This week I found my opinions diametrically opposed to almost whatever Han said. “Who, today, feels looked at or spoken to by things?” he asks. But I have the strangest feeling the my neighbor’s doorbell is watching me… and it literally is. “Stories… in which things are the protagonists, telling the stories of their own lives, would be unthinkable today,” Han insists, but I recall Toy Story doing quite well. He said people do not lose themselves in things like they used to. Tell that to the lady blocking the subway steps because her phone pinged her when she came above ground and she stopped right there to respond, oblivious to a river of commuters trying to push past.
We’re near the end of the book, so it’s time to say it: COMPUTERS ARE THINGS. Han says, “The handless humans of the future are also footless. They hover above the earth in the digital Cloud.” That’s just ignorance. I used to have a sticker on my laptop that said, “There is no cloud, it’s just somebody else’s computer.” Maybe tech companies would like us to think our data is blowing through the skies above our heads like suspended molecules of water vapor, but it isn’t true. Computers are material objects. Data is imprinted and stored on physical objects -- hard drives, random access memory, tape storage. Digital data simply does not exist without these objects, these things. There is no infosphere. There is only the material sphere.
Tech companies like to obscure how their things function. When they talk about making the user experience “frictionless,” they mean their users must never need to troubleshoot a problem by themselves, because this would give them an opportunity to learn how the thing works. If the user learns how the thing works, they don’t need the tech company anymore, because at this point there is an alternative to everything the tech company sells which the user can get and use for free if they can figure out how to install and configure it. If you believe the computer is a non-thing, you are at its mercy. If you know the computer is a thing, you can manipulate it like a thing. You don’t need to let it manipulate you.
That brings me to quotation from Han that I disagree with most vehemently: “Digitalization has deprived things of any ‘defiant’ materiality, any intractability.” Everyone has had the sensation that a piece of technology is working against them. (Jared gave several great examples, his baby monitor and fridge). When Han talks about how physical things exist in opposition to us, I believe he means that our desire for how reality should be can run up against the inconvenient and undeniable fact of the existence of a thing. The form of a thing determines its function; it can’t be other than what it is. But digital technology is doubly stubborn, because it can be programmed. It has a will -- not a will of its own, but the will of its programmer. Using a piece of digital technology is handwork, only there are two hands trying to use the thing at once, our hand and the hand of the programmer. Although perhaps I ought to say, the programmer’s employer.
Regarding your second paragraph, I don't think Han's project is incompatible with materialism per se. I don't get the idea that the distinction between "thing" and "non-thing" is the kind of distinction dualists want to make between, for example, consciousness and brain. In the end, sure, "non-things" are made of matter and rendered by way of 1s and 0s through a screen made of matter, but I don't think that radically changes his analysis since it is a human-centered one.
To your third paragraph, I agree. A frictionless experience is intentional. Tech companies want apps to work reliably and addictively as that creates the most optimal revenue stream.
This problem of the computer as a mysterious machine is only exacerbated by the younger generations not learning how to operate PCs. I've helped students with webpage issues, and when they see me pull up the cmd prompt to clear cache, they are concerned I'm doing something nefarious. Young Gen Z and Alpha might've never known a world without smartphones and apps, but my anecdotal experience is they are not skilled users of a PC. Instead, they speak the frictionless language of apps.
Quite a storm of a chapter, indeed. It was hard for me to connect to most of the ideas on the villainy of things, Kafka's "ghosts", and the section on Heidegger.
However, some of Han's points on art and aesthetics did resonate with me—with some caveats. Han sees art as something that is experienced rather than interpreted (which reminded me of Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation essay). I agree, with some moderation: I don't think interpretation has to disappear completely. But there is something ineffable about the artistic experience, something that can't be reduced to an explanation of what the artwork means. That something that can't be fully explained is what makes art special and powerful.
Now, is this ineffability what makes art a thing, in Han's definition? Certainly not all things have the same ineffable quality as works of art. And I don't think the physicality of an artwork alone is what makes it "un-exhausted" by its meaning.
On the other hand, I can see how our exaggerated focus on information alone makes us lose sight of that something else, beyond representation and language, that makes the artistic experience special.
What you say about interpretation is interesting. I think great art falls into two categories when it comes to interpretation. There's the kind where, when you try to interpret it, there's always a piece that doesn't fit. It's like a puzzle, but whichever way you put it together it doesn't quite work and so you turn it over and over in your mind trying to figure it out. The other kind, much more rare, is the work of art that you don't need or want to interpret, it's all of a piece, fully formed, and it fills your mind.
I like this. Sometimes in interpreting art I feel like I lose the connection to what you describe as the ineffable. I enjoy poetry for example, but can find that overly technical analysis takes away from my appreciation.
Unusually, Jared, I really disagree with you regarding this chapter—it is my favourite (of Non-Things) that I have read to date.
I think you've missed something by suggesting that the resistance found in "smart" items is akin to the resistance of non-smart items. The resistance you have described in relation to the former is unintentional and, relatedly and more importantly, generally unable to be overcome by the consumer. When baby camera wouldn't work, you didn't have a meaningful role to play (indeed, nobody did—the item had to be thrown away); it's not the same as, say, tools inviting you to participate in the world by virtue of their reliability and function in combination with your own efforts.
