try to appear as positive, smooth and shiny in public as possible, as if our lives are all made up of ‘good vibes.’

In 2017’s Saving beauty, Han writes: “The smooth is the signature of the present time.” This kind of smoothness, he continues, “connects the sculptures of Jeff Koons, iPhones and Brazilian waxing.”

Today, smoothness and waxed bodies, quite sadly, are seen as the same thing as beauty. The morale behind this is clear: Smooth, smoother, smoothest = good, better, best. All that is strange, secret, or negative—in other words, all that passes through our thoughts—disappears, due to the ongoing repetition of sameness.

We lack a critical yet creative and life-affirming approach to overcoming this confinement. When we avoid the negative, the difficult and the painful, we amputate life. Our lives tend to circle around ourselves, making the circle smaller and smaller as we Google ourselves into unconsciousness.

To contrast this shallow development, Han turns to the writings of Plato, Kant, Hegel and Heidegger, in which there is no distinction between beauty and the sublime. Experiencing sublime beauty is not supposed to be pleasurable; rather, it hurts. It makes you fall and stumble. It is similar to falling in love, because you can lose yourself and act rather stupid.

“The sight of beauty does not cause pleasure, but shocks,” Han stresses in Saving beauty. It’s the matter of experiencing our own fragility that contemporary society minimizes. Art can shake us, make us see the world differently and help us perceive our own limitedness and flaws. “The longing for beauty,” Han says, “is ultimately the longing for a different mode of being, for another, altogether non-violent form of life.”

The strength of Han’s analysis lies in how he uses two guiding concepts in all his books: freedom and power. They both encapsulate the problem with contemporary society and can also open us up to alternative ways of living our lives.

Truth is freedom

Freedom is both a problem and a possibility. It is becoming, emphasizing that we become by combining courage to stand up against dominating ideals and norms with the belief that things could be different. Freedom is found in becoming whatever disobeying those ideals enables us to become. Real freedom is socially anchored, and as Han says in Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (2017): “Freedom is a synonym for the community that succeeds.”

By making freedom social, he tries to relate it with truth. Perhaps this is where Han shows how courageous he is, by reintroducing the problematic concept of truth in philosophy. In Saving beauty, he speaks about the need to save beauty. Why? Because, as he writes: “Beauty promises freedom and reconciliation,” and “truth is freedom.”

In other words, a world of smoothness is false. It’s a world of ‘post-truth.’ For Han, the beautiful is both true and good; it’s almost as though the Korean philosopher is turning Platonic. And he is—at least in the way that the French philosopher Alain Badiou is Platonic.

In both Saving beauty and The Agony of Eros, Han ends up advocating for Badiou’s idea that the task of philosophy is to be loyal or faithful towards whatever binds us together (what is true, in other words). Han distinguishes himself from Badiou when he more practically shows why or how we can show fidelity to what really takes place in our lives.

Fidelity is unconditional in that it presupposes commitment and awareness. That means we should try to become capable of matching all parts of life, instead of just doing so when life is pleasurable and smooth.

“The saving of beauty is the saving of that which commits us.” This loyal commitment or involvement is related to the kind of awareness that mindfulness cultivates, as a non-judgmental and kind approach to what is happening now and here.

Without humour, no freedom. Without freedom, no love.

Han also uses his Eastern roots in his philosophical thinking. Back in 2002, when he was still an unknown, he published a book called The Philosophy of Zen-Buddhism.

In this book, he illustrates that the Buddhist concept of ‘nothingness’—as the absence of an exclusive subjectivity—is what makes Buddhism pacifistic and non-violent, because there is no essence where power can be concentrated. Also, the concept of ‘emptiness’ is the reason why narcissism is something very un-Buddhist. There is no unchangeable ‘me’ in the mirror; rather, I am being formed by life.

