Culture of Speed and Slow Movement Culture

Hello! This blog is written in response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. This blog deals with our understanding of Paul Virilio's Dromology - the study of Speed and the talk by Honore on Slow Movement. While going through Pramod K. Nayyar's text ‘An Introduction to Cultural Studies’ we came across Paul Virilio and his concept of Hyper-modernism. Discussing further sir also introduced a new concept of Slow Movement culture. Here I will exhibit my understanding about these two concepts.

The Culture of Speed and the counterculture of Slow Movement

Paul Virilio and Hyper-modernism/ The Culture of Speed

Dromology is derived from the Greek ‘dromos’: avenue or race course.

The literal meaning of Dromology is The science or logic of speed.

The theory of Dromology interprets the world and reality as a resultant of velocity. In Paul Virilio’s 1977 essay entitled Speed and Politics, the French philosopher makes a compelling case for an interpretation of history, politics and society in the context of speed. Virilio argues that speed became the sole agent and measure of progress.

He contends, that

“there was no ‘industrial revolution’, only ‘dromocratic revolution’; there is no democracy, only dromocracy; there is no strategy, only Dromology.”

Paul Virilio, 4 January 1932 – 10 September 2018, was a French cultural, theorist, urbanist, architect and aesthetic philosopher. 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.

Virilio’s work Dromology is an exciting reading of late 20th century cyberculture. It talks that with the advent of more technology and media, our lives are under constant surveillance.

• He argues that histories of socio- political institutions such as the military or even cultural movements demonstrate need for speed rather than commerce. He argues that politics should have relation with wealth but also with speed. Here the speed means the speed of social, cultural and economic growth of nation not of individual. He sees that speed belongs to the upper class of society and the lower are slower. The world in governed by speed and that’s increase in speed of transmission of information and messages/ news, transportation etc. but the bottom class of society are aloof of it which never grows the nation together with speech so the politics should speed up in joining the whole nation together only the upper class of society should not get all the speed or grow. We also witness that when the government works speedily it seems like it's never in favor of citizens.

• He gives the concept of ‘ Pure War’. Pure war is an invisible war that technology is waging against humanity. The main reason for pure war can be new information and technology wealth. Today we as humans are completely incomplete without technology, especially mobile phones. Our mobile phone consists of all our personal information and if it gets into the wrong hands we will be completely destroyed. This is an example on a personal level that a small technical device can destroy us. We also have an example of the 1987 stock market.

• Today speed and technology is replacing democratic participation and undermining politics. Effective media politics diminishes the space of democratic political participation. It says that today due to technology and fast transmission of news for example policies are passed so quickly that there's always absence of democratic participation which means it doesn't have a chance of discussion or debate which also says that everyone's vote for any decision is not taken. Recently we have faced such a situation on passing of farm Bills 2021, CAA 2019. In this process the basic rights of citizens are harmed.

• Virilio suggests that with contemporary technology, the world is growing like this one day the local time will be changed to global time. Whole world might be following one time. And it will be easier for dictators to ,telescope, rule the world, keep it under surveillance, every city from one place. We have got the glimpses of ‘Totalitarian world’ in George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty four’ but if technology will grow in same manner it will result into hyper-modernism and which will lend us to Globalitarianism, with advent of technology and globalization one can be under surveillance anywhere.

Today we are witnessing that the world is moving like a treadmill, the speed keeps on increasing. If we as humans won't be able to run on it with its speed we might fall and hurt ourselves.

Criticism of this treadmill world is a ‘Slow Movement’.

The counterculture of this culture of speed is culture of ‘Slow Movement.’

What is Slow Movement Culture?

The slow movement advocates a cultural shift toward slowing down life's pace. It is a cultural revolution against the notion that faster is always better. The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything at a snail's pace. It's about seeking to do everything at the right speed. Savoring the hours and minutes rather than just counting them. Doing everything as well as possible, instead of as fast as possible. It’s about quality over quantity in everything from work to food to parenting.

Geir Berthelsen and his creation of The World Institute of Slowness presented a vision in 1999 for an entire "slow planet" and a need to teach the world the way of slowness. Carl Honore’s 2004 book, In Praise of Slow, describes the slow movement.

Vision of world institute of slowness is-

A new way of thinking about time. Our aim is to slow the world down to create healthier, happier and more productive people.

“Don’t live life as if you’re afraid of being late to your own funeral”

-Geir Berthelsen, Founder The world Institute of slowness

Here is Carl Honore's Ted talk

As we also saw in the above discussion, the world is moving faster and humans need to run with it. And against this treadmill culture or roadrunner culture the new movement has come into existence and that is ‘Slow Movement Culture’. Slow here means a qualitative way of life, not a lazy or slothful life. The world is stuck in fast- forwardness, hyper-modernism and modernism. Humans are racing with clocks and we are obsessed with speed. We love boasting about our overnight reading and learning habits, we show- off our ability of multitasking. Good slow is, you know, taking the time to eat a meal with your family, with the TV switched off. Or taking the time to look at a problem from all angles in the office to make the best decision at work. Or even simply just taking the time to slow down and savor your life.

“how we try to make things better, what do we do? we do? No, we speed them up, don't we? So we used to dial; now we speed dial. We used to read; now we speed read. We used to walk; now we speed walk. And of course, we used to date and now we speed date. And even things that are by their very nature slow -- we try and speed them up too.” 

 - Carl Honore

Today we are living a fast life instead of a good life. We realize that we are lacking quality food and sleep when we fall ill, illness turns to be a wakeup call. "Time is money," as Benjamin Franklin said. We work as we don't have more time, on deadlines. But the reality is if we plan and schedule our work perhaps we will do more qualitative work in less time. Is it possible to be slow? And what will be the result? We will perhaps start losing the race! Or others will start overtaking us! But if the aim of life is quality, good life and slowing down will be a good step. Many have also started adapting it.

Recently in Italy they have begun the ‘Slow Food Movement’ which also spread across the world. They eat better; they make love better; they exercise better; they work better; they live better.

Even the children are running in this fast- paced world. They go to school, tuitions and extracurricular activities to sports and painting both types of activities. In this run they don't get a chance to know themselves, understand and think over. They are forced to run a race to which they are unknown.

“But why is it so hard to slow down? I think there are various reasons. One is that speed is fun, you know, speed is sexy. It's all that adrenaline rush. It's hard to give it up. I think there's a kind of metaphysical dimension -- that speed becomes a way of walling ourselves off from the bigger, deeper questions. We fill our head with distraction, with busyness, so that we don't have to ask, am I well? Am I happy? Are my children growing up right? Are politicians making good decisions on my behalf? Another reason -- although I think, perhaps, the most powerful reason -- why we find it hard to slow down is the cultural taboo that we've erected against slowing down. "Slow" is a dirty word in our culture. It's a byword for "lazy," "slacker," for being somebody who gives up. You know, "he's a bit slow." It's actually synonymous with being stupid.”

-Carol Honore

But this type of ideas can be adapted by the developed countries, countries which are economically, socially, culturally stable. Where there is no unemployment and everyone is capable of earning their own livelihood. E.g.- Finland, Sweden etc. the Third world countries, developing countries like India still have a long race to run, youth is unemployed, corruption is at stake. Before slowing down financial securities are necessary before slowing down.

Hope this blog is useful. Thanks for visiting