My reference to tools above is itself, though, a kind of boring and uncharitable example in the context of Han's writing. My favourite portion of this chapter was the two paragraphs on page 52, beginning "These days, things are not even cooled..." and ending "The other, deprived of its otherness, is reduced to an available, consumable object." The reason I say tools are a boring example is because, in my view, the most interesting thinking by Han here was his reference to the non-physical opposition that objects can present, i.e. they can (or previously could, by way of their longevity and craft) demand creativity and appreciation.
Romance may be getting the better of me here, but I do believe there's some value in items possessing a kind of contemplative romance—and thought Han articulated that well. Another example that came to mind was the difference between Tiktok videos/AI-generated media and theatre (or, somewhere closer to the centre of the continuum, well-written and -directed films); theatre undeniably presents an opposition lacking in Instagram reels, and it achieves that through—to echo Han—realisation, reification and embodiment.
This is in line with my take on the chapter. The two paragraphs you highlight shaped my understanding of Han's things and non-things. His "available, consumable object" brings to mind the throw away nature of objects in today's world. We no longer deeply engage with objects, they are there to be picked up and used (almost absent-mindedly) but not contemplated, appreciated, understood, grappled with.
Something that I didn’t comment on before, but which came back to me as I was reading over Jared’s remarks, is Han’s commentary on art and poetry. Drawing on a quote by Robert Walser on how a poem's words are stretched “tightly over the content, that is, the body”. The poet puts down the words “almost without following an idea”—Han describes this as the poet following “an almost unconscious process” and “not following an idea.” (61) And a few pages later, while criticizing “today’s art”, Han laments how art is “no longer handwork that forms matter, *without intention*, into a thing, but thought work that communicates a prefabricated idea.” (64)
All of this reminds me of RC Collingwood’s distinction between art and craft. Craft starts with an end in mind, develops a plan to achieve that end, and uses skilled technique to bring it about. Art, on the other hand, doesn’t have an end in mind so much as a series of means. So a poet (artist) might have the compulsion to produce something, but the poem (artwork) is not preplanned; instead, it arises as a reaction to an impulse, the inner state of the artist. Importantly, this inner state and not the physical product is the true work of art. The physical product is a by-product– it allows the audience to access the artist’s internal state, thus duplicating the true artwork in the audience’s mind.
I write all this because the implications of this are strange: when we look at a painting or watch a film or read a poem, we aren’t engaging with the *actual* work of art. The *real* work of art is the idea, the inner state. But this isn’t how we talk about works of art.
I still need to read more of Han’s views of art (and since he weaves his thoughts through countless books it might take awile).
The View of Things chapter seems to diverge and spend much more time trying to recover the concept of 'thing.' It's strange because in my mind the title should be 'Views of Thing' as reading Han in this chapter appears almost schizophrenic.
I do find it interesting to chew on the difference between "art" and "craft." There are other great historical examples of trying to flesh out other similar dichotomies such as sophistry versus philosophy.
In the end, I think Han's analysis of art begins to teeter into the mystical. (I do not say that as an insult.) I have seen interesting, unabashedly atheistic accounts of poetry making a similar move. Specifically, I am thinking of Jennifer Hecht's book The Wonder Paradox wherein she posits poetry as substitute for prayer and ritual.
The losing oneself in tools, for me, reminds me of the flow state. You get so absorbed in your work that it just flows, and you've lost yourself in it. It's hard to argue that doomscrolling TikTok/Instagram gets you into the flow state.
Also, tangentially, but I'm after listening to Peter Adamson's podcast about the 'Skill Stories' in Zuangzhi, and it brought those to mind as well. That the person is so at one with the tool, lost in it, that it becomes part of them and is so natural.
A few other things about the essay:
I do think he has a point about the distinction between pornographic and erotic, especially in prose and poetry. I can't even begin to tel you how many people I've seen lately who claim that there should be no subtext, or that it doesn't exist. And that the author should beat you over the head with the plot. Because that's how we are now, where anything suggestive, anything that requires thinking (as I interpret his 'erotic' here - pornographic is explicit, erotic is suggestive). Brandon Sanderson is notoriously bad about this, but I've found myself moving back to classical literature and older works because it seems "plot beats all" is becoming central.
Finally, his part at the end really hit a chord with me, and really elevated the essay. When he talked about how we don't spend *time* with anything anymore, and we're just looking for shops to buy everything. But we can't buy friendship, it requires spending *time* with others, it requires the repetition that reaches the heart (I loved that phrase). It's definitely why we're lonely, despite being more connected than ever. He really hit the nail on the head here, channeling Fox.
It actually reminds me of a summer I spent in Spain, and with a person who was a good friend for the few weeks I was there. We were out on the beach one afternoon, ignoring everything, and he just said "Thank you for coming out and spending time with me, no phones, no rush to go anywhere or do anything." And it did feel great and the four of us were all fairly close after that day for the remainder of the trip. It's what we need more of, and I think this is the same kind of 'getting lost' Han channels with tools - you get absorbed in what you're doing in a flow state, connecting with something. Doomscrolling cannot do this.