The Korean thinker also illustrates that humour is something that links Western and Eastern philosophy. Nietzsche, for example, claimed that laughing was an expression of freedom. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said that “freedom is the element of love,” so it follows that without humour, there’s no freedom, and without freedom, there’s no love. Or to put it differently, it’s difficult to love people who never laugh, or take themselves too seriously.

In Buddhism, Han writes, there is no miracle, only hard daily work: Letting go of the past and not transcending or dreaming of a world beyond this one. He compares Buddhism with walking. Walking has no future, as you’re always in the midst of walking. To die means to walk, he says, emphasizing that we are always dying. Similarly, Michel de Montaigne said that to philosophize is to die.

‘Dying’ means always walking, philosophizing, exploring and experimenting with life, not as a way of meeting a specific objective, but as a way of being grounded in the here and now. Western and Eastern philosophy, I believe, share this humble approach to life. We never philosophize or meditate to conquer the world, but to praise its beauty.

Listening as an art of breathing

Many Eastern ideas are reflected in Han’s suggestions for how to overcome today’s stress, burnout, exhaustion and ever-growing narcissism. For instance, in The Burnout Society, he encourages us to stop, sit down and take a break. Philosophy is here defined as ‘an intervening time,’ ‘a time of ‘non-doing,’ ‘a peace time,’ as he calls it.

The concept of ‘non-doing’ resembles elements of Buddhism and mindfulness in that it stresses that we don’t need to be doing things constantly, Rather, non-doing allows things to unfold at their own pace.

Similarly, in The Transparency Society (2015), Han proposes that although we are forced or coerced into participating in an ongoing style of positive communication—declaring, “I like,” over and over, again and again—we don’t have to like everything. It’s not more communication that is needed, but creative or alternative approaches to living a richer life. To be creative, a person needs to stop and allow themselves to be formed or touched by what is happening as it happens, in the here and now, without judging it according to some predefined ideal.

A last example is provided in Psychopolitics, in which Han he reawakens the ‘philosophical idiot’ as a way out of today’s malady. The idiot doesn’t belong to a specific network or alliances, so he or she is free to choose. The idiot doesn’t communicate; instead, he or she facilitates a space of silence and loneliness, where they only say what deserves to be said. The idiot listens, as a generous way of stepping aside to give room to the others.

“The art of listening takes place as an art of breathing,” Han writes in The Expulsion of the Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today (2018).

For non-philosophers alike

Han’s work is accessible for non-philosophers, and is a good guide to understanding and navigating oneself through today’s demanding, achievement-based society. He encourages us to Relax. Do nothing. Become no one. See time as something peaceful.

Time passes, whether we want it or not. Then it returns and changes everything. Let go. Listen. Embrace moments of non-communication. And breathe.

Rethinking Ethics in Psychology

Ethics is always about values. In psychology, as in most professions, students are often taught to approach ethics through three frameworks: 

  1. Virtue ethics (What kind of person should I be?)
  2. Deontology (What duties must I follow?)
  3. Utilitarianism (What outcome will maximize the good?)

Each offers a way of defining “the good.” These approaches remain useful, helping psychologists clarify responsibilities, make difficult decisions, and justify their reasoning. Yet each framework risks being used as a strategic, rhetorical tool to back a predetermined position. The same action can be rationalized as duty, optimal outcome, or virtue, shifting the focus from genuine ethics to self-justification. 

What if we made attention—the genuine act of perceiving and staying present in situations—the starting point of ethics, rather than rules or outcomes?

Ethics as Attention

The philosopher Simone Weil wrote, “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” For Weil, paying attention is already an ethical act. It means suspending assumptions long enough to notice what is truly happening. This matters as much in the consulting room as in the classroom. 

A psychologist who pays close attention can tell when silence means something, when irritation masks fear, or when something important goes unsaid. No code of ethics tells you how to respond in these moments. Paying attention is the ethical act. In contrast, when we rely too heavily on abstract frameworks, we risk skipping over this important stage of perception. We rush to categorize, justify, or resolve. Ethics then becomes about defending an action rather than sensing what a situation is calling for. 

