The Transparency Society
by Byung-Chul Han
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Description
Transparency is the order of the day. It is a term, a slogan, that dominates public discourse about corruption and freedom of information. Considered crucial to democracy, it touches our political and economic lives as well as our private lives. Anyone can obtain information about anything. Everything-and everyone-has become transparent: unveiled or exposed by the apparatuses that exert a kind of collective control over the post-capitalist world. Yet, transparency has a dark side that, show more ironically, has everything to do with a lack of mystery, shadow, and nuance. Behind the apparent accessibility of knowledge lies the disappearance of privacy, homogenization, and the collapse of trust. The anxiety to accumulate ever more information does not necessarily produce more knowledge or faith. Technology creates the illusion of total containment and the constant monitoring of information, but what we lack is adequate interpretation of the information. In this manifesto, Byung-Chul Han denounces transparency as a false ideal, the strongest and most pernicious of our contemporary mythologies. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Unlike the book itself, the core thesis is superlative.
Its “argumentation” is mainly an ill-jointed string of dogmatic pronunciamentos, asserted as axioms, with scant evidence other than “appeals to authority” (mostly other middlebrow postmodern thinkers).
But none of that matters, because the thesis is so radical, compelling, & unique that it carries the book: That our era's fetish about transparency is not just a net social & human negative (others have hinted at that), but outright *manipulative*.
As Han offers no methodical counter-strategy - save a few welcome hints about opacity, illegibility, or stagecraft - the resolute reader is left to conclude that it remains for him, quietly & privately, to out-manoeuvre this freshly show more revealed shibboleth - as already forced to do with multiple other false idols. show less
Its “argumentation” is mainly an ill-jointed string of dogmatic pronunciamentos, asserted as axioms, with scant evidence other than “appeals to authority” (mostly other middlebrow postmodern thinkers).
But none of that matters, because the thesis is so radical, compelling, & unique that it carries the book: That our era's fetish about transparency is not just a net social & human negative (others have hinted at that), but outright *manipulative*.
As Han offers no methodical counter-strategy - save a few welcome hints about opacity, illegibility, or stagecraft - the resolute reader is left to conclude that it remains for him, quietly & privately, to out-manoeuvre this freshly show more revealed shibboleth - as already forced to do with multiple other false idols. show less
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Author Information
121+ Works 5,464 Members
Byung-Chul Han is a Korean-born Professor of Philosophy and Cultural Studies who teaches at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin.
Series
Belongs to Publisher Series
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Transparency Society
- Original title
- Transparentgessellschaft
- Original publication date
- 2012
Classifications
- Genres
- Philosophy, Sociology, Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 301.01 — Society, government, & culture Social sciences, sociology & anthropology Sociology and anthropology standard subdivisions of sociology and/or anthropology Philosophy and theory
- LCC
- HM661 .H36 — Social sciences Sociology (General) Sociology Social control
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 297
- Popularity
- 108,189
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- 10 — Catalan, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 4