Some other thoughts along those lines that came to me as I reviewed my notes from reading
The beings of nearness and distance part rings true to me - and I truly believe tech is erasing them both. We're near when we're separated, but separated when we're near because we're absorbed in our phones. Likewise, being connected versus being in a relation. Once again brings to mind the superficiality of online communities to me. They're just *not* the same as real communities. It also abolishes the gaze, as we often connect via text and therefore we don't have the mirror neurons firing, etc. We don't get the feeling of closeness we get as if we spend time with the person (see above). It's definitely responsible for the rise of depression I believe, as humans are inherently social creatures and we're not getting the type of socialisation we truly need. And thus we're alienated from each other, and depression is bound to rise. It's why solitary confinement is so bad - and we're all doing it to ourselves via technologies of 'communication'.
I definitely found this chapter harder to follow than some of Han’s earlier ones. One section, however, gave me a helpful entry point. A few pages in, Han writes:
“We cannot enter into a relation with a world that consists exclusively of available, consumable objects.”
And then a little later: “Digital communication abolishes the personal counterpart, the countenance, the gaze, physical presence. It thus accelerates the disappearance of the other.”
This chapter seems to be pointing toward a loss of relationship that arises from a particular kind of attention. The attention we give to smartphones feels more like being captured than actually engaging into a relationship with a thing. We are at the mercy of algorithms, icons, and notifications. In my own experience, the attention I give my phone is largely mindless. I click, swipe, consume, but I don’t linger or relate deeply in any meaningful way.
I think Han describes this when he writes:
“We constantly consume information. Information reduces touching. Our perception loses depth and intensity, physicality and volume. It does not immerse itself in reality’s layer of presence.”
This seems to refer to another kind of attention that is missing when we consume information. A kind that emerges when we are fully present with a thing. When we allow it to affect us, and in some sense become part of us. Perhaps this is what Han means when he speaks of “forgetting yourself” as a positive act. Not mindless consumption, but a losing of yourself through genuine encounter. Through opening to the other.
I may be projecting my own worldview onto Han here. But to end with a personal example that connects to this way of attending: last year I was with my family at Lake Tahoe, sitting by a firepit on the beach at dusk. The sun was setting across the lake, the view was stunning. For a moment, I lost myself in the colors, the lake, the sky. I can’t quite put words to the experience, it’s one of those moments that feels diminished by description.
The moment broke when a crowd rushed over to snap photos of the view. The feeling of connection and awe disappeared. Interestingly, my daughter also took a photo. When I look at it now, the picture is pretty. But nothing like the experience I had when I encountered it directly.
Han’s chapter ‘View of Things’ appears schismatic after close consideration. I am not sure there is a throughline in his analysis of ‘thing.’ It seems, rather, Han provides different modes of thinking one can apply to ‘things.’ This seems, at least in part, supported by noticing the amount of thinkers Han cites in the index (more than in any other chapter). This chapter alone has 89 citations with references, quotes, or support from Lacan, Freud, Merleau-Ponty, Rilke, Ponge, and of course, Heidegger. At times, these take on a drive-by fashion quality wherein Han uses an idea from elsewhere, e.g., the I-Thou connection versus I-It relation in Buber, without much explanation. Thus, some parts seem discordant (and maybe maligned) with others, and some parts seem to play nicely with one another. As a result, to me, it does not seem necessary to take up the project of chapter—whatever it might be, as I am unsure—in whole. Nonetheless, I think there is some value to be uncovered.
One interesting line of thinking for me: Han’s use of Ponge and Walser to elaborate his idea of ‘thing’ in The Forgetfulness of Art. Here, in my view, the part to emphasize is the body analogy: “Poetry is not the work of forming meaning but of forming bodies” (61). Then, on the same page, Han provides an account of how the signifier moves beyond and “condense[s] into a beautiful, mysterious, seductive, body.” Reading this section on the poem as a body alongside Heidegger’s Hand is fruitful because the body—both literally and metaphorically—take central stage.
Han emphasizes how the world is mediated and made meaningful through the hands (and in late Heidegger, the feet). From the Heidegger’s Hand section and previous chapters emphasizing tactility, I think it is reasonable to conclude that being is first and foremost embodied. Why does this matter? Perhaps, it can ground some of Han’s thinking for why the digital and informational is a mostly negative force. The world is afforded to us as an embodied being, yet when we digitize and informationalize the world around us, we are operating under deprivation. Walking down the street in Manhattan is not the same as experiencing it through a YouTuber’s GoPro lens. Sitting across from another is not the same as conversing via FaceTime. Writing on paper with a pen is not the same as typing into a Word document.
How does this relate back to poetry as a body? Again, I think here it is important to emphasize choosing the body as the vector of analogy versus—quite literally—anything else. Poetry for Han is not meaning making but body forming. This seems apt if we think of our pre-conditions for being as embodied. Perhaps a way to differentiate between ‘things’ and ‘non-things’, then, is the relation it has to embodied experience.
Reading Heidegger and Han has been a very enjoyable, engaging and confounding ride. It's the best headache I've had in awhile.
When Han brought up Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse - not one of my kids' favorites but not unknown in our house - I laughed out loud. I realize that all things (and non-things) can be topics of philosophy. I simply wasn't ready for "Oh, Tootles" to be quoted amidst Han's critique of technology's intrusion into our lives.
