Byung-Chul Han reflects in this essay on the contemporary temporal crisis, in dialogue with Nietzsche and Heidegger. The transience of each moment and the absence of a rhythm that gives meaning to life and death places us before a new temporal scenar ...
Byung-Chul Han reflects in this essay on the contemporary temporal crisis, in dialogue with Nietzsche and Heidegger. The transience of each moment and the absence of a rhythm that gives meaning to life and death places us before a new temporal scenario, which has already left behind the notion of time as a narrative. According to Byung-Chul Han, we are not faced with an acceleration of time, but rather with temporal atomization and dispersion—which he calls dyssynchrony. Each moment is the same as the other and no rhythm or direction gives meaning to life. Time escapes because nothing concludes, and everything, including oneself, is experienced as ephemeral and fleeting. Death is just another moment, which invalidates the experience of death, in Nietzsche and Heidegger for example, as the consummation of a meaningful unity.
This book traces, historically and systematically, the causes and symptoms of this dyssynchrony. But the end of time as a narrative duration does not have to bring with it a temporal void. On the contrary, it gives rise to the possibility of a life that does not need theology or teleology, and that despite this has its aroma. But for this a change is necessary. In the words of Byung-Chul Han, "The temporal crisis will only be overcome at the moment when the vita activa, in full crisis, welcomes the vita contemplativa into its bosom again."
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