Untrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have
produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of
authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies
engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in an atomised society,
where the loss of the symbolic structures inherent in ritual behaviour
has led to overdependence on the contingent to steer identity.
Avoiding saccharine nostalgia for the rituals of the past, Han provides
a genealogy of their disappearance as a means of diagnosing the
pathologies of the present. He juxtaposes a community without
communication - where the intensity of togetherness in silent
recognition provides structure and meaning - to today's communication
without community, which does away with collective feelings and leaves
individuals exposed to exploitation and manipulation by neoliberal
psycho-politics. The community that is invoked everywhere today is an
atrophied and commoditized community that lacks the symbolic power to
bind people together. For Han, it is only the mutual praxis of
recognition borne by the ritualistic sharing of the symbolic between
members of a community which creates the footholds of objectivity
allowing us to make sense of time.
This new book by one of the most creative cultural theorists writing
today will be of interest to a wide readership.