In reading that section I had a thought: Is Han suggesting, through the example of the "Mouseketools" and the Handy Dandy Machine, that Mickey and the gang have developed learned helplessness in the face of their own problems? "The Handy Dandy Machine had a ready solution for every problem. The hero no longer collides with physical reality. He does not have to deal with the resistance of things." I thought about that passage for a bit, mostly trying to remember that even the Disney Channel can be fertile territory for philosophical investigation. But it stuck with me - the Handy Dandy Machine is AI. It is a solution to the problems of the Clubhouse without any intellectual effort on the part of Mickey, Minny or Donald. The characters are helpless to solve their problems without technology. They are passive. I'd argue that is what Han is worried about in this section - that we are being led astray by the belief that technology can replace our own cognition, our own creativity. Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse offers up kids an early introduction to the frictionless solutions of technology that deny us meaning in return for empty, non-thing solutions where we submit to the technology. Maybe I need to get out of the Clubhouse on this one.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Forgetfulness of Things in Art.' I have been watching a fair amount of film recently, and his thoughts on art helped solidify some of my own thoughts.
On page 64, Han writes, "What is problematic about today's art is its inclination to communicate a preconceived opinion, a moral or political conviction: that is, its inclination to communicate information...It wants to instruct rather than seduce."
I think One Battle After Another and Sinners (both popular Emmy contenders) are poor films for this reason. It appears that the film's focus is instruction rather than seduction.
"Pornographic reading is opposed to an erotic reading that lingers with the text as a body, as a thing. Poems don't sit well with our pornographic and consumerist age." P. 60
Dune, No Country for Old Men, and 2001: A Space Odyssey all demand erotic lingering, and it is there that the communication takes place. The only issue with this type of communication is that the creator does not have as much control over what the viewer feels or thinks about. I think this is great, but it doesn't make for great instruction.
My lack of experience (and therefore expectation) reading philosophy was helpful to me this week as I felt I must simply make of the chapter what I could.
Han seems to be saying, we live in a world that increasingly lacks encounters with the Other - in things, in relationship. As things disappear and become information, as smoothness and lack of resistance predominate, as even art looses the Other that is 'the something beyond', we become a crowd of individuals, whirling ungrounded, unhanded, in a literal and metaphorical sky of information.
From this I took a feeling sense of wanting to find space in my day to linger with an Other - and the weather helpfully provided itself as a Thing to be pushed by, and to push on. Painting gradations of grey mist and rain was challenging, but the experience had a felt 'thickness' compared with the thinness of my usual morning Twitter scroll, and I felt it gave me a better understanding of what Han means by ritual as temporal architecture.
Again, I have no experience in philosophy, so my apologies if this comment isn't quite up to scratch.
Is anyone having an issue with comments being cut off and not being able to expand them? This started happening to me last week (reading on my computer not a phone) and it's continued this week. Some longer comments you can click on a button that says "see more" but others the text just gets cut off and no way to expand..."For a moment, I lost myself in the colors, the lake, the sky. I can’t quite put words to the experience, it’s one of those" - this is as far as I can see in Sally's comment for example...Anyone else?
Han reaching for the Mouske-Tool (or however it is spelled) reminded me about Matthew Crawford's book "The World Beyond Your Head". Crawford gives a similar account to Han's, though more fleshed out and focused on it effects on embodied perception. There really is an uncanny similarity that made me question if Han was familiar with this argument at all - I'd be almost disappointed or upset if he wasn't at least partially familiar or inspired by Crawford's argument. I had to reread the aforementioned section of Crawford's book because I find it interesting that they both focus on this resistance (in Han's terminology) or frustration (in Crawford's). Primarily, I find it interesting that this could be the easiest point of reference to exemplify the points they are trying to make. Wouldn't it be more relatable to provide some account of how one uses their smartphone to interact with vast amounts of information that the intended audience would understand? This doesn't mean they can't use the Mouske-Tool as another reference point. In fact, both of them point out that this teaches children to view reality in a certain way. I suppose my consideration is that of the adult who has no child and therefore doesn't know much about this show.
On another note, it seems like the Mouske-Tool's utility as an example (like any other device) is limited by simply saying it provides less time and frustration/resistance. This breaks down for me because we can now counter by saying something to the effect of "Well, I work on skills and principles that train me to use objects that provide less friction to my daily living." I will give Han credit with this much, though this might spoil some of the proceeding sections. I wonder if there is a response that one could provide to this that doesn't sound like old man yelling at cloud. I also wonder if this response also acts in bad faith towards the point its rebutting. Thinking about this reminds me of what Jared and Jason discussed in a video not too long ago. I wonder if that discussion applies here (link to the video mentioned: https://youtu.be/WGjelN0bF4g?si=qBQRy2dGPHzvjJJn) Regardless, this chapter is where Han's struggles to retain a feeling of reliability or reality - and where his writing style really hurts his points. Maybe I at the ripe age of 28 have become the old man yelling at cloud.
There is one more similarity that I'd like to touch on, but I don't want to provide too much in terms of spoilers for Han's book; that is, they both discuss a musical item. For Crawford this is the piano. He spends an agonizingly long amount of time discussing what it takes to craft one - a fact that I think undermines his argument and hurts it. Similarly I find that Han spends time doing this with the Jukebox. I read ahead so that I could be on time, a result of being afraid that I might fall behind in reading. My over-vigilance aside, I find Crawford's argument to be more compelling as a whole that Han's, which is perhaps a result of their differing writing styles. That doesn't mean Han's argument is any less interesting, or that the points made are in some ways unique. It would just be great to have a clear and complete version of the argument, so that I feel more confident in assessing his claims.
