The German philosopher and essayist of South Korean origin Byung-Chul Han, Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities 2025, has defended the culture of “partying and siesta” rooted in countries such as Italy and Spain to combat the tendency towards consumerist individualism that neoliberalism promotes.
In a meeting with the public held this Tuesday at the Jovellanos Theater in Gijón, framed within the events of the Awards Week, the thinker asked that there be “more parties and more naps” because neoliberalism has managed to neutralize them to impose a doctrine of production in which people are increasingly individualistic.
Han highlighted the need to abandon the concept of unlimited individual freedom and return to the original idea of freedom in community, which is what makes sense and gives direction to life. The philosopher, who on Friday will collect from Princess Leonor the 2025 Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities that has been awarded to him for his “brilliance” in interpreting the challenges of technological society and for having an “intercultural perspective” that sheds light on “complex phenomena” in the current world, declared that truth and freedom govern his own life.
“I come to tell the truth, not like Trump and the politicians,” said the author of The fatigue society before an audience of hundreds of people who filled the theater’s stalls in an event organized by the Princess of Asturias Foundation prior to the awards ceremony.
To a question about whether he has hope that the world can change for the better, the philosopher pointed out that he is neither an optimist nor a pessimist, but rather a skeptic who believes in the future, that is, in the events that will undoubtedly occur in the future.
Capitalism will implode
In that sense, he assured that no revolution will occur, but that capitalism will implode due to its own founding contradiction by devouring the forces that originated it, and he trusts that society will be capable of finding another way of coexistence for a better life.
In addition, he warned about the low birth rates in the world, which, together with the destruction of resources and the environment, can put humanity at serious risk of disappearance. He gave Korea as an example, where if the current birth rate continues, the population could disappear in just 100 years. “We have to become people again, human beings, and overcome this state in which we are like cattle, stabled, although it is difficult because they made us believe that we are free,” he said.
At the beginning of his speech, in which he spoke for an hour without interruption, he recalled his beginnings as a Philosophy student in Germany, where he learned the German language by reading Hegel. He also mentioned his passion for classical music and grand pianos: he has two at home, one German and one Italian, which he plays at the beginning and end of each of his days. It allows you to “take off” and connects you with thought.