Byung-Chul Han, philosopher: “Staying at home is the most insightful form of resistance; it is a bastion of freedom”

There are countless ways to approach the idea of happiness, and almost all of them are probably both right and wrong at the same time. Navigating that murky sea of assumptions and half-grasped theories is the job of philosophy, and few contemporary thinkers have charted it as sharply as Byung-Chul Han. In recent times, the work of the South Korean philosopher, who has lived in Germany for years, has focused on a sweeping critique of modern society and the ways it distorts and exhausts the human mind.

At its core, Han’s argument is deceptively simple. He believes people in the 21st century live in a state of permanent fatigue, driven by the relentless productivity demands they impose on themselves. From that exhaustion flow many of today’s most serious problems, especially the rise in mental health disorders. In Han’s view, contemporary society does not attack people from the outside. It wears them down from within.

A society that exhausts itself

Han often describes modern life as a system that encourages self-exploitation in the name of efficiency, growth, and positivity. People no longer need an external authority pushing them to work harder or do more. They internalize that pressure. The result, he argues, is a population that is constantly busy, constantly stimulated, and constantly tired.

This state of chronic exhaustion has consequences far beyond individual burnout. It reshapes how people relate to one another and how they engage with public life. When everyone is overstimulated and depleted, there is little room left for reflection, patience, or respect.

Democracy at risk

Han expanded on these ideas a few months ago in Oviedo, Spain, while accepting the Princess of Asturias award. “We live in a horizontal order of consumption,” he said, arguing that nonstop communication and information turn society into an empty shell, stripped of higher aspirations or a shared sense of direction.

That environment, he warned, creates fertile ground for conflict and erosion of democratic values. “Without respect, democracy is in danger,” Han said, pointing to how constant noise and outrage undermine thoughtful debate and civic trust.

Silence as resistance

To counter this dynamic, Han advocates stepping away from the noise. Sometimes, he suggests, that requires nothing more radical than choosing not to go out. “Staying home is the clearest form of resistance,” he has said. In his view, contemporary capitalism despises emptiness and silence, yet those are precisely what many people encounter at home. In that sense, the home becomes a “bastion of freedom.”

This is not a call for isolation or withdrawal from society. Rather, Han argues that learning to tolerate the absence of stimuli can open a space for genuine reflection. Silence, boredom, and stillness are not failures to be fixed. They are conditions that allow thought, creativity, and inner freedom to emerge.

Embracing pain, rejecting false happiness

For Han, real freedom begins when people recognize how trapped they are by the modern obsession with novelty and constant activity. “We think we are free, but we move from one addiction to another,” he argues. The relentless focus on the new and the demand to always be doing something turn happiness into what he calls a form of “emotional capital,” with damaging effects on mental health.

“The obligation to be happy creates devastating pressure,” Han warns. In his view, the social mandate to project positivity and avoid discomfort has become a new form of domination. Pain is treated as something to be eliminated at all costs, even though, paradoxically, it plays a crucial role in a meaningful life.

Happiness, if it exists at all, comes only in fragments, Han suggests. Pain is not its opposite but its companion. It is what makes happiness possible and helps sustain it. Seen this way, the pursuit of a pain-free, permanently upbeat existence is not just unrealistic. It is harmful.

Perhaps that is why there are so many ways to think about happiness, and why none of them can ever be fully precise. Each offers a glimpse of something real, and each falls short in its own way.

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