自我剥削与身心倦怠——论韩炳哲对新自由主义的批判

Self-Exploitation and Physical-Mental Burnout—On Byung-Chul Han’s Critique of Neoliberalism

摘要: 韩炳哲认为，新自由主义社会资本主义的生产需求导致了社会形态从福柯的否定性的规训社会转变为他所说的肯定性的功绩社会，并且在自由与剥削合二为一的“精明的权力”操控下，功绩主体最终陷入了自我剥削、身心倦怠的生存处境。虽然韩炳哲察觉到了新自由主义社会与规训社会的显著差异，但由于他没有意识到新自由主义社会资本主义的重心转移，从而误判了社会形态转变的真正根源以及功绩主体自我剥削的真正原因，这就使得他对于新自由主义的批判没有切中要害。正是欲望膨胀导致自我剥削，自我剥削导致身心倦怠；消费社会导致功绩社会，功绩社会导致倦怠社会。

Abstract: Byung-Chul Han contends that the production demands of neoliberal social capitalism have led a shift in the social formation—from what Foucault termed a “negative disciplinary society” to what Han describes as an affirmative “Performance Society.” Under the sway of a “cunning power” that conflates freedom and exploitation, the performance subject ends up trapped in a state of self-exploitation and physical-mental burnout. Although Han discerns a clear distinction between neoliberal society and the disciplinary society, his critique of neoliberalism misses the mark because he fails to recognize the shift in the center of gravity within neoliberal capitalism. This leads him to misjudge both the true source of the social transformation and the real cause of the performance subject’s self-exploitation. In fact, it is the expansion of desire that brings about self-exploitation, and self-exploitation that results in physical-mental burnout; likewise, it is the consumer society that gives rise to the performance society, and the performance society that ultimately produces the burnout society.