This week I found my opinions diametrically opposed to almost whatever Han said. “Who, today, feels looked at or spoken to by things?” he asks. But I have the strangest feeling the my neighbor’s doorbell is watching me… and it literally is. “Stories… in which things are the protagonists, telling the stories of their own lives, would be unthinkable today,” Han insists, but I recall Toy Story doing quite well. He said people do not lose themselves in things like they used to. Tell that to the lady blocking the subway steps because her phone pinged her when she came above ground and she stopped right there to respond, oblivious to a river of commuters trying to push past.
We’re near the end of the book, so it’s time to say it: COMPUTERS ARE THINGS. Han says, “The handless humans of the future are also footless. They hover above the earth in the digital Cloud.” That’s just ignorance. I used to have a sticker on my laptop that said, “There is no cloud, it’s just somebody else’s computer.” Maybe tech companies would like us to think our data is blowing through the skies above our heads like suspended molecules of water vapor, but it isn’t true. Computers are material objects. Data is imprinted and stored on physical objects -- hard drives, random access memory, tape storage. Digital data simply does not exist without these objects, these things. There is no infosphere. There is only the material sphere.
Tech companies like to obscure how their things function. When they talk about making the user experience “frictionless,” they mean their users must never need to troubleshoot a problem by themselves, because this would give them an opportunity to learn how the thing works. If the user learns how the thing works, they don’t need the tech company anymore, because at this point there is an alternative to everything the tech company sells which the user can get and use for free if they can figure out how to install and configure it. If you believe the computer is a non-thing, you are at its mercy. If you know the computer is a thing, you can manipulate it like a thing. You don’t need to let it manipulate you.
That brings me to quotation from Han that I disagree with most vehemently: “Digitalization has deprived things of any ‘defiant’ materiality, any intractability.” Everyone has had the sensation that a piece of technology is working against them. (Jared gave several great examples, his baby monitor and fridge). When Han talks about how physical things exist in opposition to us, I believe he means that our desire for how reality should be can run up against the inconvenient and undeniable fact of the existence of a thing. The form of a thing determines its function; it can’t be other than what it is. But digital technology is doubly stubborn, because it can be programmed. It has a will -- not a will of its own, but the will of its programmer. Using a piece of digital technology is handwork, only there are two hands trying to use the thing at once, our hand and the hand of the programmer. Although perhaps I ought to say, the programmer’s employer.
Regarding your second paragraph, I don't think Han's project is incompatible with materialism per se. I don't get the idea that the distinction between "thing" and "non-thing" is the kind of distinction dualists want to make between, for example, consciousness and brain. In the end, sure, "non-things" are made of matter and rendered by way of 1s and 0s through a screen made of matter, but I don't think that radically changes his analysis since it is a human-centered one.
To your third paragraph, I agree. A frictionless experience is intentional. Tech companies want apps to work reliably and addictively as that creates the most optimal revenue stream.
This problem of the computer as a mysterious machine is only exacerbated by the younger generations not learning how to operate PCs. I've helped students with webpage issues, and when they see me pull up the cmd prompt to clear cache, they are concerned I'm doing something nefarious. Young Gen Z and Alpha might've never known a world without smartphones and apps, but my anecdotal experience is they are not skilled users of a PC. Instead, they speak the frictionless language of apps.
Quite a storm of a chapter, indeed. It was hard for me to connect to most of the ideas on the villainy of things, Kafka's "ghosts", and the section on Heidegger.
However, some of Han's points on art and aesthetics did resonate with me—with some caveats. Han sees art as something that is experienced rather than interpreted (which reminded me of Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation essay). I agree, with some moderation: I don't think interpretation has to disappear completely. But there is something ineffable about the artistic experience, something that can't be reduced to an explanation of what the artwork means. That something that can't be fully explained is what makes art special and powerful.
Now, is this ineffability what makes art a thing, in Han's definition? Certainly not all things have the same ineffable quality as works of art. And I don't think the physicality of an artwork alone is what makes it "un-exhausted" by its meaning.
On the other hand, I can see how our exaggerated focus on information alone makes us lose sight of that something else, beyond representation and language, that makes the artistic experience special.
What you say about interpretation is interesting. I think great art falls into two categories when it comes to interpretation. There's the kind where, when you try to interpret it, there's always a piece that doesn't fit. It's like a puzzle, but whichever way you put it together it doesn't quite work and so you turn it over and over in your mind trying to figure it out. The other kind, much more rare, is the work of art that you don't need or want to interpret, it's all of a piece, fully formed, and it fills your mind.
I like this. Sometimes in interpreting art I feel like I lose the connection to what you describe as the ineffable. I enjoy poetry for example, but can find that overly technical analysis takes away from my appreciation.
Unusually, Jared, I really disagree with you regarding this chapter—it is my favourite (of Non-Things) that I have read to date.
I think you've missed something by suggesting that the resistance found in "smart" items is akin to the resistance of non-smart items. The resistance you have described in relation to the former is unintentional and, relatedly and more importantly, generally unable to be overcome by the consumer. When baby camera wouldn't work, you didn't have a meaningful role to play (indeed, nobody did—the item had to be thrown away); it's not the same as, say, tools inviting you to participate in the world by virtue of their reliability and function in combination with your own efforts.
My reference to tools above is itself, though, a kind of boring and uncharitable example in the context of Han's writing. My favourite portion of this chapter was the two paragraphs on page 52, beginning "These days, things are not even cooled..." and ending "The other, deprived of its otherness, is reduced to an available, consumable object." The reason I say tools are a boring example is because, in my view, the most interesting thinking by Han here was his reference to the non-physical opposition that objects can present, i.e. they can (or previously could, by way of their longevity and craft) demand creativity and appreciation.
Romance may be getting the better of me here, but I do believe there's some value in items possessing a kind of contemplative romance—and thought Han articulated that well. Another example that came to mind was the difference between Tiktok videos/AI-generated media and theatre (or, somewhere closer to the centre of the continuum, well-written and -directed films); theatre undeniably presents an opposition lacking in Instagram reels, and it achieves that through—to echo Han—realisation, reification and embodiment.
This is in line with my take on the chapter. The two paragraphs you highlight shaped my understanding of Han's things and non-things. His "available, consumable object" brings to mind the throw away nature of objects in today's world. We no longer deeply engage with objects, they are there to be picked up and used (almost absent-mindedly) but not contemplated, appreciated, understood, grappled with.
Exactly my thinking.
Something that I didn’t comment on before, but which came back to me as I was reading over Jared’s remarks, is Han’s commentary on art and poetry. Drawing on a quote by Robert Walser on how a poem's words are stretched “tightly over the content, that is, the body”. The poet puts down the words “almost without following an idea”—Han describes this as the poet following “an almost unconscious process” and “not following an idea.” (61) And a few pages later, while criticizing “today’s art”, Han laments how art is “no longer handwork that forms matter, *without intention*, into a thing, but thought work that communicates a prefabricated idea.” (64)
All of this reminds me of RC Collingwood’s distinction between art and craft. Craft starts with an end in mind, develops a plan to achieve that end, and uses skilled technique to bring it about. Art, on the other hand, doesn’t have an end in mind so much as a series of means. So a poet (artist) might have the compulsion to produce something, but the poem (artwork) is not preplanned; instead, it arises as a reaction to an impulse, the inner state of the artist. Importantly, this inner state and not the physical product is the true work of art. The physical product is a by-product– it allows the audience to access the artist’s internal state, thus duplicating the true artwork in the audience’s mind.
I write all this because the implications of this are strange: when we look at a painting or watch a film or read a poem, we aren’t engaging with the *actual* work of art. The *real* work of art is the idea, the inner state. But this isn’t how we talk about works of art.
I still need to read more of Han’s views of art (and since he weaves his thoughts through countless books it might take awile).
The View of Things chapter seems to diverge and spend much more time trying to recover the concept of 'thing.' It's strange because in my mind the title should be 'Views of Thing' as reading Han in this chapter appears almost schizophrenic.
I do find it interesting to chew on the difference between "art" and "craft." There are other great historical examples of trying to flesh out other similar dichotomies such as sophistry versus philosophy.
In the end, I think Han's analysis of art begins to teeter into the mystical. (I do not say that as an insult.) I have seen interesting, unabashedly atheistic accounts of poetry making a similar move. Specifically, I am thinking of Jennifer Hecht's book The Wonder Paradox wherein she posits poetry as substitute for prayer and ritual.
The losing oneself in tools, for me, reminds me of the flow state. You get so absorbed in your work that it just flows, and you've lost yourself in it. It's hard to argue that doomscrolling TikTok/Instagram gets you into the flow state.
Also, tangentially, but I'm after listening to Peter Adamson's podcast about the 'Skill Stories' in Zuangzhi, and it brought those to mind as well. That the person is so at one with the tool, lost in it, that it becomes part of them and is so natural.
A few other things about the essay:
I do think he has a point about the distinction between pornographic and erotic, especially in prose and poetry. I can't even begin to tel you how many people I've seen lately who claim that there should be no subtext, or that it doesn't exist. And that the author should beat you over the head with the plot. Because that's how we are now, where anything suggestive, anything that requires thinking (as I interpret his 'erotic' here - pornographic is explicit, erotic is suggestive). Brandon Sanderson is notoriously bad about this, but I've found myself moving back to classical literature and older works because it seems "plot beats all" is becoming central.
Finally, his part at the end really hit a chord with me, and really elevated the essay. When he talked about how we don't spend *time* with anything anymore, and we're just looking for shops to buy everything. But we can't buy friendship, it requires spending *time* with others, it requires the repetition that reaches the heart (I loved that phrase). It's definitely why we're lonely, despite being more connected than ever. He really hit the nail on the head here, channeling Fox.
It actually reminds me of a summer I spent in Spain, and with a person who was a good friend for the few weeks I was there. We were out on the beach one afternoon, ignoring everything, and he just said "Thank you for coming out and spending time with me, no phones, no rush to go anywhere or do anything." And it did feel great and the four of us were all fairly close after that day for the remainder of the trip. It's what we need more of, and I think this is the same kind of 'getting lost' Han channels with tools - you get absorbed in what you're doing in a flow state, connecting with something. Doomscrolling cannot do this.
Some other thoughts along those lines that came to me as I reviewed my notes from reading
The beings of nearness and distance part rings true to me - and I truly believe tech is erasing them both. We're near when we're separated, but separated when we're near because we're absorbed in our phones. Likewise, being connected versus being in a relation. Once again brings to mind the superficiality of online communities to me. They're just *not* the same as real communities. It also abolishes the gaze, as we often connect via text and therefore we don't have the mirror neurons firing, etc. We don't get the feeling of closeness we get as if we spend time with the person (see above). It's definitely responsible for the rise of depression I believe, as humans are inherently social creatures and we're not getting the type of socialisation we truly need. And thus we're alienated from each other, and depression is bound to rise. It's why solitary confinement is so bad - and we're all doing it to ourselves via technologies of 'communication'.
