Abstract
Performance servitude will be analysed in this contribution as the consequence of a performance society (Leistungsgesellschaft), as analysed in the work of Byung-Chul Han (2015). As a means of addressing this problem I will propose a reintroduction of N.P. Van Wyk Louw’s notion of the cultured person (kultuurmens). According to Han, performance culture is embedded in what he calls psychopolitics, which in turn is the result of a development stemming from biopolitics as analysed by Foucault (1998). In order to comprehend the phenomenon of psychopolitics, one must understand how it sprang from biopolitics. During the Middle Ages, punishment consisted of instilling a fear of death by means of punishing the body. Biopolitics reacted to this form of punishment by rather regulating the body, disciplining it, thereby correcting its mistakes. With Bentham’s famous panopticon an architecture was provided from which surveillance of discipline takes place. Detailed regulation is observable in this form of punishment, which forms not only the basis of modern imprisonment, but also of administrating production in the factory and workplace. Regulation leads to the overstimulation of certain drives in the form of specialisation that tends to lead to the repression of other drives. Repression forms the core psychological problem in this paradigm. Psychopolitics is then the next step of development, whereby a shift from the regulation of the body to a stimulation of our consciousness takes place, not by means of discipline, as was the case with biopolitics, but by providing encouragement to keep consuming and to keep producing or performing. Critical Theory has identified the emergence of psychopolitics early on with the critique on the so-called culture industry. As will become clear later, this critique is valid on the one hand, but ceases to acknowledge the importance of culture, and that culture and the culture industry are not synonymous.
The encouragement of performance is described in terms of positivity, referring to attitude as well as positive or tangible output, measurable feedback. Feedback has become such an important resource, that Han rightly warns of an infocracy, a state in which other forms of interaction that do not comply with the way information circulates are rejected. The infocracy operates by means of a willing subjection to surveillance of our work and private lives.
The popular notion of technology serving as prosthesis is rejected in favour of McLuhan’s idea that technology should be considered as augmentation, in other words becoming extensions and more perfect versions of our perfect idea of ourselves. What really happens, according to McLuhan, is that we become more machine-like, and run the risk of sacrificing much of our interactive abilities ironically through communicating by means of information feedback. The result of the speed required to keep up with this feedback and oversaturation of our drives is exhaustion and burnout, the psychological by-product of our times. Extreme loneliness seems to characterise the time of networks. These factors are indications of the need for the cultivation of alternatives.
In answer to this I make use of Louw’s analysis of the cultured person (kultuurmens). The cultured person is one who already understands his existence as not merely social, but more specifically mediated by culture and tradition. The attitude towards tradition is important. On the one hand, a complete rejection of tradition, what Louw calls living outside tradition, is to be avoided. Within this paradigm, popular media and celebrities quickly fill the gaps left open by the rejection of tradition. Enzensberger’s notion of the consciousness industry provides in my estimation a more accurate depiction of this paradigm than Critical Theory’s culture industry, because it targets and isolates the human consciousness by providing fleeting forms of stimulation. Four larger causes that lead up to the establishment of the consciousness industry are identified by Enzensberger: secularisation, human rights that give people a false sense of importance, mass production that brings more consumers into the market, and lastly the speed of electronic communication. Even if these factors are not negative per se, they need to be critically evaluated and supplemented or rather embedded within a broad perspective of culture and tradition.
On the other side of the spectrum, living inside tradition refers to an uncritical stance towards tradition, meaning no alteration can be made to mistakes. Furthermore, the great thinkers were all people of their times, able to adapt their thinking to suit the needs of the times. Louw sees another possibility for the cultured individual, namely to live from tradition, by which he means that someone will respect their sources, but maintain a critical eye, reading it through the context of the present and the future. The past, present and future have equal standing for Louw, a balance that the cultured person will respect and will be able to incorporate. Such a person will be able to measure his/her words and deeds against the great ones of the past, not by the indicators provided by his/her job or by what is suggested online. He/she will not be easily manipulated by others to form part of an uncritical mass that is stuck in the present or the past.
The last section brings Louw’s idea of the open discourse (oop gesprek) into contact with Gadamer’s notion of Takt, a term that designates the tangible, the tactful and the rhythmic nature of human interactions. The tangible refers to the unsaid as well as what is said, the tactful refers to giving a direction to the conversation, and thirdly a sense for the musicality of interaction is developed.
In closing, the thrownness of our being, alongside others, in tangible, human relations is once again put on the foreground as a focus point against the online profile as a near perfect version of ourselves. This does not weaken, but rather strengthens our efforts to know and to live with our own limits.
Keywords: angst; augmentation; biopolitics; burnout; cultured person; open discussion; performance servitude; positivity; tact
- This article’s featured image was taken by Andrzej Rembowski and obtained from Pixabay.
Lees die volledige artikel in Afrikaans:
Die noodsaak van die kultuurmens in die tyd van uitsetverknegting