The Norms

of smart beings and the blissful solitude of consumption.

We left behind Michael Foucault’s “disciplinary world” made of schools, colleges, hospitals, mental asylums, prisons, barracks, corporate facilities and factories. Past the “society of control” theorized by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, defined by the outreach of mainstream media, politics, economics, technology and the knowledge economy. Past that horizon of discipline and control, what appears as a new global order or a new regime, is a society of hyper-connectivity, bio-metrics, digital banking, airports, shopping malls, fitness studios, regenerative practices and genetic laboratories to name a few. 21st century society in its modernity is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an “achievement society” (Byung-Chul Han). ‘Smart beings’ surrounded by smart gadgets, smart technology and the mass proliferation of data, information, knowledge, propaganda and news. A bio-cybernetic system that outlines “new norms” for us all. Ones that shape our thoughts, actions as well as behavior across social, political and cultural terrains.

Current scale of human society, mass urbanization, technological innovation and the overall privatization of life, gave way to a giant surplus or an overshoot of positivity as well as negativity. A psychological reality, fragmented like a kaleidoscope, that we derive from the overproduction, overachievement and overcommunication that is no longer viral but absolutely normal. A psychic reorganization within the bio-political web that surrounds us, knows a lot about us and hence influences us mentally and physically. We, the smart beings of the “achievement society”. One that also unravels a “burnout society” almost like a dual manifesto.

We are constantly seduced by future uncertainty or eternal concerns of safety, yet at the same time empowered by new technology and privatized ability. We are “smart beings” that are supposed to thrive within a hyper-atomized society. The so called “good life” is also exposed to visible and invisible threats and repeated burnout. Hundreds of millions of bubbles that mirror the “blissful solitude of consumption”. The norm and the social unconscious, together unravel an invisible power which enables productivity, disciplinary technology and the overall continuity of capitalism.

“Smart Beings”
The world is flooded with so called “smart devices” such as smartphones, smart speakers, smart cars, smart surveillance, doorbells, locks, thermostats, refrigerators, tablets, watches, health-bands, keychains, dolls, toys, glasses, even beverages and food to cite the extent. And all that is supposed to make us smarter or so we deserve as “smart beings”. The specter of continuous technological innovation is not something unique to 21st century, yet the transition from an economy based on knowledge to the current one, which is now exposed to excessive speed, positivity and negativity, without any defense. Without guardrails. But harm does not originate from negativity alone, but also from positivity, or as explained by Byung-Chul Han “…not just from the Other or the foreign, but also from the Same” (Burnout Society 2010). As modern human beings it is indeed very difficult to not fall back on “othering and the sameness”.

In her recently published book, 'Biopolitics As A System Of Thought' Serene Richards traces back the appearance and nature of smart technologies and the consequent “systems of thought”. According to her, 21st century solutions offered by “techno-capital” are more devious and manipulative than those which appeared earlier. Systems of thought control, known as the “bio-political” are situated across the two extremes, of material scarcity (for the many) or the super-abundance (of a few). These two conditions coexisting as the “new norm”. Serene explains this duality (and hostility) in its global sense as “the living is always at stake and directed to survival… then withstanding how smart the individual is, regardless of their material, social and political reality”. Remains unclear, as to how we arrived at this “mode of being” but it is clear that material conditions of our lives have increasingly worsened. Look back, ten or twenty or more years if you wish.

General human potential for effective social and political action that is understood as the “capacity for transforming our existing social relations” appears to be diminishing, while a range of technologies, gadgets, systems, futurist mantras and narratives lead us towards even greater forms of privatized solutions, emphasizing on greater independence and conscious consumption. Smart beings, according to Serena are not subject to a specific country or race, but rather a class, representative of things like “well traveled, well educated, well read and who place themselves on the threshold of modernity…”. The all-pervasive idea of modernity, in its material form equates to hundreds if not thousands of gadgets we may acquire within our private spaces, to experience that “blissful solitude of consumption”.

