The ideals of technological culture remain underdeveloped and therefore outside of popular culture and the practical ideals of democracy. This is also why society as a whole has no control over technological developments. And this is one of the gravest threats to democracy in the near future. It is, then, imperative to develop a democratic technological culture.

Paul Virilio

Categorized in : Culture Democracy Technological Development

There are eyes everywhere. No blind spot left. What shall we dream of when everything becomes visible? We'll dream of being blind.

Paul Virilio

blind-spots eye dream

When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane you also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution...Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.

Paul Virilio

negativity progress technology

Today, everything is about speed and real time. We are no longer concerned with real space.

Paul Virilio

space real today

In this way, history now inscribes itself in real time, in the 'live', in the realm of interactivity. Consequently, history no longer resides in the extension of territory.

Paul Virilio

territory real way

The true problem with virtual reality is that orientation is no longer possible. We have lost our points of reference to orient ourselves. The de-realized man is a disoriented man.

Paul Virilio

problem men reality

Virtuality will destroy reality.

Paul Virilio

reality

Of course, one of the most disturbing features is the fact that while we have had roughly a ten year pause in the arms race where a lot of good work was done, this has now come to an end. For what we are seeing at the present time are new developments in anti-missile weaponry, drones, and so on.

Paul Virilio

drones race years

These new technologies try to make virtual reality more powerful than actual reality, which is the true accident. The day when virtual reality becomes more powerful than reality will be the day of the big accident. Mankind never experienced such an extraordinary accident.

Paul Virilio

technology powerful reality

To regain our liberty (and our distance), we must slow the images down.

Paul Virilio

distance liberty

Digital messages and images matter less than their instantaneous delivery; the shock effect always wins out over the consideration of the informational content.

Paul Virilio

digital messages winning

World War Two was a world war in space. It spread from Europe to Japan, to the Soviet Union, etc. World War Two was quite different from World War One which was geographically limited to Europe. But in the case of the Gulf War, we are dealing with a war which is extremely local in space, but global in time, since it is the first 'live' war.

Paul Virilio

europe war two

How can we live if there is no more here and everything is now?

Paul Virilio

ifs

All of us are already civilian soldiers, without knowing it...The great stroke of luck for the military class's terrorism is that no one recognizes it. People don't recognize the militarized part of their identity, of their consciousness.

Paul Virilio

knowing military class

The speed of light does not merely transform the world. It becomes the world. Globalization is the speed of light.

Paul Virilio

light doe world

Some of the most dramatic consequences of the Kosovo war are linked to the resumption of the arms race and the suicidal political and economic policies of countries like India and Pakistan where tons of money are currently being spent on atomic weaponry. This is abhorrent!

Paul Virilio

suicidal war country

Speed now illuminates reality whereas light once gave objects of the world their shape.

Paul Virilio

light reality world

Today, the media handle information as if it was a religious artefact.

Paul Virilio

information media religious

Television exposes the world to the accident. The world is exposed to accidents through television.

Paul Virilio

exposed television world

May I remind you that the bombs that were dropped by the B-2 plane on the Chinese embassy or at least that is what we were told were GPS bombs. And the B-2 flew in from the US.

Paul Virilio

gps chinese bombs

The technologies of virtual reality are attempting to make us see from beneath, from inside, from behind... as if we were God.

Paul Virilio

attempting technology reality