Speed and Politics

1 2. Vauban by Colonel Lazard, 1 934. In Weygand's preface we read: "The auchor picks up in Vauban's writings che expression 'fortified country,' which he j udiciously likens co 'fortified regions.' Isn't che man of genius always something of a precursor? When Colonel Lazard studies more specifically che engineer in che great man of war, he cries co clear him of che accusation of formalism. He states and proves that the true system of Vauban consisted in applying the fortifcation to the terrain. We have found no beccer system in chese lase years when ic came co protecting our own· soil."

1 3 . The Parisian Hanse, chose who would have been called "water merchants who deal on che use of rivers." (Volume XVIII of che Old French Laws) .

1. From Highway Right to State Righc

1 . While ac che same time, che arms industries are already employing production groups of 5 ,000 workers.

1. La France et !es huit heures by Andre-Frarn;:ois Poncec and Emile Mireaux, 1 922.

1. The confession is superceded. In che Middle Ages, che question is puc co a body under corcure, one chat "knows che cruch" and muse lee ic escape in spice of himself. In che nineteenth century, corture is abolished noc ouc of humanitarianism, buc because chey realized chat any ace (every human movement) leaves external traces, an involuntary scamp. From then on, they scientifcally make proofs talk, they make chem; in a sense, "confess" in place of che suspect by arranging these material traces in a coherent discourse/path. Because their justice was handed down from very early on in che cheacrical form of a dialogue, che Anglo-Saxons rapidly verified chac from identical secs of material proofs chey could draw diferent coherent discourses, each cancelling che ocher ouc, by simply changing che order of che elements. Psychoanalysis in some sense cook up where chis left of by subscicucing for che materialness of external traces che internal marks of crime. The psychiatric confession is obtained from che subject in spice of himself; ic crosses his lips by force, buc in che form of incoherent traces and materials chat will be reconscicuced according co che schemas of psychoanalytic science. Noc only is che persistent flow of che psychoanalytic confession not dependent on che subject's will, buc ic doesn't even concern che instant of his crime, che circumstances chat only che subject knows. Racher, ic concerns a cocalicy going from che accused's birch co che diagnostic of a final judgment. If in chese cescs someone is still listening for a confession, ic is evident chat chis confession is no longer che scory of a crime by ics author. This was completed notably by che mapping of heavy crime zones in urban planning systems, and beyond chis by che "criminostac" (computer aided visualization of scaciscical fields) currencly being cesced by che police. We could imagine chat ac chis level che gaps and hazards inherent in che ordering of materials should disappear, since wich computers chey could make che accusing discourse perfeccly coherent, or ac lease approaching perfect coherence, having co do both wich the name of the subject and chat of the object. Ac chat point, chey could do cocally wichouc che confession of che accused, who would be less informed about his own crime chan che computer, and who, no longer being che one who knows "che cruch," would have nothing left co confess,

1 70 I Speed and Politics

Part II. The Dromocracic Progress

1 . From Space Right to State Right

1 . F. Thiede and E. Schmahe, Die Fliegende Nation, Berlin, 1 933.

1. "Since che end of the sevenceench century, the fleet in being, a name thought up by Admiral Herbert, had marked the passage from being ^co becoming in che exercise of constraint on che adversary. le meant the end of che naval apparatus and of war waged ac shore distances; che number and firepower of che vessels in the from lines became secondary." Paul Virilio, L'insecurite du tertoire, Paris, 1 976.

1. Adminiscracive correspondence under Louis XIV.

1. "Materialism is the true son of Great Britain." Marx, Contribution to the History of French Materialism.

5 . Cf. Marinecci, Futurist Manifesto, Tactile Navigation, and Giovanni Lisca's commentary, Marinetti.

1. Peace of war, peace of exhaustion (Briand) : "No one today can still wish co see che incernacional regime of 1 939 revived, for in face, ac chat time, ic was already no more chan che ruins of a system. " Papers of che Sociery of Nations on che passage from war economy co peacetime ·economy, May 1 943.

1. The confession is superseded; all che information gathered by che police cerricorial brigades end up in che central computer of che National Police headquarters in Rosny-sous-Bois: criminostat (visualization of scaciscical fields) .

1. Practical War

1 . The Engineering Corps' technological reply co che cocalicarian empires of naval engineering and liberal capitalism.

1. Abel Ferry, La guerre vue d'en bas et d'en haut (leccers, notes, speeches and reports), Paris, 1 920. The Vosges depury, killed in the service of France on September

Notes I 1 7 1

1 5 , 1 9 1 8 , left his wife the task of publishing his work "immediately following the total demobilization of the French army and without taking into account the demands of interested parties . . . , " "a double lesson from the battlefield and from the Council of Ministers, preaching, from the very first months of war, the necessiry for parliamentary control," Many passages commented on here have been taken from this capital work.

