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 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 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.