Original accident / Paul Virilio ; translated by Rose Julie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Virilio, Paul.

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Progress.

Physical Description:

120 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Polity, 2007.

Language Note:

Translated from the French.

Summary:

The future once promised the certainty of a better life for all but now it is full of uncertainty, danger and fear. Our lives are surrounded by the threats, imaginary or real, posed by terrorist outrages, natural catastrophes and disasters of all kinds. The future is overshadowed by the nightmare of an outmoded humanity overwhelmed by a catastrophe of its own making, a kind of catastrophic grand finale that would mirror the original accident - the Big Bang - that some scientists believe created the universe.

A biting meditation on Progress - technoscientific progress, at any cost and without, any limits - this book defines the ways in which postindustrial science has merged with out-and-out hyperterrorism to threaten the foundations of Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian civilization, and the future of the planet with them, through innovation of mass catastrophes that are part and parcel of its panoply of inventions. Urging us to face up to the consequences of our brave-new-world technologies, Virilio calls for the creation of a Museum of the Accident to fight our habituation to horror and violence, and our daily overexposure to terror, in the name, not of some preventive war, but of a preventive intelligence that would help us deal with both natural and artificial disasters.

Contents:

1 Caution 3

2 The Invention of Accidents 9

3 The Accident Argument 15

4 The Accident Museum 23

5 The Future of the Accident 31

6 The Expectation Horizon 38

7 Unknown Quantity 47

8 Public Emotion 57

9 The Original Accident 70

10 The Dromosphere 83.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [102]-111) and index.

ISBN:

9780745636139

0745636136

0745636144

9780745636146

OCLC:

70881897