Paul VirilioThinkers

The Accident is an invitation to the promotion of the administration of civil fear, with guarantees, comprehensive insurance, inspection, and surveillance replacing the concept of security.

The Accident is baked into mechanical invention. When the railroad was invented, so was derailment.

The Accident is given increasing primacy in political and economic discourse. The 'enemy' is being replaced by the 'ever present threat' in national security discourse.

The Accident is, in modernity, a spectacularly reversed political tool... no longer hidden away as failure, but instead is bandied about and made productive, psychologically speaking.

The Accident is inherent in the steam engine. Oceangoing vessels invented the ship-wreck. Trains invented the rail catastrophe. Fire the forest fire.

The Accident is invented at the moment of scientific discovery. So perhaps we could reverse the direction of research and instead directly invent the accident in order to discover the substance.

The Accident is perhaps not, despite philosophical axiom, relative and contingent. By the same token, substance is likely not absolute and necessary.

The Accident is programmed into the product from the moment of its production or implementation.

The Accident is responsible for transforming the social relationship between civilians and servicemen such that, through constant drills and simulations on mini and macro-scales has brought into being a new society organized entirely around the requirement to react to catastrophe with the greatest possible speed.

The Accident is sometimes (as in the case of the challenger space shuttle) not in the event, but in the very fact that the event manages to get off the ground in the first place.

The Accident is invented alongside the invention. The train wreck is invented alongside the train. Thus, it follows that a new direction of research could work to directly invent the accident in order to find 'the substance'.

The Accident is understood wrongheadedly as something 'unexpected' or 'surprising'. On the contrary, any machines 'failure' is programmed into the product from the moment of its production or implementation.

The Accident is wrongheadedly seen as relative and contingent while the substance is taken to be absolute and necessary.