To clarify the distinction: morality is about judgment—applying universal principles consistently. Ethics, as I am proposing, focuses on responsiveness—actively perceiving a specific situation and considering how best to respond. Morality asks, “What should I do in general?” Ethics asks, “What is happening here, and how can I respond now?” This shift seems small, but it is significant. Morality gives answers and often shuts down possibilities. Ethics, as attention, keeps things open and starts with not knowing. Psychologists need this, because much of their work happens in situations without easy answers.

The Problem of Comparison

Professional psychology education often focuses on outcomes and comparisons: Who has the most clients? Whose intervention is “evidence-based”? Who secures the most funding? Accountability matters, but this culture of comparison can narrow our focus. We start to value what is visible, measurable, and ranked. This comes at the expense of the subtler textures of human life. In therapy, this pressure can lead clinicians to measure “progress” only by symptom checklists. They may miss the more fragile forms of growth—such as trust, presence, and shared silence—that defy easy measurement. When ethics becomes only compliance or output, it grows too thin. It cannot handle the complexity of real psychological life.

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Small Practices of Ethical Attention

What might it look like to cultivate ethics as attention in psychology? Here are some simple practices:

  • Reflective journaling: After sessions, clinicians can note what was said, what they felt, what they avoided, or what unsettled them. Attention grows by noticing what escapes immediate explanation.
  • Naming subtle ruptures: Instead of ignoring the slight withdrawal of a client or the tension in a supervision meeting, name it gently: “I noticed some silence after I said that—what was it like for you?”
  • Suspending judgment: Rather than deciding too quickly what a behavior “means,” stay with the ambiguity: “Something feels important here, but I’m not sure yet what it is.”

These are not alternatives to ethical codes. They are complements. Codes set the minimum. Attention sustains the depth.

Becoming Present

For psychologists, ethics means more than preventing harm or avoiding misconduct. It means being present with the people and situations you face. It means noticing when something matters, even if no rule was broken. 

Ethics is about more than compliance; it is about who we are becoming. It challenges us to ask not just “What should I do?” but “Who am I becoming through my actions?”

The Myth of Instant Knowledge

For decades, economics has been about distributing scarce resources: first labor, then knowledge—both could be capitalized and turned into value. But what happens when knowledge is no longer scarce? When artificial intelligence, with a single click, offers answers to almost anything?

We are standing at the threshold of a new era—one that challenges not just the foundations of economics but also the role of time, creativity, and humanity itself. If everything can be answered instantly, what happens to the questions that require time, depth, and reflection?

AI is often celebrated as a catalyst for creativity and innovation. But in psyhotherapy, I frequently witness the opposite: clients losing touch with the patience and vulnerability required to think clearly, to heal, and to change. Even though AI may make us more knowledgeable, it does not make us wiser.

Instead, it amplifies the illusion of control and distances us from our very humanness, our vulnerability—that same vulnerability that reminds us of our mortality and opens the door to wisdom. Wisdom is born of experience, missteps, and the time it takes for insight to mature. It cannot be rushed—only lived and felt.

Ironically, artificial intelligence reveals an ancient truth: All intelligence is, in some sense, artificially crafted, shaped, and directed. Intelligence is not something we possess, but something we participate in. It’s not a static ability, but a dynamic process that unfolds through time, attention, and experience.

So, what can AI do, and what does it do to us?

AI can expand our horizons, but also reduce us to what the algorithm permits. Social media promises connection but often breeds division. It promises community, yet isolates us in echo chambers. Algorithms reflect our habits and emotions, reinforcing what we already know and closing us off to the unknown, the foreign, and the different.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this habitus—the invisible structures that govern our dispositions and everyday choices. Algorithms intensify this mechanism, locking us deeper into our own patterns. When data takes over our emotions, we risk losing the freedom to think anew, feel differently, and act otherwise.

