The philosopher byung-chul Han, Princess Award of Astuias of Communication and Humanities 2025 | Culture

Byung-chul Han, the German thinker of South Korean originThe Princess Award of Asturias of Communication and Humanities was awarded. The jury had to choose between 47 candidates of 16 nationalities. Other awarded in previous editions were Marjane Satrappi, Nucio Order, Adam Michnik or Gloria Steinem. The prize will be awarded, together with those of the other disciplines, in the autumn at the Campoamer Theater in Oviedo.

Han has the favor of the public. His books (like The fatigue company, the expulsion of the different, the aroma of time, the Society of Transparency, etc. best seller International popular success, as in the case of Han, is sometimes in contrast to the unanimous reception in the field of the Academy. And from there he was criticized precisely for his prolificity, the spirit of diffusion, a certain superficiality, telling the reader what, in some way, the reader already knows. That his fame, as he was also said Slavi ZizekA far exceeds your true contribution to the philosophical field.

Also at the foot of what happens in our daily life, they criticized the most characteristic aspects of contemporary society and the dominant economic dogma. “Only a repressive regime causes resistance. On the contrary, the neoliberal regime, which does not oppress freedom, but uses it, does not face any resistance. It is not a repressor, but seductive. The domain becomes complete at the time when it is presented as freedom,” said the thinker in An exclusive interview with this newspaper in 2018.

It is therefore opposed to the growing acceleration and exploitation (sometimes cars -frutation) to which we are subjected, to the culture of performance and the hypertension of personal relationships and vital issues, hyperconconsium and the marketing of neoliberal capitalism. To the result of these dynamics in generalized anxiety and depression.

“In depression we lose the relationship with the world, with the other. We sink into a widespread ego. I think that digitization, and with it the smartphone we make ourselves depressive,” he said in the aforementioned interview. And it preaches with the example: it is known for its passion to cultivate a garden and therefore recover the rhythms of nature (a position, by the way, which can come from its eastern origin). “We need information to be silenced. Otherwise, it will end up exploiting the brain. Today we perceive the world through information. So the face -to -face experience is lost. We disconnect more and more from the world. We are losing the world,” he added.