Enjoyment, pleasure, information, knowledge and illusory mechanisms of control that broadly define smart technologies have altogether muted questions of responsibility, impact and limits. Smart technologies are brimming with positivity and a sense of overall achievement. But, are all such brands of positivity biological (natural) or even immunological? Or are they completely external? Technologies that simultaneously create the “Other” and the “Same”. For the one and the many. As modern human beings, we are subject to the conjugal rise of “positive technologies” and “general negativity”. The this dual virtue is undeniable within urbanized society, be it situated in the west or east, the global south or the north. The newsreader or the porn star, the software expert or mindfulness guru, once online and facing the camera (and a virtual audience) has to appear positive, render a specific repetative role - the given norm. At this point, the caricature of Medusa and her serpentine glory reappears as a radical anomaly, a power that we cannot behold without perishing in the process. The smart beings situated within an otherwise burnout society?

Byung-Chul Han frames the idea of “Neuronal violence” stemming from the totalitarian aspects of technology and capitalism, but which escapes our awareness or say immunological senses because “it possesses Neuronal Power, that is no negativity. The violence of positivity does not deprive or punish, it saturates; it does not exclude, it exhausts; it trans-values everything. That is why it proves inaccessible to unmediated perception”. (Burnout Society). As smart beings we have embraced and internalized the above conditions, in thousands of differing ways as the current norm. The saturation and lack of perception is similar to Jacques Ellul’s warning to future society, now cited as a “technological bluff” or more specifically “individual technologies are hurrying us into a situation of catastrophe.” (1990) which totally resonates with Byung-Chul Han’s contemplation of tech-affirmations.

Alas, the current league of “Tech-Bros” microdosing in their positivist domes do not take such negative feedback and outcome well. In any case, the more urgent question for us rational people being - are we are any smarter than earlier human beings? without these given technologies and non-renewable conditions? Even if the resounding response is yes, the emerging human condition is never-the-less plagued with a range of natural, psychological and ecological threats. None of which can be solved by modern technology. Self-styled gurus of ‘Neurodivergency’ tell us “We have multiple intelligences. Cultivate them all.” While how to achieve that remains unclear, yet we can be sure of a set of techniques, based around technology that otherwise defines the overall technological hubris of the given group. Bingo! We are gifted smart beings.

“A Burnout Society”
Between most philosophical, political and scientific discourses about the future, the appearance of the “smart being” living within “burnout society” poses an immense challenge, especially to those who do not identify themselves as a part of the given norm. The identity crisis and class struggles of the 80s and 90s have now been overshadowed by a range of “disorders” prevalent within all “smart societies”. Clinically framed as Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), ADHD, Schizophrenia, Eating Disorders, Disruptive behavior and Dissocial disorders, further down “Neurodevelopmental disorders”. There is a high chance, that we suffer from one of the above disorders or so called “illness” however diagnosed or not. But within the “Achievement Society” we have to commit to the process of discarding negativity. The winning arguments are all based on reformation, medical intervention, rehabilitation or even magic healing techniques to combat conditions that otherwise symbolize a sort of common neurosis within current society.

As much as the “burnout syndrome” which has become part of a privatized norm, as prevalent is the continuous spectacle of war, politics, threat of nuclear annihilation, new viral diseases, climate change etc etc, playing out within an atomized but hyper-connected society. Back then, a “disciplinary society” was a realm of negativity but held together closely. Now it is a “burnout society” all be it based on techno-positivity and atomized prosperity. “Margaret Thatcher: There's No Such Thing as Society”

A general deregulation of everything, which helped human beings overcome many barriers posed by the “society of discipline” also lead us to abolish the presence of negativity. Something Michael Foucault could not foresee back then. Unleash a sort of unlimited power, limitless desire, to influence each other and feel the outreach. “You can, I can, We all can.” In its plural form, the affirmation of “Yes, we can”. A stupendously grandiose affirmation, raised upon smart technologies, continuous supply of cheap energy and ever contagious connectivity. From which appears the Promethean figure of “I Can..” backed by whatever motivation and mission. That positive ‘modus operandi’ as definition of an “achievement society”. The norm is sustaining an internalized pressure, to achieve, to do more, to be more, to have more. Take a picture for every moment that you wish to store. Billions of people trying to fulfill a life that is enslaved by many externalizations, or call it the overall norm.