Here, philosophy offers an alternative: a poetic form of thinking that disrupts the obvious. Originally bound to poetry, philosophy generates the new. As Friedrich Nietzsche reminds us, the self is not a fixed core but an interpretation in constant motion. The poetic lies in the courage to challenge, in doubt, in the unexpected.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that therapy is a poetic practice—a sharing of what is not shared. Therapy, much like democracy, lives through difference, conflict, and creativity. But algorithms often reduce this beautiful complexity to predictability and profit. They undermine democracy (and mental health) not just by stripping us of the ability to reflect and choose but also by eroding the habits that once nurtured our freedom to doubt.

One of the greatest threats AI poses is not just its speed but also the loss of time that questions need to ripen.

British social psychologist Graham Wallas once described the stages of creativity: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. The second stage—incubation—is when a question or problem rests quietly in the dark. It grows beneath the surface unconsciously. But we live in a culture where everything must happen now, and patience has vanished.

AI gives us answers but doesn’t teach us to ask better questions, to live with uncertainty, or to trust the unknown. As a teacher, I see how students grow accustomed to every problem being solvable with a click. They’ve forgotten how to let a question simmer, to sit with doubt. More than once, I’ve seen students become paralyzed by uncertainty. For them, frustration is no longer a creative force but an unbearable discomfort.

Philosophy doesn’t aim to simplify or remove life’s complexity—it asks us to embrace it. It’s about learning from encounters with the unknown and the other. It’s about discovering wisdom in the courage to stand exposed, open, and vulnerable.

What Western philosophy has always sought to protect—like a newborn—is freedom. Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her  Ethics of Ambiguity: “Freedom is the source from which all meaning and value spring.” This freedom is the foundation of both love and creativity. Only free people can love. Only free people can resist AI’s directives, because they can imagine another answer.

Philosophy interrupts the habits that keep us locked in the status quo—and opens us to life’s chaos, richness, and plurality. Where algorithms create surfaces, poetry weaves connections. Philosophy is a poetic force transforming our way of being—how we think, feel, and act.

In the face of algorithmic control, we lack more efficiency and resistance. The ability to resist the ideals that govern us is crucial. Algorithms may shape our habits and predict our choices, but they prevent us from transforming ourselves and inventing new ways of living.

Philosophy does not advocate for a life without error or a world without friction. It insists on freedom to imagine, love, and grow. A society without freedom cannot love. So we must ask: Do algorithms use love as control or inspiration?

Philosophy is not a solution. It is a practice—a counterweight to algorithmic streamlining. It reminds us that what makes us human is not speed or efficiency but the ability to fail, doubt, and recreate ourselves—the ability to love despite everything.

How do we become worthy of what happens, especially when what happens is often… nothing?

And yet, before the silence of the end, we experience love and loss, the uncertainty of choice, and the fear of the unknown. We experience grief and joy, bodily sensations we will never fully understand unless we learn to trust our own judgment.

Who needs a step counter, a sleep tracker, or a heart rate monitor—if they’ve lost touch with themselves?

AI may know everything. But it will never understand death—and its silence. Love—and its radiant joy of living. That’s why we must remember: Intelligence without wisdom isn’t human. It’s only artificial.

And if we forget this, we risk losing what makes us human: the experience of being alive.

This reflections was first publihsed in Psychology Today.

References:

Janning, Finn (2025) “Poetic Philosophy and the Moralization of Social Networks,”Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 4: Iss. 1, Article 2.

Poetic Philosophy vs Algorithmic Constraints

AI shapes how we experience the world—but does it help us become more? My latest paper explores how poetic philosophy can counteract the algorithmic constraints of social media, fostering creativity, connection, and freedom. Instead of more regulation, what if we embraced difference and unpredictability?

Read more here

All I Want for Christmas Is …

Yes, Santa Claus exists, though perhaps not in the way many might initially think. The word “illusion” need not be understood as something false or deceitful. Rather, I propose that illusions are not false but instead possess a reality within their influence.

