Date: Sat, 7 May 94 19:18:35 EDT
From: ma-AT-dsd.camb.inmet.com (Malgosia Askanas)
To: technology-AT-world.std.com
Subject: Re:  Paul Virilio


Steven says:

> Virilio is attempting to avoid the complete _urbanization_ of the human 
> being into the _static audiovisual human being_, but his outlook seems to 
> rest on human behaviors as a static, or better yet, passive relation.  

What would you say is Virilio's outlook?  Later on, you describe it
as Heideggerian "doom and gloom".  What in Virilio's article leads you
to this evaluation?
 
> Virilio's final question - "To be a subject or to be subjected?" is an 
> example of the passive behavioral interpretation.  Yet Virilio identifies
> human capability of control in the new environment:
 
>         "The shift is ultimately felt in the very body of every city 
>         dweller, as a _terminal citizen_ who will soon be equipped with 
>         interactive prostheses whose pathological model is that of the 
>         motorized handicapped, equipped so that he or she can CONTROL the 
>         domestic environment without undergoing any physical 
>         displacement. (p. 11)"
 
> To be a subject or subjected are two different considerations apart from
> any type of control.  Both a subject and the subjected are passive 
> individuals, while control implies an active individual. 

This is not how I think of "subject".  To me, the subject (as opposed
to object) is that which acts.  So I interpret the subject/subjected
dichonomy as between acting and being acted upon.  The quoted
paragraph, in my reading, illustrates why the question is being asked:
the "terminal citizen" exercizes control over large distances, but
at the cost of "voluntarily" giving up his powers as an "able-bodied
subject", and his subjectivity as we know it now.

> But the ethical issues are what Virilio is really driving for.  He fears
> the use of future technology as a serveillence mechanism that regulates
> bio-power, without the awareness of the biological entities.  Is it true
> that human beings will be subjected agencies, unable to adapt effectively
> to both the change underway and imminent?  

Where in Virilio do you find reference to these particular ethical issues?

I also want to ask you this.  Why is it desirable that we adapt
effectively to the situation described in the Virilio article?
This is going back to the question I raised initially on the list.
If the change that was "imminent and underway" was, for example, a
change to a totalitarian political regime, you would probably not
dismiss a critical assessment of this change as "gloom and doom"
and expressive of a doubt that we will be able to effectively adapt to
the new regime.  People _do_ adapt to totalitarianism; yet we
do not consider this fact as a good counterargument to 
anti-totalitarian critiques.  Why are technological changes 
different from political changes?


- malgosia