Pure War"Pure war" is the name of the invisible war that technology is waging against humanity. In this dazzling dialogue with Sylvere Lotringer, Paul Virilio for the first time displayed the whole range of his reflections on the effect of speed on our civilization and every one of them has been dramatically confirmed over the years. For Virilio, the foremost philosopher of speed, the "technical surprise" of World War I was the discovery that the wartime economy could not be sustained unless it was continued in peacetime. As a consequence, the distinction between war and peace ceased to apply, inaugurating the military-industrial complex and the militarization of science itself. Every new invention casts a long shadow that we are generally unwilling to acknowledge in the name of progress: the invention of automobiles inaugurated car-crashes; the invention of nuclear energy, Hiroshima and Tchernobyl. The technologies of instant communications have invented another kind of accident: the extermination of space and the derealization of time. Instant feedback is shrinking the planet to nothing, and "globalization" is its ultimate accident. First published in 1983, this book introduced Virilio's thinking to the United States. For successive generations of readers, it remains one of the most influential and far-reaching essays of our time. |
Contents
The Space of War | 9 |
The Time of War | 19 |
Technology and TransPolitics | 29 |
Copyright | |
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absolute accident already American ancient societies army become beginning believe bomb Cambodia Chrono-politics civilian society commerce any political conflict confrontation consciousness destruction deterrence deterritorialization disappearance economy endo-colonization Europe everything exist fact Falklands war Félix Guattari foreign principal Foucault France geo-strategic Gilles Deleuze happened Holy Howard Hughes ideology industrial interested interruption invention inversion Jean Baudrillard kind Latin America logistics longer machine Marxism means Michel Foucault military class military-industrial complex missiles movement nology non-development North-South nuclear power nuclear war pacifists Paris Paul Virilio peace phenomenon Pierre Clastres polar inertia popular defense principal and required problem Pure question of death relation religious revolution riddle sedentariness SEMIOTEXT(E sense situation social Soviet Union space Speed and Politics strategy suicide SYLVÈRE LOTRINGER talk tech tendency territory terrorism terrorist there's thing tion trans-politics ultimate weapon United Walesa war-machine what's words