Allow me to clarify. I do not believe the world is a fixed, given entity. Nor do I believe in unchangeable certainties, aside from the inevitable reality of death. I challenge the reduction of empiricism to only what can be observed, weighed, or measured—to objects like chairs or tables, or distances calculated between them. Instead, I align with the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who argued that what we call “empirical” encompasses not only physical entities but also subjective phenomena: thoughts, hallucinations, or images. In this sense, illusions operate as forces within the real, enhancing and enriching our world.

Consider this perspective: Harry Potter, Santa Claus, unicorns, or flying dragons exist. Their existence is not confined to their physical presence but is affirmed by their capacity to shape understanding and evoke imagination. Harry Potter is as real as black holes. Or take money—a seemingly mundane piece of paper or a digital figure in your bank account. It derives its power from belief. I can exchange a five-Euro note for six beers or three roses because society collectively agrees upon its value. In this way, money is as real as Santa Claus. For many children, writing a letter to Santa Claus or waking to find gifts under the tree validates his presence. By participating in these rituals, parents indirectly confirm his existence.

The question of whether the world is an illusion taps into metaphysical considerations—a metaphysics of being versus one of becoming. As philosopher Karl Popper suggested, metaphysical questions cannot be conclusively proven. Instead, they are answered in ways that are more or less convincing, based on experience—an experience that can include illusions or hallucinations as valid phenomena.

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Practically speaking, our metaphysical stance has consequences. A rigid belief in a fixed, predetermined world often fosters a binary mindset: true versus false, right versus wrong. This rigidity may contribute to the divisive tendencies we observe in identity politics, moral exclusivity, and ideological fanaticism.

In contrast, a metaphysics of becoming is more dynamic and humble. It recognizes that potential, movement, hallucinations, and illusions are integral to shaping reality. They actualize possibilities, offering new ways to see and understand the world. Illusions, in this framework, are as impactful as science in driving change and innovation. For example, envisioning a flying car or a utopian society begins with imagining the seemingly impossible.

If life cannot be fully owned or grasped—as I believe—then our task is to create space for that which enriches and animates existence. Illusions, then, are not distractions or deceptions. They are vital forces that compel us to question, explore, and expand what is real.

So, when Mariah Carey sings, “Santa, won’t you bring me the one I really need?”she touches on something profound. It’s not merely a plea for love; it’s an invocation of the transformative power of belief. Santa Claus, like love, hope, and imagination, is as real as we allow him to be. He exists not in the fixed world of objects but in the dynamic realm of possibilities. Through such illusions, we shape our world and make it brighter, fuller, and richer.

First published in Psychology Today

Stress as a Status Symbol

It’s said that time is cyclical, repeating patterns like the annual arrival of summer—though each summer is different. When I read about a young politician who succumbed to stress, this cyclical principle came to mind. The cyclical nature of time, with its recurring patterns, can be seen in the way stress has been a societal issue for nearly two decades, with cases similar to the young politician’s emerging 10–15 years ago.

Historically, stress was primarily associated with society’s most vulnerable groups—those with low incomes, the unemployed, the less educated, and the ill. However, according to media portrayals today, stress has shifted to more privileged groups. The vulnerable are still stressed, but for different reasons: they struggle for survival, while many privileged individuals experience stress and anxiety, due to competition for status, power, and prestige.

This explosion of stress among the privileged coincides with the proliferation of self-help and anti-self-help books, both of which primarily target the more affluent. This has led to a new phenomenon: Stress survivors are now celebrated as modern heroes…

… The question is about why stress persists and what our stress narratives say about society. To explore this, we can turn to Aristotle’s ethical framework and Iris Murdoch’s concept of “unselfing.”

Read the rest in Psychology Today.

To exist is to play

The writer and philosopher Albert Camus was known for his existentialist essays, novels, and love of football. Every intellectually curious football fan is probably grateful for this. I know I am. In this essay, I argue that Camus’s love for football corresponds to his existentialist love for living joyfully and free.

