Excess of positivity and academic suffering: transversalities between Byung-Chul Han and Franco "Bifo" Berardi

Abstract

Mental suffering in the academic environment, manifested through depression, anxiety, and burnout, results from the excess of stimuli and the constant pressure for performance imposed by modern society. This article interprets this situation considering the theses of Byung-Chul Han and Franco “Bifo” Berardi. Han argues that the current era is dominated by neuronal diseases caused by an excess of positivity, in contrast to the infectious diseases of the past, characterized by negativity and immune defense. This discussion is expanded based on the ideas of Sigmund Freud and Donald Winnicott, highlighting how academic environments exacerbate these conditions. Beyond the Freudian unconscious, this article recognizes that individuals are captives of information flows emerging from a social unconscious, which nurtures and complicates all subjectivities. The collective malaise in academia is a symptom of a broader contemporary challenge, not an emergent property of the academic system itself. The article examines how the transition of modern society from an immunological model – defense against the strange and the negative – to a paradigm dominated by excess positivity alters both social dynamics and pathological models, leading to psychic suffering in the academic environment.