I FATIGUE

Marek Krajewski

Introduction. Fatigue: Modernity’s productive problem

Marta Zawodna-Stephan

From tired body to tired soul. A short essay on the social history of fatigue

Przemysław Nosal

Utopia of fatiguelessness

Karolina Kabzińska, Przemysław Rura

Objectification and expertness. On human and inhuman actors legitimizing fatigue

Ariel Modrzyk

Fatigued bodies in unbalanced economic and natural systems

Waldemar Rapior

Counter current. Intense industry as a source of fatigue

Alicja Raciniewska

Fashion and fatigue

Honorata Jakubowska

Fatigue and its spectacles in the sports field

Katarzyna Chajbos, Dorota Mroczkowska

The new fatigued and the new fatigue. The case of modern fitness club

Bogumiła Mateja-Jaworska, Łukasz Rogowski

Fatigue in social networks

Filip Schmidt

Tired with intimacy. Fatigue as experience, problem and means of communication in modern intimate relationships

Małgorzata Kubacka

Feelings under control? Emotional dimensions of fatigue

Agnieszka Stamm

The young and fatigue with democracy 27 years after system transformation – the case of the electorate of conservative-liberal parties

Bogumiła Mateja-Jaworska

The unbearable lightness of TV – a fatigued viewer in front of his television

II REVIEWS

Jakub Robaszkiewicz

Deleuze and research methodologies

Agata Skórzyńska

A new audience. A guide with a polemic edge

The text, which serves as an introduction to the present volume, attempts to explain an idea developed and specified in the remaining articles, namely that modernity is organized around the concept of fatigue. However, in modernized societies fatigue occurs not only as a figure encompassing the unwanted and undesired aspects of life, treated as a restriction to the systemic and individual development, but also as one of the crucial motifs responsible for vitality, expansion and stability of modernizing impulses. The fight against fatigue and attempts to diminish, hide or de-localize it have become the source of activism characteristic to modernity and its tendency to fulfilment through self transcendence. When fatigue becomes the central motif of modernity, the conditions of its survival are consequently placed on the individual level, though defined in a relational perspective. This in turn results in holding the individual responsible for the existence of the modernized world, leading to a high degree of self-exploitation which brings about exhaustion, weariness, constant feeling of imperfection and unfulfilment. Modernity and fatigue are therefore connected via a mutualistic relationship of correlation where one cannot exist without the other. This relationship can only be evaded if we assume that we do not have control over everything, both as a species and as individual beings.

This text is a short essay on the social history of fatigue. In it, I have described the transition from interest in a tired body of a worker to deliberations on the psychological dimension of fatigue. The first part of the article focuses predominantly on the body of an urban proletarian and 19th century hygienists’ attempts to heal, beautify and cleanse it. The second part discusses the phenomenon of mechanization of the human body, including its perception as a human motor, i.e. a body able to ensure capitalist society’s development. The third part of the article shows how the phenomenon of fatigue becomes an obstacle in executing the project of a healthy, clean, beautiful and productive society represented by supporters of the two types of corporeality presented above. In the final part, I talk about the drop of interest in the tired body and the shift of fatigue researchers’ attention to tired soul and tired mind in the 20th century.

The vision of a lasting and common fatiguelessness in humans is one of the universal projects of social utopia. It is supposed to free the individual from the exhausting consequences of manufacturing activities. A functional framework for attempts to make this utopia real is constituted by two meta-projects – one focused on mercy (taking away the pain felt by individuals), and the other focused on optimum management of the manufacturing energy. The diversity and complexity of actions undertaken as part of these meta-projects are organized via the category of myth, and the two myths essential to the utopia of fatiguelessness are the myths of support and help.

The article focuses on the process of expressing fatigue which leads to its objectification in the form of human and inhuman actors. The text consists of three main parts. The first part discusses the modern trend to increase involvement in work treated as a value in itself, not as a means to achieve instrumental goals. The second part is devoted to an attempt to locate fatigue in the modern society. The said concept constitutes an „impediment” to work which should provide the individual and its relatives with a wealthy and interesting life. The third part describes the possible models of delegating the decision regarding fatigue to outside parties, such as doctors or psychologists, as well as software measuring various dimensions of work and monitoring our psychological and physical condition. We conclude the text by summarizing its points with special focus on the use of technology as an inhuman actor which objectifies fatigue, thereby confirming or questioning subjectively experienced states of the organism.

The first goal of this article is to point out that the idea of optimality is one of the key terms necessary to reconstruct social understanding of body fatigue. In this case, special focus is put on such basic themes as the balance of chemical substances, i.e. vitamins and minerals. The second goal is to show the relationship between the categories of balance and fatigue. Fatigue is usually equated with the state of deficiency or excess of certain elements (vitamins, rest, effort etc.). This leads to the assumption that balance, i.e. optimality, is the expected state. With that in mind, it is important to juxtapose the discourse regarding the balance within the body with the field of economy and nature; and to underline their common parts which constitute a universal model of the human perception of reality. Based on these parallels we may wonder whether it is possible to state that unbalanced economies and unbalanced nature are „fatigued”. An important argument against that hypothesis is the notion that economies and nature are usually presented as systems which do not feel and cannot communicate their fatigue. Systems lack the element of a subjective experience important from the point of view of a fatigued person. As a result, it seems that it is more appropriate to talk not of fatigued economies or fatigued nature, but of fatigued bodies in unbalanced natural and economic systems. This lack of balance is reflected in bodies via states which accompany fatigue, such as deficiency of vitamins or minerals, postural defects, obesity.