In his unfinished autobiographical novel The First Man, Camus writes about how the protagonist overcame his shame of wearing old clothes in the classroom and “on the playground, where football was his kingdom. But that kingdom was prohibited because the playground was made of cement, and soles would be worn out so quickly that his grandmother had forbidden Jacques to play football.” 

Of course, Camus played – even if the punishment meted out by his grandmother’s ox whip was harsh. He was driven by a hungry love of life; as the protagonist says: “I’ve loved life, I’m hungry for it. At the same time, life seems horrible to me; it seems inaccessible. That is why I am a believer, out of skepticism. Yes, I want to believe; I want to live forever.”

Camus’s hunger for life was based primarily on his love for his mother, but also on the simpler joys of life, such as football. It is natural to ask: What is the relationship between the game of football, love for life, and philosophy? Camus himself pointed out – in an article dealing with his younger years as a goalkeeper for the club Racing Universitaire d’Alger (RUA) – that “what I know most surely in the long run about morality and obligations, I owe to football.”

To some, this may sound too romantic, even blasphemous, as it may seem that linking sports – in this case, football – and philosophy is like mixing oil and water. For example, the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges commented, “Football is popular because stupidity is popular.” If this statement is compared with Camus’s, it is tempting to ask whether football is both educational and stupid. My answer is no, although I agree with Borges that stupidity is widespread. Stupidity can be found everywhere, including in football, but football is also much more than a game. For example, football might be a place to learn important truths such as that freedom is a crucial element of love.

Read the rest of the essay at Daily Philosophy

Life is not personal

What if life is impersonal?

In the book The Identity Trap, political scientist Yascha Mounk argues how some ideas (or his interpretations hereof) are causing new forms of polarization, separatism, control, and even repression.

The identity trap, according to Mounk, refers to those people and institutions that prioritize identity over universalism–especially when specific identity categories like race, gender, and sexual orientation are favored. 

The book is filled with illustrative examples from the US of “progressive separatism” and “strategic essentials”, claiming to be for equality while not treating all people as equals.

Yet, some of Mounk’s claims regarding the cause of the emergence of identity politics require a comment.

Foucault & Deleuze

For example, Mounk writes: “Many postcolonial scholars were especially aghast when Foucault, in his exchange with Deleuze, argued that the oppressed do not need intellectuals to speak on their behalf.”

Mounk refers to the French philosophers Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, who in 1972 discussed the struggles of women, homosexuals, and prisoners, as well as the relationship between theory, practice, and power.

In their conversation, they try to break away from the idea that the intellectual “spoke the truth to those who had yet to see it, in the name of those who were forbidden to speak the truth,” as Foucault says. Instead of claiming to speak the truth or have privileged access to it as intellectuals, Foucault and Deleuze discuss “the necessity” for individuals “to speak for themselves.” In continuation, Deleuze stresses: “Who speaks and acts? It is always a multiplicity, even within the person who speaks and acts… Representation no longer exists.”

Representation no longer exists, how should this postulate be understood?

First, each human being is never one fixed being or belongs to one identity group but is a multiplicity. Therefore, a focus on identity that is too rigid is a trap because it imprisons thought. In continuation, no one can speak on behalf of a person or a group because each person or group already is a multiplicity; or, if you should speak on behalf, you speak in several voices, precisely what identity-based politics rarely master, for example, due to strategic essentialism.

In his philosophy, Deleuze operates with an ontology of difference and repetition, where identity manifests after encounters. Deleuze would find it imprisoning to want a particular identity–that is, to restrict thinking to essential forms of being, whether referring to races, ethnicities, sexualities, etc. Thus, he, too, would be against the identity trap, although with different arguments.

