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Terror Cuts to the Quick: Virilio's The Administration of Fear

Article  in  Theory & Event · January 2013

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Thomas Jellis

Theory & Event, Volume 16, Issue 4, 2013, (Article)

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DOI: 10.1353/tae.2013.0063

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Terror Cuts to the Quick: Virilio's The Administration of Fear

Thomas Jellis

Paul Virilio, The Administration of Fear, semiotext(e), 2012. 96 pp. $12. 95, £ 9. 95, (paper), ISBN: 978-
1584351054

An excellent addition to semiotext(e)’s exciting intervention series, this slim book offers a fascinating insight
into Paul Virilio’s thoughts on what he understands to be a time of fear. In conversation with Bertrand Richard,
Virilio is eloquent and not a little explosive. Part biography, part exposition of previous work, this interview
develops a novel analysis of the current juncture. Virilio is quick to explain that the title, The Administration of
Fear, came to him very early on, as an echo of Graham Greene’s (1943) The Ministry of Fear. The interview is
in three parts which could be read separately, although there are references to previous points, and is prefaced
by a short summary of the book by the interviewer. Richard tries to keep Virilio in check and at one point
accuses him of being overly dramatic. The back and forth between the two is very effective, and Virilio is
forced to pause and re-explain.

The question of fear, as Virilio notes, is polysemic. However, his task exceeds outlining the notion itself,
focusing also on how it operates. Virilio asks the reader: “How can we not see that fear has been administered,
in the strict meaning of the term, by instant interactivity, in particular in the functions that relate to real-time
communications?” (44). Virilio deploys the expression ‘the administration of fear,’ in two specific ways. The
first deals with the location of fear. He tells us that “fear is now an environment, a surrounding, a world. Fear
both occupies and preoccupies us” (14). While fear was once, according to Virilio, a set of locatable and
identifiable events, limited to a certain timeframe (wars, famines, epidemics), fear has become an environment
which envelops us. We are restricted to a ‘stressful claustrophobia’, complete with contagious stock crises,
faceless terrorism and lightening pandemics. Given this, and secondly, the administration of fear also refers to
States being ‘tempted to create policies for the orchestration and management of fear’ (15). It is for this reason
that Virilio is drawn to Greene’s book, as the ministry of fear depicted there carries with it the administrative
aspect of fear.

But why and how has fear become a ‘constitutive element of life’? Virilio is rather explicit about this: “there is
no relationship to terror without a relationship to life and speed. Terror cuts to the quick: it is connected to life
and quickness through technology” (21). For those familiar with Virilio, his fascination with speed will not
come as a surprise. Arguing that he is not a conspiracy theorist, but simply describing the logics of fear, Virilio
contends that “we have reached the limits of instantaneity, the limits of human thought and time” (33).
Accordingly, Virilio does not think that ancient philosophers provide much help in diagnosing the present
condition. He attempts, instead, to present his own terms to provide analytical purchase.

The acceleration of reality can be detected, he argues, in the shift in emphasis “on real time, on the live feed,
instead of real space” (31). Virilio contends that we have been unable to conceive of space in terms of space-
time. This seems to miss a good swathe of theorisation in Geography on Virilio’s part but at its heart, Virilio’s
claim is bemoaning the failed dialogue between Bergson and Einstein on relativity. This encounter in 1922
resulted in an awkward rendezvous of ideas from philosophy and science, with both intellectuals interpreting
relativity in different ways. Bergson carefully engaged with the emerging theory of relativity, as he understood
it to have important implications not just for physics but for philosophy. Einstein, unable to understand Bergson,
rejected the idea of a philosopher’s time and was widely reported to have emerged from the debate victorious.
As such, Bergson’s hoped-for philosophical revolution of relativity suffered a serious setback. Virilio argues
that we now have a chance to rethink this, as the recent shift to the live feed, to instantaneous update and
interaction, has destabilized the relation between space and time. It is precisely when we speak of live events, of
‘real-time’, that we are talking about the acceleration of reality. This increase in speed “causes anxiety by the
abolition of space or more precisely by the failure of collective thinking on real space because relativity was
never truly understood” (32).

At first blush, this can seem as if this is a rejection of progress, as well as a dismissal of geography, and Virilio
does address this question. As he puts it, his fight is “against the propaganda of progress and not against
progress itself” (38). Promoting progress means that we are always playing catch up: whether it is reaching the
fabled inbox zero, updating our Facebook status or twitter feeds, or even comparing our download speeds.
Progress for Virilio is, then, inextricably linked to technology. Virilio also has a similar formulation about
propaganda of technology: “I am not against new technologies; I am only against promoting them” (39). As an
aside, he asks how it is that we are not alarmed by the media attention – storm is the word he prefers – that each
new technology product receives. Indeed, Virilio could well point to the ‘tech’ sections of newspapers as well
 as the proliferation of technology websites. Crucially, he claims he does not want to be cast as the eternal
Cassandra of technology, only to follow this with an ominous ‘but … ’

What is to be done? In his laconic, somewhat mischievous manner, Virilio replies that he is a critical theorist
and “not a man of expedients” (55). However, he does call for a ‘philosophical intelligence’, which is the only
way to begin imagining paths that might offer something new in social and economic terms. This philosophical
intelligence needs to be cultivated and nurtured; his proposal, then, is to found a ‘university of disasters’ –
“which has nothing to do with the disaster of the University” (77) – as an invitation to acquaint ourselves with
this era of speed. Richard pushes back, noting that it could appear conceited to think we are so close to disaster
Here Virilio responds with a disappointingly short reflection on what he calls the remarkable term ‘singularity’,
which he understands as something unprecedented or unheard of, before explaining that he uses the term
disaster, rather cryptically, “out of reference to the word ‘astral’” (85). It is flourishes like these which make
Virilio frustrating and enticing, in roughly equal measure. We hear no more of his proposed university and
there is little investigation of the contemporary disaster as an ‘astral accident’. Terms and concepts are bandied
about with some alacrity – ‘mono-atheism’, ‘qualitative revolution’, and a ‘community of emotions’ all feature –
but are rarely expounded upon.

What is most distinctive about this interview is the importance placed on paradoxes. Paradoxes, for Virilio, are
not aporia but places of understanding a powerful tension. Given this, it is interesting to note one of his own
paradoxes. Towards the end of the book, Virilio argues that he is not a revolutionary but a ‘revelationary’; his
aim is not to “revolutionize the system or lead to any change in political regime” (71). This preference for
revelation is rather at odds with his call, a few pages later, for a ‘philo-scientific revolution’, and the
convergence of future Bergsons and Einsteins.

There is no doubting that this is an enjoyable and thought-provoking book, and given its length – just shy of 100
pages – and format, it is perhaps unfair to expect a detailed account of Virilio’s philosophy. What is clear from
the interview is that his is a highly original view of the world. It also offers anecdotes on growing up in
occupied France, his friendship with Deleuze, and Guattari, and his disagreements with Baudrillard on the
nature of reality. Virilio also looks to position his career thus far, describing himself as a materialist and a
phenomenologist. A timely publication, which explores a number of pressing, and related, concerns – speed,
technology, and fear – in a lively and engaging manner, it also sheds some light on Virilio’s particular style of
philosophizing.

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