The Administration of Fear by Paul Virilio

The Administration of Fear by Paul Virilio

A new interview with the philosopher of speed, addressing the ways in which technology is utilized in synchronizing mass emotions.

We are living under the administration of fear: fear has become an environment, an everyday landscape. There was a time when wars, famines, and epidemics were localized and limited by a certain timeframe. Today, it is the world itself that is limited, saturated, and manipulated, the world itself that seizes us and confines us with a stressful claustrophobia. Stock-market crises, undifferentiated terrorism, lightning pandemics, professional suicides. Fear has become the world we live in.

The administration of fear also means that states are tempted to create policies for the orchestration and management of fear. Globalization has progressively eaten away at the traditional prerogatives of states (most notably of the welfare state), and states have to convince citizens that they can ensure their physical safety.

In this new and lengthy interview, Paul Virilio shows us how the propaganda of progress, the illuminism of new technologies, provide unexpected vectors for fear in the way that they manufacture frenzy and stupor. For Virilio, the economic catastrophe of 2007 was not the death knell of capitalism, as some have claimed, but just further evidence that capitalism has accelerated into turbo-capitalism, and is accelerating still. With every natural disaster, health scare, and malicious rumor now comes the inevitable information bomb--live feeds take over real space, and technology connects life to the immediacy of terror, the ultimate expression of speed. With the nuclear dissuasion of the Cold War behind us, we are faced with a new form of civil dissuasion: a state of fear that allows for the suspension of controversial social situations.

Paul Virilio trained as an artist in stained glass, working with Braque and Matisse, as well as studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. In 1975 he was made director of the Ecole speciale d'architecture in Paris. He retired from teaching in 1998 and now works with private organizations on projects to house the homeless in Paris. He has written many books, including War and Cinema, Open Sky, and Ground Zero.
A translator from Romanian, Spanish, German, French, and Italian, Patrick Camiller has translated many works, including Dumitru Tsepeneag's Vain Art of the Fugue, The Necessary Marriage, and Hotel Europa.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781584351054
ISBN 10	1584351055
Title	The Administration of Fear
Author	Paul Virilio
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Autonomedia
Year published	2012-02-24
Number of pages	96
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable