In the modern era, despite the fact that true chains have disappeared, we observe the creation of a new type of slave: the person who subjects themselves to voluntary exhaustion. In The Burnout Society (an unexpected bestseller in many countries), the famous Korean philosopher exposes the reasons for this unnatural behavior and explains how our societies have fallen victim to the abuse of a single concept: "positivity".

This concept, aided by the illusion of "freedom of choice", produces tired, failed, and depressed individuals. Byung-Chul Han documents how "the modern slave has largely chosen his own enslavement" in order to secure his minimally interesting and utterly empty survival. Just as Foucault's "disciplinary society" produces madmen and criminals, the "positivity society", adopting the slogan Yes we can, elevates self-exploitation to dominant behavior.