Our era has been given many names: the digital age, the  attention age ,  the post-truth age; the liquid society, the spectacle society, the age of exhaustion, the  burnout society . But if it had to be summed up in a single term, perhaps  the most fitting would be the “performance society.”  Today, we talk about improving economic performance, academic performance, mental performance, athletic performance, and even sexual performance. The maxim is to do a lot with a little. To do a great deal with the bare minimum.  To optimize . To make time, brainpower, and resources work for us. Let hyperbole be the norm.

Hyper-hyper human beings—hyperconnected, hyperinformed, hyperperforming, and hyperoptimized (or desperate to be so)—run without pause like an “autistic performance machine,” to use the words of Byung-Chul Han . 

For the Korean philosopher,  contemporary society has shifted from a disciplinary society (where pressure came from outside) to a performance society (where pressure comes from within).  The  animal laborans  doesn’t need anyone to hold the whip:  an entrepreneur of himself, he exploits himself.

Homo  agitatus , as Jorge Freire  called it , is devoted to agitation and hyperactivity; he must  “always perform, never give up.”  He pushes himself to the limit—physically and mentally—and burns out from overheating.  From so much “pumping himself,” the mechanism collapses, he burns out . Hence its name:  burnout . Exhausted, the modern individual suffers from an excess of power; he is forbidden from failing.  Go for it, you can do it; if you can’t, it’s because you don’t want to,  just do it .

The idea that ”  it can’t be done”  has led to what is known in English as  bootstrapping , the notion that  everyone is (or should be) capable of improving themselves and their circumstances through discipline and without anyone’s help . Thus, a culture of overexertion has been built   that not only pressures and demands constant self-improvement, but also attributes poverty to a lack of effort.

This has been the breeding ground for the proliferation of what have been called  ”  productivity bros ,”  which, as described by artist, writer, and Stanford University professor  Jenny Odell , are “people who make videos for people who make videos” about rigorous morning routines,  personal management  tips  , and magical time-management formulas .  These influencers  get rich by promoting “the idea that a person can simultaneously be the one who liberates themselves and the one over whom they exert control .” There is, therefore, a rhetoric of self-mastery and self-monitoring that calls for constantly reviewing one’s own performance, whether with spreadsheets,  bullet-point apps  ,  optimization checklists  , or by giving oneself notes. Because there are always more successes to achieve, more minutes to optimize, a slimmer body to sculpt, and, in general, something new to possess.

Of course, there’s no doubt that achieving one’s goals requires a certain amount of effort. However, the point of the  hustle culture  is to never bridge the gap between what you are and what you could become.  To make that gap insurmountable.

Source: excerpt from the article:   The Performance Society