L'inertie polaire

by Paul Virilio

A l'origine de la science moderne se trouvent le principe d'inertie et celui de la relativité du mouvement exprimés par Galilée...

Aujourd'hui, après des siècles de développement, les techno-sciences issues de cette pensée aboutissent à la généralisation de ce même principe : l'inertie devient l'horizon prioritaire de l'activité humaine. Ce qui paraissait jusqu'à présent le signe du handicap et de l'infirmité - l'incapacité à se mouvoir pour agir - devient symbole de progrès et de maîtrise du milieu. A l'aménagement du territoire se substitue, dès lors, le contrôle d'environnement, un contrôle où le temps réel de la télé-action l'emporte sur l'espace réel de l'action immédiate, la télé-présence à distance dominant la présence effective des personnes, tout arrive désormais, sans qu'il soit nécessaire de partir. A l'arrivée restreinte des moyens de transport et de télécommunication succède alors l'arrivée généralisée des moyens de télécommunication instantanés; d'où ce confinement domestique, cette inertie domiciliaire présentés le plus souvent comme le comble du confort et de l'autonomie.

Après l'Insécurité du territoire et l'Espace critique, L'Inertie polaire parachève un triptyque ébauché il y a une quinzaine d'années par Paul Virilio et consacré à l'évolution du statut de l'espace contemporain.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Paul Virilio is a cultural theorist and urbanist. He is best known for his writings about technology as it has developed in relation to speed and power, with diverse references to architecture, the arts, the city and the military.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are good things in this book, interesting insights and it's hard to believe it was written in the late 1980s. some of the stuff Virilio says is truly visionary but a lot of what he predicts was also completely wrong and will stay wrong (e.g. the death of physical travel or our physical bodies becoming irrelevent-- hello selfie age, lookin at you here). the book also has whole chapters about cosmological time, which, if like me, you're not well versed in astrophysics, might give you a migraine. plus i didn't really see the benefit of these in the overall argument, probably because l didn't understand most of it and when the author came back to those ideas at the end of the book, they were equally confusing. maybe understanding the ideas of Einstein, Heisenberg and whoever else would have helped me to appreciate Virilio's argument, I don't know. I'm not even sure he's helped me make sense of my confused perception of time tbh. I have to think about it more but despite its 80 pages (the kind that feel like 300) I'm not sure I'd recommend it. Maybe a couplz of chapters, as he tends to repeat himself throughout. The most impact this book'll have on you is to make you see how technology bends your perception of time and of your environment. because we live in a computerised age, our brains and notions of time probably function v e r y differently from someone who'd have lived in the 1960s for instance. and the faster tech develops, the quicker future generations will become more and more different. Hope that makes sense.