By expanding the self-regulating market to all aspects of life – including land and human labour – and intensifying farming, humans contribute to the fatigue of nature and animals. This provokes a contradictory response, the „opposite current” mentioned in the title, based on extending moral rights and norms to the flora and fauna. The concept of „fatigue” is no longer neutral, it has a moral sense and is used to condemn certain activities and policies. The opposite current in turn brought about a further wave of fatigue: „fatigue with the apocalypse”, „green fatigue”, „eco-fatigue”. A concern for nature is therefore a constant battle with fatigue, or in other words, our battle against ourselves.

In this article, the category of fatigue is used to discuss the essence of fashion and phenomena characteristic for fashion trends of the late capitalist era. The presence of this category in the fashion practice and discourse is analised in three aspects: the shabby style, fatigue with the so-called fast-fashion and fatigue among the designers hired by luxurious fashion houses. The analysis of such cases is meant to demonstrate that fatigue, burnout and wear and tear are integral elements of the fashion system in the late capitalist era. The text ends with a reflection on the essence of fashion based on Walter Benjamin’s „metaphysics of fashion”.

The article aims to discuss representations of fatigue in the media coverage of sport events. Professional sport is shown as a zone where, contrary to many aspects of social life, fatigue is not hidden, but exposed. The text describes the spectacles of fatigue which made history as well as its everyday expressions in broadcasts of sport events. They are interpreted predominantly within the framework of giving meaning and value to sport and the effort it requires, as well as heroization of the competitors. At the same time I underline the differences between displays of fatigue for sportsmen and sportswomen and the use representations of fatigue to de-legitimize certain sports practices.

The growing popularity and financial success of the fitness club market mean that their culture has become an important aspect of the everyday life of people in the developed and developing countries. The article attempts to demonstrate that fatigue is one of the elements which constitute the fitness club experience and that its intensity both measures the professionalism and effectiveness of the training and is a condition of its success. Today, fatigue is more than just a part of individual, particular narratives or a source of individual experiences and emotions. It is also – or even predominantly – an element of a systemic process of placing individuals within the structures of control and consumerism supported by expert systems.

The article describes the phenomenon of fatigue from the point of view of social networks and network society, with special focus on their technological aspects. It names five dimensions of such fatigue: excess and satiety, problematic agency, constant tension, unwanted connections, fatigue with network inefficiency and noise. The trends which emerge in response to such fatigue – withdrawal, reconfiguration, revaluation – are treated as indicators of modern changes in social ties.

Everyday reality of being a couple is becoming both problematic and tiresome in our culture. A couple must deal not only with fatigue-inducing external obligations, but also with tiredness resulting from their work on the smooth operation of the coupledom mechanism and many young people are overwhelmed by the intensity of intimacy created by living together. For modern couples, fatigue is also a topic of conversation and a bargaining card. These three forms of fatigue are discussed based on research conducted in Poznań in 2011-2012 and in 2015.

In the present article, I discuss certain characteristics of modern reality in order to show how fatigue is symbolically taking over those areas of our lives that constitute important elements of everyday existence. I also point out that putting feelings at the center of human experience contributed to increasing fatigue’s influence. Cultural emotional ideologies not only produce fatigue, but can also be perceived as a result of its presence in other areas of our lives. The multitude of emotional norms, therapeutic discourses and the obligation of affective reflectiveness define the dimensions of fatigue specific to modern times. Every described dimension of fatigue is connected to an ambiguous attitude towards experiencing emotions. On the one hand, feelings are perceived as forces outside rational control, on the other – as states to be managed in a conscious and reflective manner.

The article analyses the attitude toward democracy exhibited by young people voting for parties with liberal economic views and conservative moral beliefs. I am attempting to define the source of negative attitudes toward democratic system in this group, using such phenomena as simplicity policy, and in particular „fatigue with democracy”, as well as attitudes toward post-materialistic values in the modern Polish society. The second part of the article presents research conducted from February to May 2015 among students with conservative-liberal views in Poznań. The results of individual in-depth interviews show their perception of the democratic system. Students point out the flaws of democracy as a concept and notice a discord between their values and the recognized, and necessarily top-down, post-materialistic values introduced via institutional solutions. Results of such analyses also demonstrate what the young people expect from the authorities when it comes to the perfect system and leadership style.

The article discusses the conflict between the field of discourses regarding TV and real modern media practices. It also attempts to answer a vital question about television’s continued importance despite sudden changes in the media landscape. As it turns out, the concept of fatigue is the key to understanding modern popularity of TV. Based on the results of qualitative empirical research, I am analysing why TV is treated by many people as the „relaxing medium”. I am also looking at tensions connected with perceiving TV as „easy” and „repetitive”.

Deleuze and Research Methodologies, red. R. Coleman, J. Ringrose, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2014.

Sławomir Czarnecki, Nowa widownia. O promocji w kulturze, Narodowe Centrum Kultury, Warszawa 2015.