Revista de Artes y Ciencias Sociales

Speed as a New Dimension of Globalization

Abstract

Hauer T

According to Virilio, changes in society (hence globalization as well) can be monitored from the perspective of speed. From this point of view, it is also possible to explain the development of the society as a dromocratic development. In this case, we find that during a certain recent historical interval there was a fundamental event, which resulted in unusual acceleration in all areas of the society, and within the two centuries, the speed of some human activities reached its limit, the speed of light – for the first time in the history. Virilio thinks that in reality, there is no industrial revolution, but only dromocratic-speed revolution, there is any democracy, but dromocracy. Which means that by using terms such as the “industrial revolution”, “technological progress”, or globalization of modern thinking collectively refers only to the various striking phenomena, but the essential, less prominent issue eludesnamely, speeds. What characterizes the current form of globalization is an unstable mixture of fast information and slow movements, fast technology and slow society of technocratic liberalism. Besides monetary wealth standard, there is a globalized standard of the speed limit.