Self-optimization serves system efficiency, not the good life

Evidence

The neoliberal imperative of self-optimization serves only to promote perfect functioning within the system. Inhibitions, points of weakness and mistakes are to be therapeutically eliminated in order to enhance efficiency and performance. In turn, everything is made comparable and measurable and subjected to the logic of the market. It is not concern for the good life that drives self-optimization. Rather, self-optimization follows from systemic constraints – from the logic of quantifying success on the market. — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 71

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A paradigm-shifting inversion: what looks like personal quest for betterment is really systemic subordination to market measurement; worth sitting with.
• XREF: connects to: Self-optimization serves systemic market function, not personal flourishing; The neoliberal self-optimization ethic functions as a disguised form of self-exploitation — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New…, 68

Broader Connections

• Self-optimization serves systemic market function, not personal flourishing #corroborates (0.95)
• The neoliberal self-optimization ethic functions as a disguised form of self-exploitation #expands (0.85) — Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics, 68