Who drives whom mad

For the greater part of history the danger came from the other: the master with the whip, the guard at the gate, the village that saw everything. But something has shifted. We have swallowed the gaze and the whip. And that suddenly makes the old question of who drives whom mad a strange one.

The prisoner became the guard

In 1975 Michel Foucault described a design by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham: the panopticon, a prison with a tower from which every cell can be watched without the prisoner knowing when. The result is that he always behaves as if he were being watched. The gaze need not even be present; the idea of it suffices. This, Foucault said, is how modern power works: it turns us into our own guards.

In 2010 the philosopher Byung-Chul Han took a sharp step further. The society of "you may not" has given way to the one of "you can do it, yes you can." The achievement-subject is "the entrepreneur of himself": free, unconstrained, his own boss. And precisely for that reason he exploits himself, voluntarily and endlessly, because there is no longer any master to revolt against. Only your own ambition. Burn-out is the illness that goes with it: not oppression from without, but self-exploitation from within, mistaken for freedom. We have become master and slave at once. And the slave can never hand in his resignation, because the master is himself.

The gaze moved inward

Look at the present and the picture is familiar. We pose for an audience that is often imagined, no one was watching, and yet we felt ashamed. We judge ourselves more harshly than any crowd ever could. The counted steps, the screen time, the personal brand, the five-o'clock morning routine: you have become your own overseer. The phone is at once the mirror in which you compare yourself to others and the whip with which you drive yourself on. The danger no longer comes only from the other. It comes, in growing measure, from you.

But never pure

And here the most important counter-voice, for the easy conclusion, "so it's your own fault", is false. Han overstates the rupture, his critics say, and rightly so. For a parcel courier, a warehouse worker, or anyone at the mercy of an algorithm, the master is still very much present and entirely external: not sweet self-exploitation, but plain exploitation. And the word "self-exploitation" can hand the real exploiters a free pass, by neatly laying the blame on the individual. So yes, the gaze has moved inward. But someone built the mirror and profits from it, and someone sells the fuel for the fire. The honest answer to "self or other" is therefore: both, intertwined. The opposition itself is blurring, because the other now lives inside us. And that coinciding, that may well be the diagnosis.

What it gives you

The use of all this is not a question of blame but a stance. Notice whether the fire in which you are burning up is your own, or whether the matches were pressed into your hands. Shrink the audience you perform for; you owe the gaze no show. But do not privatise a problem that is structural: if the circumstances burn you out, then change the circumstances, and do not let "self-care" become the alibi that lets the match-seller go free.

A moment to take with you: the fire in which you are burning up, did you light it yourself, or were the matches handed to you? And can you still tell the difference?

This piece is about exhaustion and the gaze, not about you as a diagnosis. Should you notice that the emptiness is larger than a text can carry: burn-out and persistent low spirits are real, and your GP is a good, non-judgemental first address. If your thoughts turn darker, in the Netherlands 113 Suicide Prevention is reachable day and night: call 113 or 0800-0113, or visit 113.nl.