Translated By Pauline Eiferman

Speed and Politics

Vice: People know you as the theorist of disaster. Do you think you might be obsessed with it?

Paul Virilio:

You witnessed aerial bombings in Nantes…

Did you hide in basements during the bombings?

And yet you suffer from claustrophobia, right?

A lot of people see only the negative side of your theories. But I see much of it as positive, such as the fact that you are interested in accidents because they are the epitome of complete surprise.

Do you mean “accident” in the same way that some say “event” in modern-day philosophy?

Are you against progress?

I was kind of hoping you’d talk about your metaphor of the shipwreck…

It’s fairly simple, but so universal.

I’m guessing that you always hear, “Regardless, Mr. Virilio, progress is a good thing.” Does that annoy you?

Do you own many technological items?

Let’s talk more about the danger that’s inherent in speed.

You just made a gesture as if you were wearing blinders.

You said once that “choosing resistance is not opposing yourself to new technologies, but refusing to collaborate.”

You also say that human nature is to resist. So what should I do? Throw my MacBook out the window?

What do you think of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s comments about 9/11 being “the greatest work of art that exists for the whole cosmos”?

Yes, ars in Latin is equivalent to technê in Greek.

What could be done to prevent such perversions?

Today, man is capable of destroying humanity. Hans Jonas, in The Imperative of Responsibility, calls for a radical change in ethics. I suppose you agree with him.

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It’s already hard for man to consider his own death. Do you really think he’s capable of considering the death of humanity—outside of Hollywood representations?

Please explain.

Is that what you mean by the “accident of thought”?

In American movies of the 70s, there were tons of catastrophes. Today, we’re more into apocalypse movies.

In the 70s, people were more into local catastrophes.

The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno

Titanic

Titanic

The Poseidon Adventure

The Poseidon

Airport

Massive things.

And what about all these more recent apocalyptic blockbusters, like The Day After Tomorrow or 2012?

There’s also an obsession with catastrophe in the news media. We’re always waiting for the next one to arrive.

What do you think of the media craze about the Large Hadron Collider?

I guess I should have known your answer, considering it’s a machine that accelerates particles to make them collide. But do you think that the risk really exists?

Fifteen years ago, you said you wanted to write a book called The Integral Accident. You also said that everyone could write their own 1984. You still haven’t written it, but did you mean that the consequence of this integral accident would be totalitarianism?

As you’ve written, we face “the synchronizing of collective emotions that leads to the administration of fear.”

What do you think of Ray Kurzweil’s thesis about the singularity? He says that in 2050, humans will be more technical than organic.

It sounds like a science-fiction movie. Gattaca, for instance.

…Blade Runner?

Right. Ford’s voiceover says something like, “Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than ever before. Not just his life… anybody’s life… my life.”