Byung-Chul Han is a South Korean-born Swiss-German philosopher and cultural theorist. He was a professor at the Berlin University of the Arts and still occasionally gives courses there.
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To die is to wander.
If things are deprived of memory, they become information or commodities. They are pushed into a time-free, ahistorical place.
Stories on digital platforms like Facebook or Instagram are not genuine stories. They have no narrative duration. Rather, they are just sequences of momentary impressions that do not tell us anything.
Time begins to emit a scent when it gains duration; when it is given a narrative or deep tension; when it gains depth and breadth, even space.
If life is deprived of any meaningful closure, it will be ended in non-time.
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The eros-driven soul produces beautiful things, and, above all, beautiful actions, which have a universal value.
Today, to live means merely to produce.
There is no such thing as data-driven thinking.
An absolute power would be one that never becomes apparent, never pointed to itself, one that rather blended completely into what goes without saying. Power shines in its own absence.
Every religious practice is an exercise in attention. A temple is the highest degree of attention.
Thinking is more erotic than calculating.
When we resist impermanence, the self intensifies.
Power is not opposed to freedom. It is precisely freedom that distinguishes power from violence or coercion.
Money, as a matter of principle, makes everything the same.
Rituals are processes of embodiment and bodily performances. In them, the valid order and values of a community are physically experienced and solidified.