Positivization transforms humans and society into autistic performance-machines.

Evidence

Mounting positivization of society also weakens feelings such as dread and mourning [Trauer], which are based on a kind of negativity; they are negative feelings. If thinking [das Denken] itself were a “network of antibodies and natural immune defenses,” then the absence of negativity would transform it into calculation. The computer calculates more quickly than the human brain and takes on inordinate quantities of data without difficulty because it is free of all Otherness. It is a machine of positivity [Positivmaschine]. Because of autistic self-referentiality, because negativity is absent, an idiot savant can perform what otherwise only a calculator can do. The general positivization of the world means that both human beings and society are transforming into autistic performance-machines. — Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, 58

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘network of antibodies’ metaphor for thinking ties directly to Han’s larger thesis (the immunology/neuronal pathology argument) that the reader flagged as contestable — his broader project frames the burnout society as neuronal, not immunological.