Part III. The Dromocracic Society

1. Unable Bodies

1 . Pierre Nord, Double crime sur la Ligne Maginot.

1. August 1 977: the American Congress allows the World Bank to extend credit to Vietnam, but also to Cambodia and Angola.

1. Sparta armed itself in view of accomplishing its tour de farce: "We could scarcely help but see in this adaptation something ocher than an automatic evolution. The mechodical and tenacious fashion in which everything was oriented toward a single goal obliges us to recognize the intervention of a conscious organizer. It is necessary to posit the existence of one or two men, working in concert, who transformed primitive institutions to make them the agoge and the Cosmos." M.P. Nilsson, "Die grundlagen des spartanischen Lebens"; in Klio, volume XII.

1. "Sparta paid the penalry for having taken her own headstrong course at the parting of the ways in the eighth century B.C. by condemning herself in che sixth century co scanding still-with arms presented like a solider on parade-at a moment when the other Hellenes were j ust moving forward once again on one of the most signal moves in the whole course of Hellenic history. " Arnold .J . Toynbee, "War and Civilization, Oxford Universiry Press, 1 9 5 5 .

5 . Georges Huppert, L'idee de l'histoire parfaite, 1 973.

1. �efore history as poem or mythic chant, there is the mechanism of the trance and the persistence of those short invocations which create unanimiry: "We are not warriors. But suddenly we believe we are, and the war begins" (Leiris) . This is also the aim of che psychological training of elite corps, of political meetings, of military ceremonies . . . Inversely, the Spartan authorities discouraged their citizenry from culcivating music, "an art which," as Toynbee remarks, "is so near akin to the soldier's that, in our modern Western World, it is regarded as the best preparation for a military training." But the Spartans were also prohibited from competing in the great pan-Hellenic athletic sports. In a word, every allusion to kinetic progress was eliminated from the constitution.

172 I Speed and Politics

1. Georges Duby, The Early Growth of the European Economy: �riors and Peasants, Ithaca, 1 974.

1. The Boarding of Metabolic Vehicles

1 . Trans. : Untranslatable pun between araisonnement, "the boarding of a ship for inspection," and raisonnement, "reasoning. " Virilio will play on this throughout the chapter.

1. "Man is the passenger of woman, not only at birth but also in their sexual relations . . . Paraphrasing Samuel Butler, we could say that the female is the means the male has found to reproduce himself, in other words to come into the world. In this sense, woman is the species' first means of transport, its very first vehicle. The second would be the mounting and coupling 'of d\_issimilar bodies fitted out for migration, the voyage in common." Paul Virilio, Metempsychose du passager, May 1 977.

1. Trans. A play on words: bonne conduite means both "good conduct" and "safe driving."

1. See notably the archives of Morimond (Haute-Marne region) and Clairvaux; the libraries of Besanc;on and Carpentras; L'ordre de Calatrava by Francis Gutton, 1 9 5 5 ; etc.

1. Cf. Paul Virilio, Negative Horizon. London: Continuum, 200 5 .

1. Here we see perhaps one of the profound causes of Spartan opposition to any form of mobiliry as the preservation of the Lycurgean system.

1. The End of the Proletariat

1 . Trans. A play on the word meuble, both "furniture" and "movable."

1. D. Crivelli, La fin de la crise, 1 932. Proto-pop culture and European culture.

1. "Could I yet have imagined that this absolutely necessary historical evolution, in determined conditions, constituted a retreat of progress and manufactured men who were less than savages . . . Engels in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

1. Letter from Charles V to ambassador Ghislain de Busbecq.

1. "Human history is al an afair of chance." A statement that Heideger, on the eve of total war, renders less freely than it would seem: ''Al greatness is in assault."

Notes

/ 1 73

1. C£ Paul Virilio, Popular Defense and Ecological Strug, New York: Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, 1 9 86.

1. The Consumption of Security

1 . The minister was to announce j ust as joyfully on November 20, 1 976: " The Soufriere business is over!" According to the press, this "abortive eruption" had already cost-this was not a final figure-the sum of 200,000,000 francs by mid-October.

Part IV. The State of Emergency

1 . Alfred Wegener, The Origin of Continents and Oceans, a theory of continental drift (fifth edition) .

1. In terms of control, the meaning of this time is a function of the temporal field in which perception, decision and action are involved.

1. The missile-carrying nuclear submarine has in itself the destructive power of all the explosives used in the Second World War.

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I Speed and Politics