NEOLIBERALISMO

VENCENDO O CONATUS PELO CANSAÇO?

Abstract

This essay aims to explore Byung-Chul Han's reflections on what has come to be called the society of performance and fatigue. For this author, it is necessary to examine the exploitation of individuals and the normalization of exhausting working hours as creators and maintainers of a collective and incessant flow of sad passions. With the help of Spinoza’s conceptual background – the comprehension of sad passions as diminishments or coercions of the natural conatus of all individuals - we will analyze, first and foremost, how capitalism increases sadness in individuals in order to function, and then we will reflect on the need to develop ways of resisting and fighting against this passionate annihilation of joyful affections. What is at stake is the centrality of positivity as the operator of neoliberal capitalism and, in contrast, the conception of tiredness itself not as defeat or resignation, but as a tool for resistance.