I definitely found this chapter harder to follow than some of Han’s earlier ones. One section, however, gave me a helpful entry point. A few pages in, Han writes:
“We cannot enter into a relation with a world that consists exclusively of available, consumable objects.”
And then a little later: “Digital communication abolishes the personal counterpart, the countenance, the gaze, physical presence. It thus accelerates the disappearance of the other.”
This chapter seems to be pointing toward a loss of relationship that arises from a particular kind of attention. The attention we give to smartphones feels more like being captured than actually engaging into a relationship with a thing. We are at the mercy of algorithms, icons, and notifications. In my own experience, the attention I give my phone is largely mindless. I click, swipe, consume, but I don’t linger or relate deeply in any meaningful way.
I think Han describes this when he writes:
“We constantly consume information. Information reduces touching. Our perception loses depth and intensity, physicality and volume. It does not immerse itself in reality’s layer of presence.”
This seems to refer to another kind of attention that is missing when we consume information. A kind that emerges when we are fully present with a thing. When we allow it to affect us, and in some sense become part of us. Perhaps this is what Han means when he speaks of “forgetting yourself” as a positive act. Not mindless consumption, but a losing of yourself through genuine encounter. Through opening to the other.
I may be projecting my own worldview onto Han here. But to end with a personal example that connects to this way of attending: last year I was with my family at Lake Tahoe, sitting by a firepit on the beach at dusk. The sun was setting across the lake, the view was stunning. For a moment, I lost myself in the colors, the lake, the sky. I can’t quite put words to the experience, it’s one of those moments that feels diminished by description.
The moment broke when a crowd rushed over to snap photos of the view. The feeling of connection and awe disappeared. Interestingly, my daughter also took a photo. When I look at it now, the picture is pretty. But nothing like the experience I had when I encountered it directly.
Han’s chapter ‘View of Things’ appears schismatic after close consideration. I am not sure there is a throughline in his analysis of ‘thing.’ It seems, rather, Han provides different modes of thinking one can apply to ‘things.’ This seems, at least in part, supported by noticing the amount of thinkers Han cites in the index (more than in any other chapter). This chapter alone has 89 citations with references, quotes, or support from Lacan, Freud, Merleau-Ponty, Rilke, Ponge, and of course, Heidegger. At times, these take on a drive-by fashion quality wherein Han uses an idea from elsewhere, e.g., the I-Thou connection versus I-It relation in Buber, without much explanation. Thus, some parts seem discordant (and maybe maligned) with others, and some parts seem to play nicely with one another. As a result, to me, it does not seem necessary to take up the project of chapter—whatever it might be, as I am unsure—in whole. Nonetheless, I think there is some value to be uncovered.
One interesting line of thinking for me: Han’s use of Ponge and Walser to elaborate his idea of ‘thing’ in The Forgetfulness of Art. Here, in my view, the part to emphasize is the body analogy: “Poetry is not the work of forming meaning but of forming bodies” (61). Then, on the same page, Han provides an account of how the signifier moves beyond and “condense[s] into a beautiful, mysterious, seductive, body.” Reading this section on the poem as a body alongside Heidegger’s Hand is fruitful because the body—both literally and metaphorically—take central stage.
Han emphasizes how the world is mediated and made meaningful through the hands (and in late Heidegger, the feet). From the Heidegger’s Hand section and previous chapters emphasizing tactility, I think it is reasonable to conclude that being is first and foremost embodied. Why does this matter? Perhaps, it can ground some of Han’s thinking for why the digital and informational is a mostly negative force. The world is afforded to us as an embodied being, yet when we digitize and informationalize the world around us, we are operating under deprivation. Walking down the street in Manhattan is not the same as experiencing it through a YouTuber’s GoPro lens. Sitting across from another is not the same as conversing via FaceTime. Writing on paper with a pen is not the same as typing into a Word document.
How does this relate back to poetry as a body? Again, I think here it is important to emphasize choosing the body as the vector of analogy versus—quite literally—anything else. Poetry for Han is not meaning making but body forming. This seems apt if we think of our pre-conditions for being as embodied. Perhaps a way to differentiate between ‘things’ and ‘non-things’, then, is the relation it has to embodied experience.
Reading Heidegger and Han has been a very enjoyable, engaging and confounding ride. It's the best headache I've had in awhile.
When Han brought up Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse - not one of my kids' favorites but not unknown in our house - I laughed out loud. I realize that all things (and non-things) can be topics of philosophy. I simply wasn't ready for "Oh, Tootles" to be quoted amidst Han's critique of technology's intrusion into our lives.