To become with life

For example, part of the current focus on identity is trying to undermine the old dominant social order, or what Deleuze and Guattari would call the majority of being “white, male, adult, ‘rational,’ etc.; in short, the average European, the subject of enunciation.” Still, Deleuze and Guattari don’t tear down a dominant system by changing one ideal or one dominating identity with another. The problem is not that it is a man who is white, etc., but that a specific identity is favored over another, that some forms of life are worth more than others. Mounk addresses this problem and shows how the US, in several contexts, favors non-whites, i.e., discriminates. (He gives examples of the distribution of COVID-19 medicine, access to some schools, and certain groups having access to startup help). 

The problem, however, is not male versus female or black versus white, according to Deleuze and Guitar, because everyone should be equally treated, just as there ought to be room for all life forms. The problem is that we think and add authority to specific identities. Add authority to particular identities. Therefore, they suggest becoming imperceptible and impersonal–or simply forgetting about all these identity markers that become a prison. The current urge to seek an identity hinders people’s capacity to think for themselves. Hindering people to become with life.

For Deleuze, what is strange and unfamiliar makes a person think. For example, in the 1970s, Deleuze was active in the early French gay rights movement. He was a member of the group FHAR (Front Homosexuel d’action Révolutionnaire). For some, it might appear strange that a husband and father of two would care for other people’s rights, but why? Due to empathy, imagination, and selflessness, connecting with people different from yourself is possible. For example, you can fight for education even if you have no children or health care, even if you are not sick. This is trivial, yet for some, unfortunately, it is not due to selfishness or progressive separatism (nationalism is an example).

Another argument in favor of Deleuze is that his philosophy moves away from a philosophy of being towards one of becoming. Yet, becoming is not about the point from which something originates or the point at which it arrives. With this, Deleuze would agree with Mounk’s critique against “strategic essentialism” and “progressive separatism.”

Identities are fiction

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and the psychoanalyst Félix Guattari write: “A becoming is always in the middle; one can only get it by the middle.” Becoming, therefore, does not represent an ideal, a norm, or a reference point. On the contrary, becoming produces new ways of living, sensibilities, and relating to things such as race, gender, or sexuality where everything intersects. No race or sexuality is prioritized for another.

To emphasize the strength of the concept of becoming, they write “becoming-imperceptible.”

The writer Chris Kraus quotes Deleuze for the sentence: “Life is not personal,” in her book, I Love Dick. That idea is incredibly liberating, which Kraus’ work illustrates because the individual life isn’t just about itself; there is always room for becoming someone else.

To put it more simply, identities are fiction.

Using Iris Murdoch’s concept, contemporary society needs a little dose of “unselfing” to improve the world. “Unselfing” means I turn my attention outward, away from myself and onto the world. As a result, I will see things as they really are and not through the lens of my selfish concerns. Unfortunately, this is difficult because many people’s vision is colored by their concern and interest, Murdoch calls it the “fat relentless ego” in The Sovereignty of Good.

The best way to avoid the identity traps is to prevent craving for one.

Is this the right way?

Late one August evening in a small provincial town, a woman steps out her front door. In her hand, she holds a slim leather briefcase, probably containing a laptop. When she steps down from the small landing in front of the door, a mild breeze fills the air, gently tousling her long blond tresses. She tries to pull her hair back behind her ears without any luck. From the back pocket of her jeans she pulls out a bandeau and ties those unruly locks into a simple ponytail. Now, with no hair interrupting her vision, she looks first to the right and then to the left before turning around to lock the door behind her. After checking twice that the door really is locked, she rotates to face the street for the second time. 

This time she looks to the left first. Actually, at this point, her whole body shifts as she evaluates the possibility of going in that direction. 

Is this the right way? 

Read the rest of the essay in Terse Journal.

Philosophy as fiction

“For me, philosophy is a way of living and not an academic discipline that requires you to swallow a certain amount of information to pass. Most great novelists are philosophers. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said that literature in order to become philosophy must become fiction. I like that. It also shows that the distinction between philosophy and literature is rather new—perhaps stemming from Kant—but does it matter if Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, and all the others are classified as philosophers or writers?”

Read the rest of the interview in Under the Gum Tree.

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