Date: 12 May 1994 20:51:35 -0800 (PST)
From: XSMEINKING-AT-CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Paul Virilio
To: technology-AT-world.std.com


 
Malgosia:
 
You have raised some very interesting issues and questions in regard to
my last post concerning Paul Virilio.
 
In your post you stated:
 
>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 
dichotomy as between acting and being acted upon.<
 
First and foremost, I would like to address your definition of "subject".
You define subject as an acting individual.  But this is hardly what 
subject really means.  For example, we use the word subject in regard to 
a topic of discourse, i.e. subject of philosophy, literature; in medical
discourse, i.e. the test subject; as well as in many other ways, all of 
which have a passive connotation.  _Webster_ defines subject (noun) as 
"one that is placed under authority or control" and subject (adjective)
as "owing obedience or allegiance to the power or dominion of another."
Thus, your definition of "subject" seems idiosyncratic, and while I
don't particularly mind that people have idiosyncratic definitions, I do
not think your definition is useful in accurately interpreting Virilio.
 
Another point is that subject/subjected is a false dichotomy.  Both 
subject and subjected mean the same thing, only subject is a noun or 
adjective while subjected is a verb (of the past tense).  If there is a
dichotomy, the dichotomy you seem to be looking for is that of 
subject/object.  Virilio's paper does contain a reference to the
subject/object issue.
 
Let us return to the passage which generated our disagreement:
 
        "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 physical 
        displacement. (p. 11)"
 
My use of the above quote in my first posting was in contrast to Virilio's
main conclusion "To be a subject or to be subjected?"  The criticism I 
presented against Virilio is that this final question does not follow 
from his metaphysical layout; primarily that he presents a picture of
the "terminal citizen" as one who can control their environment.  But the
question "To be a subject or to be subjected?" is not consistent with 
his metaphysical scheme, since the language of subject/subjected implies
a passive or submissive behavioral picture.
 
Allow me to speculate on the origins of Virilio's difficulty.  The history
of philosophy is full of "subject" talk.  This talk began with Descartes
and his _ego cogito_.  The language expanded into empiricism, where all
of our knowledge is acquired through the impressions of our senses.  
The picture is one of passivity, in which our environment acts upon us,
not the contrary.  Kant recognized the active participation of the 
individual in constructing reality, Kant's "Copernicun Revolution", but
still could not escape the hold of empiricism.  This is where I think the
subject/object identity crisis arose, as empiricist residue.  In Kant we,
the subjects, could not fully know the world.  There was still those objects
(or _noumena_) in reality which our categories could not fully explicate.
Even Hegel fell into this dilemma, and tried to unify subject and object
through _geist_.  Marx, a neo-Hegelian, also ran into the subject/object
crisis, and claimed the subject/object unity occurred in labor.  The above
is a slight move away from Virilio and a sweeping historical generalization
(for which I know I will receive a large amount of disagreement mail), but
this is the problem that Virilio is trapped in.
 
Virilio requires action and, as I will point out later, is prescribing it
in his paper.  This is what the "critical transition" is all about.
 
        "Thus, the gain of _real_ time over _deferred_ time is equivelant
        to being placed in an efficient procedure that eliminates the
        "object" and "subject" for the exclusive advantage of a journey,
        but the journey [_trajet_], because it lacks a trajectory, is 
        FUNDAMENTALLY OUT OF CONTROL (p. 10)."
 
It does not surprise me that the journey, from Virilio's perspective, is
out of control, since the language he uses cannot represent ACTIVE 
individuals.  Virilio's comparison of the situation to that of the
"motorized handicapped" (a comparison which Stephen Hawkins would shudder
at) completely captures this view.  
 
Also, even if I elaborate on your intepretation of "subject", Virilio is
still not metaphysically consistent.  
 
>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.<
 
I agree that the individual's "subjectivity" will change as we know it.  
However, I do not see why our subject, if he/she is a subject acting, gives
up anything.  Why can't we arrive at the inverse conclusion from your claim
above, namely that the subject, through acting in the cyber environment, is
expanding their ability to act, i.e. they have achieved more ability or have
actualized more potential (to throw in some Aristotle).  I do not think that 
a lack of "physical displacement" is enough reason to condemn
such a technology.  Philosophers think for long periods of time without
moving, literature students read books without moving; are not both examples 
actions that we hold in high esteem?  
 
If "To be a subject or to be subjected?" doesn't follow from Virilio's 
metaphysics, then why does he ask the question?  By this time in Virilio's
paper (p. 11), I was starting to realize that the work was contrived around 
the ethical issue.  Sure enough, this is the point which Virilio finished on.
Initially, I was tipped off to an ethical focus when I read this passage:
 
        "Individuality or individualism was thus not so much the fact of
        a liberation of social practice as the product of the evolution of 
        techniques of the development of public or private space (p. 5)."
 
The above alerted my attention that ethical matters were on Virilio's mind.
The conclusion of his paper fully confirmed my intuition.
 
        "By eliminating former geopolitics, the crisis of the notion of
        physical dimension thus is colliding head-on with the politics
        and administration of public service (p. 9-10)."
 
Virilio introduces the above when explicating the "critical transition", 
which I earlier described as an historical moral plague.  This historical
moral plague is ethics.  Issues such as bio-power and surveillence become
relevent to Virilio's work at the point of our favorite passage:
 
        "To be or to be subjected?  That is the question.  Former public
        services will in all likelihood be replaced by a domestic 
        enslavement for which "domotics" might be the perfect outcome.
        It would be equivalent to the achievement of a domiciliary inertia,
        where a generalization of techniques of "environmental control"
        would end up with behavioral isolation and reinforce cities with
        the very _insularities_ that have always threatened them, such that
        the distinction between the "island retreat" and the "ghetto" might
        become increasingly precarious. (p. 11)"
 
I _think_ I've proved my point.
 
Virilio's outlook is a dark one.  When I say "doom and gloom" it is intended
to support this fact.  The "doom and gloom" is a result since there are,
metaphysically speaking, no other possibilities for technology, at least as
Virilio has explained it, other than subjugation.  As for the Heideggerian
relation, you're right.  Heidegger does not have the same outlook, at 
least to the extreme of Virilio.
 
On the whole, I think your comments concerning totalitarianism were good.
However, when I stated "adapt effectively", I did not mean human beings
would, nor was I making a value judgment.  I was simply introducing the
possibility, which is absent from Virilio.
 
(On the side I ask you:  Why is totalitarianism bad?  Because, historically,
it has proven dangerous?  Were those historical instances truly 
representative of totalitarianism?  Because it is not democracy?  Because it 
is a theoretical failure?, i.e. what are your assumptions?)
 
As for >Why are technological changes different from political changes?<:
On the micro level technology and politics can be distinguished as separate
practices.  However, in the bigger picture, I think the truth is the two
are completely interrelated.  I feel Virilio would agree.
 
Sorry the post was so extensive, but you asked many interesting questions.
But then again, this list has been pretty dead as of late.
 
Yours in discourse,
 
 
 
Steven Meinking
California State University, Fullerton
xsmeinking-AT-fullerton.edu