Moritz reviewed Müdigkeitsgesellschaft by Byung-Chul Han
Good introduction to general philosophy, unfortunately deep as a puddle
2 stars
His book is one of the most accessible and least useful in my collection. While it regurgitates a number of points of other philosophers, the amount of new material to think about is very limited. Even more so if one has already read some of the referenced works. On the pages that are 80% quotes interspersed with the occasional sentence by the actual author, one can't help but wonder: Are they redefining the conditions they are referring to or have they simply never experienced it? While I hope that Han never had to endure it, it raises questions about the applicability of his writing. Equating autism with being self-centered in only one of the things in this book that made me shake my head. Towards the end, my margin-notes also get increasingly sparse, as it seems the author tried themselves in an exercise of writing many words while saying very …
His book is one of the most accessible and least useful in my collection. While it regurgitates a number of points of other philosophers, the amount of new material to think about is very limited. Even more so if one has already read some of the referenced works. On the pages that are 80% quotes interspersed with the occasional sentence by the actual author, one can't help but wonder: Are they redefining the conditions they are referring to or have they simply never experienced it? While I hope that Han never had to endure it, it raises questions about the applicability of his writing. Equating autism with being self-centered in only one of the things in this book that made me shake my head. Towards the end, my margin-notes also get increasingly sparse, as it seems the author tried themselves in an exercise of writing many words while saying very little.
Overall: if you are more than ankle-deep in philosophy or are afflicted by Depression or Burn-out, maybe listen to the 15-minute summary on Blinkist instead of sinking a few hours into disseminating what amounts to a TL;DR of other books.
