Non-things
Upheaval in the Lifeworld
by Byung-Chul Han
“We are becoming blind to small, inconspicuous things, to what is common, the incidental and the customary—the things that do not attract us but ground us in being.” This, like Byung-Chul Han’s other short treatises, is a compact, power punch of a book, arguing for a re-embodiment and re-reification of the world, away from the “non-things” of screens and towards solid, stable, restful “things.” Han describes the digitalized world as one that produces “hunters,” people always searching, seeking, vigilant; always available and responsive, unable to resist any stimulus, to hold steady or be still. At the same time, he refuses the over-commodification of things, recognizing that ephemeral, fleeting, disposable things are just as unstable as the non-things we swipe away. The book is overall a call to pay attention, to ourselves and to the world.