What Story Does Society Enact In Today's Cult of the Subjective Self? "The Disappearance of Rituals" - Ch. 2 by Byung-Chul Han

Stephen Alexander Beach 

(1239 Words) 

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The Cult of the Subjective Self 

Chapter two is entitled "The Compulsion of Authenticity", (I might rephrase it for myself as the dangers of authenticity.) and begins by hitting on a theme of contemporary society which will be immediately recognizable to some, that of the cult of the subjective self above all. This is the culture in which what is most important and sacred is one's subjective feelings and authenticity, regardless of the connection of those things to objective reality. 1 Now, Han brings in a few quotes from Charles Taylor about how the individual self must be balanced in a larger communal reality of society as well, a seemingly well balanced approach to the issue. "Authenticity only proves itself insofar as the identity created contains an explicit reference to a community and so is able to hold true independent of one's own self." 

And yet, Han disagrees with this formulation against the authenticity culture altogether, it seems. 2 He argues that it is really a way in which individuals become manipulated as they become more and more focused in on the self and producing those subjective feelings. It is a way of monetizing people. "Taylor's moral justification of authenticity ignores that subtle process, within the neoliberal regime, by which the ideas of freedom and self-realization are transformed into vehicles for more efficient exploitation. ... Once it is able to present itself as freedom, domination becomes complete." 

Public Play and the Story We Play In

Here Han then takes this idea to say that in a society which has all its emphasis on being individual and expressing that publicly all the time, that degrades society into something of a pornographic display of raw interior emotion, and this influencing how we communicate with others publicly as well. 3 He then contrasts today's culture with 18th century Europe to continue his point. He describes society in this century as a theatre or a play in which people interacted through prescribed roles and communal sentiments, by which the individual's personal sentiments were left hidden. This, he says, allowed for a type of "play" between people which was mutually comprehensible through its shared forms. "The public space resembled a stage, a theatre. The body also represented a stage. It was a dressed puppet without soul, without psychology, that had to be draped and decorated and fitted out with signs and symbols. The wig framed the face like a painting. The fashion itself was theatrical, and people were properly in love with scenic presentations. A lady's coiffure was also designed as a scene, representing either a historical event or an emotion." It was in the 19th century, though, that society began to be more of a factory than a theatre, and Han says that they traded their costumes for work clothes. 4 

Society then became focused less on play as the highest form of culture, in place of an emphasis on work. Today in the authenticity culture, fashion is about revealing the individual, whether it's their tattoos or lack of clothing. But what happens is the death of public play, so to speak. The common rituals, manners, etiquette, etc. are forgotten. 5 "Today, the world is not a theatre in which roles are played and ritual gestures exchanged, but a market in which one exposes and exhibits oneself. Theatrical presentation gives way to a pornographic exhibition of the private." 

[If I could interject here my own thoughts to try to tie together what Han is saying ... How does public display of individuality lead to manipulation, monetization, and conformity? Well, I think that the logic of this lies in that human beings, whether they acknowledge it or not, cannot be completely individual islands in themselves. We are always part of a larger worldview in which we participate. And so if we do not participate in a story which has been proven to seek highest aims, to respect the individual within it, then we are always at risk of being consumed by a story which manipulates the individual. And so I rejecting, something say religion, to be purely individual, we only end up substituting it for a master such a politics or cultural fads, and thus big corporations can prey on this and monetize our "individuality".] 

And so the public sphere, too, becomes a place of manipulation through monetization, the embodying of the most base desires which sell items catering to our authenticity. This is important because body and soul are connected, ritual and meaning, symbol and value. And so if the exterior world is changed, it will likewise impact our interior world, for better or worse. 6 If we do not smile and wave at our neighbors, for example, we do not even have the process of friendliness, then our interior view of them is likewise all the worse for it. 7 And so instead of letting the objective rules of interaction govern us, we allow the subjective to dominate. 8

Han then continues on about play in society, and how celebratory play has mostly been lost for a culture of work. He then says that celebrations traditionally were accompanied by some type of transgressions, meaning you did something that was normally not allowed. I don't know if he is using transgression in terms of doing something sinful, or just that one engages in activities that they cannot do every day. 

Advertising is not Art

Han also talks about the loss celebratory culture destroys the arts. He offers, in my opinion, a perfect description of what went wrong after the Second Vatican Council where the Novus Ordo liturgy was implemented in the Catholic Church. This description fits the general trend of society in the past century or two. "The profanation of culture brings about its disenchantment. Today, the arts are also increasingly rendered profane and disenchanted. Magic and enchantment - the true sources of art - disappear from culture, to be replaced by discourse. The enchanting exterior is replaced with the true interior, the magic signifier with the profane signified. The place of compelling, captivating forms is taken by discursive content. Magic gives way to transparency. The imperative of transparency fosters an animosity to form. Art becomes transparent with regard to its meaning. It no longer seduces. The magic veil is cast off. The forms do not themselves talk. The language of forms, of signifiers, is characterized by compression, complexity, equivocation, exaggeration, a high degree of ambiguity that even reaches the level of contradiction. These suggest meaningfulness without immediately being reducible to meaning. All these now disappear, and instead we are confronted with simplified claims and messages that are artificially imposed on the work of art." 9 

And so Han concludes chapter two by saying that art is not the same is speech. Speech and art are a bit of an inverse of one another. Speech reveals the interior of man, while art the exterior of the world. Symbols are meant to reflect the mysterious exterior without fully revealing the interior meaning, and thus good art allows for a multitude of meanings. Writing and speech are meant to directly reveal the interior of man and can aim at precision. 10 His concluding thought is that we need a "re-enchantment of the world" through symbols, play, and public ritual and festivity. 11

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