Realist Post-work Ethic
Life Antidote is proud to present a practical guide to help customers operate in corporate environments. The guide is rooted in a very real condition described by cultural theorists like Mark Fisher and Byung-Chul Han. Fisher coined the term capitalist realism to describe the widespread belief that there is no alternative to the current system—a belief so pervasive it shapes not just politics or economics, but our ability to imagine different ways of living, working, and relating. Han, meanwhile, argues that modern society has shifted from external discipline to internal self-exploitation. In The Burnout Society, he writes that we are now our own taskmasters, burning out not from imposed labor, but from our compulsive drive to “achieve.”
The Realist’s Post-Work Ethic flips these ideas into a survival guide to reveal the absurdity of a world where sincerity is co-opted and wellness is an optimization metric. If we cannot yet exit the system, we can at least exit its grip on our interior lives—one empty calendar event at a time.