Indian or Chinese, North Korean or American, African or European, Latina or English, we belong to this or that version of “achievement society”. Ratified by the capitalists, democrats, republicans, conservatives, progressives, fascists, anti-fascists, communists, socialists, reformists, futurists, economists etc etc. The current ‘2030 Agenda’ set by the United Nations is one such example of a grandiose “We can” mindset and policy.

The global cultural apparatus which includes the internet sustains many affirmations via mass media, movies, science fiction, documentaries, advertising and propaganda, that in turn influences millions of people to pick up various surrogate activities, proliferating the same set of ideas, as positivity, over and over again to an “entirely connected society”. One that epitomizes both ends of the political, social and economic ladder. Is a bit scary to comprehend what Byung-Chul Han lays out, as the bifurcating trajectory of current society into “Disciplinary society is still governed by No. Its negativity produces madmen, prophets and war criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives, messianic figures, radicals and losers.” Winners or losers, dedicated to this or that, we have arrived at an epoch, where each one of us has earned the “blissful solitude of consumption” or is fighting hard, yearning to achieve so. I don’t speak for everyone, as exceptional figures matter all the while, but as a general norm which has come to define current modern society. Many people believe or wish they were ‘Alles-Können’ (able to do everything).

Achievement society, which is dominated by excessive positivity can be understood as the past negativity of prohibitions and commandments, that have been discarded in favor of positivity and loads of cool affirmations. We all love the big ideas of freedom and deregulation, that are yet to dismantle the actual barriers and prohibitions imposed by capitalism, race, hierarchy and technology. Hence the “excess of positivity” is not really a negation in-so-much the inability to say no. Instead say yes? To a set of very powerful unrealistic ideas, that first point to not ’being allowed to do anything’ and then to ‘being able to do everything’. On an empty planet, thousands of years ago, that would be perfect!

The earlier “disciplinary society” receeded into the past, just because its brutal nature evolved into new forms of punishment and control. Over time, the physical nature of discipline gave way to the psychological, political and cultural. New rules and norms for the human body and mind, for every knowledge bearing individual. Would it be blasphemous to say that existing 20th century law ‘humanized pain’? The proceeding generations internalized these forms (society of control) and as a consequence, lost the experience of the world as autonomous beings.

Philosophers like Giorgio Agamben and Paulo Virnó provide a sufficiently believable picture of 21st-century human beings, who face one common concern above all and that is survival. Smart or not, technologically superior or primitive, vital functions and capacities are to be maximized by any and all means. Functions have to be achieved, by means privatized or subsidized or by competing with each other or if need be destroying each other. Is that the universal norm? or an outcome of a cascade of catastrophes? Regardless, we must check with the “smart beings” tied to smart technologies, surviving the inner logic of achievement society and the ongoing burnout. Factually speaking Byung-Chul Han’s “Burnout society” is in evolution towards an all out “doping society”.

Even if we override all such negative outcomes as well as the positivity of norms, smart beings and smart technologies, life is reduced to a bare version of what we may have earlier imagined it to be. Bare but as vital, that life is “kept” healthy and sane unconditionally. “Health is the new goddess, at an individual, communal and planetary level. That is why bare life of every creature is holy…” (Byung-Chul Han, 2008).

The norm, which is concerned with the “good life” does not require more analysis because eventually I understand that it is sustained by a grand illusion. That more capital produces more life, which equates to a greater capacity for living, and that does not make sense anymore. Instead what appears to be killing life in terms of “livingness” is a vicious split between the promise of good life versus reality made of a constant hysteria, of survival. The outrage we all feel, is based on many different reasons and conflicts yet to me it symbolizes a species, that is deeply wounded and subconsciously aware, akin to all life on earth that it has to “stay” alive at any cost. But beyond that, what purpose (and good) we may seek as human beings is often at odds with current norms. All be it, still open to discovery and beyond the current scope of an “achievement society”.

👶🏾🌶️🦔🧒🏾🐌…

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