In reading that section I had a thought: Is Han suggesting, through the example of the "Mouseketools" and the Handy Dandy Machine, that Mickey and the gang have developed learned helplessness in the face of their own problems? "The Handy Dandy Machine had a ready solution for every problem. The hero no longer collides with physical reality. He does not have to deal with the resistance of things." I thought about that passage for a bit, mostly trying to remember that even the Disney Channel can be fertile territory for philosophical investigation. But it stuck with me - the Handy Dandy Machine is AI. It is a solution to the problems of the Clubhouse without any intellectual effort on the part of Mickey, Minny or Donald. The characters are helpless to solve their problems without technology. They are passive. I'd argue that is what Han is worried about in this section - that we are being led astray by the belief that technology can replace our own cognition, our own creativity. Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse offers up kids an early introduction to the frictionless solutions of technology that deny us meaning in return for empty, non-thing solutions where we submit to the technology. Maybe I need to get out of the Clubhouse on this one.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'The Forgetfulness of Things in Art.' I have been watching a fair amount of film recently, and his thoughts on art helped solidify some of my own thoughts.
On page 64, Han writes, "What is problematic about today's art is its inclination to communicate a preconceived opinion, a moral or political conviction: that is, its inclination to communicate information...It wants to instruct rather than seduce."
I think One Battle After Another and Sinners (both popular Emmy contenders) are poor films for this reason. It appears that the film's focus is instruction rather than seduction.
"Pornographic reading is opposed to an erotic reading that lingers with the text as a body, as a thing. Poems don't sit well with our pornographic and consumerist age." P. 60
Dune, No Country for Old Men, and 2001: A Space Odyssey all demand erotic lingering, and it is there that the communication takes place. The only issue with this type of communication is that the creator does not have as much control over what the viewer feels or thinks about. I think this is great, but it doesn't make for great instruction.
My lack of experience (and therefore expectation) reading philosophy was helpful to me this week as I felt I must simply make of the chapter what I could.
Han seems to be saying, we live in a world that increasingly lacks encounters with the Other - in things, in relationship. As things disappear and become information, as smoothness and lack of resistance predominate, as even art looses the Other that is 'the something beyond', we become a crowd of individuals, whirling ungrounded, unhanded, in a literal and metaphorical sky of information.
From this I took a feeling sense of wanting to find space in my day to linger with an Other - and the weather helpfully provided itself as a Thing to be pushed by, and to push on. Painting gradations of grey mist and rain was challenging, but the experience had a felt 'thickness' compared with the thinness of my usual morning Twitter scroll, and I felt it gave me a better understanding of what Han means by ritual as temporal architecture.
Again, I have no experience in philosophy, so my apologies if this comment isn't quite up to scratch.
Is anyone having an issue with comments being cut off and not being able to expand them? This started happening to me last week (reading on my computer not a phone) and it's continued this week. Some longer comments you can click on a button that says "see more" but others the text just gets cut off and no way to expand..."For a moment, I lost myself in the colors, the lake, the sky. I can’t quite put words to the experience, it’s one of those" - this is as far as I can see in Sally's comment for example...Anyone else?
I’ve had this problem sometimes. I can’t consistently reproduce it.
So not just me...argh...I will keep hoping it just resolves itself! I was really enjoying Sally's comment only to miss the conclusion!
Having the same problem with the same comment.
Han reaching for the Mouske-Tool (or however it is spelled) reminded me about Matthew Crawford's book "The World Beyond Your Head". Crawford gives a similar account to Han's, though more fleshed out and focused on it effects on embodied perception. There really is an uncanny similarity that made me question if Han was familiar with this argument at all - I'd be almost disappointed or upset if he wasn't at least partially familiar or inspired by Crawford's argument. I had to reread the aforementioned section of Crawford's book because I find it interesting that they both focus on this resistance (in Han's terminology) or frustration (in Crawford's). Primarily, I find it interesting that this could be the easiest point of reference to exemplify the points they are trying to make. Wouldn't it be more relatable to provide some account of how one uses their smartphone to interact with vast amounts of information that the intended audience would understand? This doesn't mean they can't use the Mouske-Tool as another reference point. In fact, both of them point out that this teaches children to view reality in a certain way. I suppose my consideration is that of the adult who has no child and therefore doesn't know much about this show.
On another note, it seems like the Mouske-Tool's utility as an example (like any other device) is limited by simply saying it provides less time and frustration/resistance. This breaks down for me because we can now counter by saying something to the effect of "Well, I work on skills and principles that train me to use objects that provide less friction to my daily living." I will give Han credit with this much, though this might spoil some of the proceeding sections. I wonder if there is a response that one could provide to this that doesn't sound like old man yelling at cloud. I also wonder if this response also acts in bad faith towards the point its rebutting. Thinking about this reminds me of what Jared and Jason discussed in a video not too long ago. I wonder if that discussion applies here (link to the video mentioned: https://youtu.be/WGjelN0bF4g?si=qBQRy2dGPHzvjJJn) Regardless, this chapter is where Han's struggles to retain a feeling of reliability or reality - and where his writing style really hurts his points. Maybe I at the ripe age of 28 have become the old man yelling at cloud.
There is one more similarity that I'd like to touch on, but I don't want to provide too much in terms of spoilers for Han's book; that is, they both discuss a musical item. For Crawford this is the piano. He spends an agonizingly long amount of time discussing what it takes to craft one - a fact that I think undermines his argument and hurts it. Similarly I find that Han spends time doing this with the Jukebox. I read ahead so that I could be on time, a result of being afraid that I might fall behind in reading. My over-vigilance aside, I find Crawford's argument to be more compelling as a whole that Han's, which is perhaps a result of their differing writing styles. That doesn't mean Han's argument is any less interesting, or that the points made are in some ways unique. It would just be great to have a clear and complete version of the argument, so that I feel more confident in assessing his claims.