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Paul Virilio
Speed & Politics
Tanslated by Mark Polizzotti
Introduction by Benjamin Bratton
| Dromocratic intelligence
(the revolution of speed) is a permanent assault on the world,
and through it, on human nature. The disappearance
of flora and fauna and the abrogation of natural economies
are just the slow preparation for more brutal destructions.
The economic war currently ravaging the earth is but the
slow phase of declared war, of a rapid and brief assault
to come. |
Speed and Politics (1986;
first published in France in 1977) is the matrix of Virilio's
entire work. Building on the works of Morand, Marinetti,
and McLuhan, Virilio presents a vision more radically political
than that of any of his French contemporaries: speed as the
engine of destruction. It presents a topological account
of the entire history of humanity, honing in on the technological
advances made possible through the militarization of society.
Parallel to Heidegger’s vision of technology, Virilio
sees speed—not class or wealth—as the primary
force shaping civilization. In this ‘technical vitalism,’ multiple
projectile—inert fortresses and bunkers, the ‘metabolic
bodies’ of soldiers, transport vessels, and now information
and computer technology—mutually prosthetize each other
in a permanent assault on the world and, through it, on human
nature. Written at a lightning-fast pace, Virilio’s
landmark book is an split-second, overwhelming look at how
humanity’s motivity has shaped the way we function
today, as well as a view into what might come of it.
Paul Virilio was born in Paris in 1932 from an immigrant
Italian family. Trained as an urban planner, he became the
director of the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in the
wake of the 1968 rebellion. He has published 25 books, including Pure
War (1983) with Sylvere Lotringer, his first in America; The
Aesthetics of Disappearance (1989), The Art of the
Motor (1993), Politics of the very Worse (1996),
and Lost Dimension (1991). |
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