The Information Bomb [Paperback]

Paul Virilio (Author), Chris Turner (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2001

Spans everything from Fukuyama to Larry Flynt, all seen through the optic of Virilio's trenchant and committed theoretical position. After the era of the atomic bomb, Virilio posits an era of genetic and information bombs which replace the apocalyptic bang of nuclear death with the wimper of a subliminally reinforced eugenics.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A prolific French intellectual known for his pronouncements on media, computers and technology, Virilio writes in the subversive tradition of Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard and Theodore Roszak. In this bracing collection of essays and articles, originally published in France in 1998, he emerges as a deeply skeptical critic of "techno-culture," his blanket term encompassing cyberspace, Hollywood and pop culture, transgenic foodstuffs, animal cloning and the human genome project. Without much evidence, Virilio charges that the United States is waging an "information war" by using the Internet, the Web and global communications to foster "cybernetic colonialism," a monopoly of knowledge abetting control over minds everywhere and over the politics of sovereign states. Far from history coming to an end, as Francis Fukuyama suggested, techno-progress, in Virilio's diagnosis, is driving a new era of all-out globalization, spreading virtual realities, mass culture, biotechnology and weapons of mass destruction across the planet. This opens up possibilities for totalitarian control, social engineering and telesurveillance, he warns. Included are pieces on the space race, the suicidal Heaven's Gate cybercult, the divorce of science from ethics, the controversial "Sensation" art exhibit and other topics Virilio astutely sets in the context of our modern age of "pseudo-individualism" and a "liberal hedonism" that is "nothing more than 'every man for himself.'" While many of his prognoses are exaggerated and his academic prose can be tough sledding, Virilio's cyber-skepticism is a refreshing antidote to the "global village" mantra of Net gurus.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Virilio's cyber-skepticism is a refreshing antidote to the 'global village' mantra of Net guru. -- Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Verso (November 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859843697
• ISBN-13: 978-1859843697
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,476,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars technophobes unite!, May 17, 2006

By 

rakhia (bklyn) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Information Bomb (Radical Thinkers) (Paperback)

A unique mix of Situationism, postmodernism, and Luddism! (With a dose of Foucault and a left-wing Catholic streak?!) Virilio's staccato, rapid-fire assault mostly dispenses with conventional argument or exposition, but that's what makes him so bracing. It's a hail of neologisms, newspaper headlines, and quotes from contemporary politicos and ancient philosophers. The main thesis seems to be we're flirting with disaster: under the pressures of the military-industrial complex, technoscience, telecommunications and surveillance technologies, etc., reality is steadily shrinking and accelerating, preparing us for some unknown "integral accident" waiting to happen: a global disaster, a Chernobyl or Hiroshima whose chain reaction will be at least "virtually" apocalyptic.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Virilio's Information Apocalypse, September 13, 2007

By 

John David Ebert (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Information Bomb (Radical Thinkers) (Paperback)

Paul Virilio does not believe in technology as a salvific force. Like Baudrillard, he is a skeptic when it comes to electronic culture, but unlike Baudrillard, who is really a disguised mystic, Virilio is an apocalyptist leaning over the edge of history and gazing out upon its serrated contours. Virilio is grittier than Baudrillard; he is more direct and to the point, whereas Baudrillard wishes to light candles and put on soft music before dazzling us with his aphorisms.

For Virilio, the main point seems to be that our world culture of electronic screens has replaced local, chronological time with "real time," the time of instantaneity, in which there is neither time nor room for the leisure of reflective thought. When everything happens all at once, there is no space for the accumulation of a cultural memory with which to absorb the impacts, and so all is instantly forgotten the very moment it arises.

Virilio sees us headed for a global catastrophe of some sort; this is the shadow side of the globalization of the planet, which hangs suspended in its electronic ether. This book was written in the years immediately preceding Y2K -- the great catastrophe that never took place -- and so it is possible that this may have colored his perceptions. However, in later texts like "The Original Accident," Virilio insists that the great work of global catastrophe, whatever it may be, is still on its way. And he may be right.

"The Information Bomb" is a media studies classic that belongs on the shelf right beside your dog-eared copies of "Understanding Media" and "The Disapearance of Childhood." It is terse and rough-hewn, but it is also packed full of clever neologisms and insightful glimpses into the abyss that technological "advance" continues to open up before our feet.

How long until we fall into the chasm specially made for us by our machines? Virilio doesn't know and neither do I. But I do know one thing: we need more, rather than less, questioning of the advances of technology, for each new gadget that is thrust at us brings along with it a horde of internal disruptors which will implode our cultural landscape from within. Remember record players, eight track tapes, VCR's, drive ins? (As Virilio remarks, with the advent of the elevator, the grand staircase was relegated to a mere fire escape). Those things are all gone now, and so too, the social horizons which they brought into being along with them. They have been replaced by newer and more refined gadgets with new potentialities for knocking our culture's equilibrium off balance, along with our perennially disturbed nervous systems.

Virilio deserves a wider readership, and "The Information Bomb" is a good place for the new reader to become acquainted with him.

SEE ALSO MY YOUTUBE VIDEO "JOHN DAVID EBERT ON PAUL VIRILIO"

--John David Ebert, author of "The New Media Invasion."

3 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars buy this book, January 17, 2002

By 

"terminatus" (OKC, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Information Bomb (Hardcover)

one of the two most original thinkers i have ever read, the other being jean baudrillard. buy this book, think about the psy and phys of current techno on humanity. learn and grow.