Ground Zero

How would it be if what we take for human advance were simply a technological progress which literally leaves us out of its equations? What if Progress is not humanity striking out bravely towards the future, but an ultimately destructive force which has caught us up and overtaken us? Such a belief forms the core of Virilio’s vision.In this book, Virilio paints a bleak picture of current scientific, cultural, social and political values. Art has succumbed to the techniques of advertising and, in politics, the battle for hearts and minds has become a mere convergence of opinion. TV ratings have triumphed over universal suffrage. The events of 11 September reflect both the manipulation of a global sub-proletariat and the delusions of an elite of rich students and technicians who resemble the “suicidal members of the Heaven’s Gate cybersect”. And, in this post-humanist dystopia, we are morally rudderless before the threat of biological manipulations as yet undreamed of.