Terror from the Air, by Peter Sloterdijk recounts that on 22 April 1915, in the midst of the First World War, French-Canadian troops in the northern Ypres were attacked using chlorine, the first instance of gas warfare in history. In that act, modernity was born.
It becomes pervasive, unavoidable–like gas and the atmosphere.
Chemical warfare, surrealist art, terrorism, climate change, the mass media and architecture and design.
The gas attack was intended to deprive the French-Canadian troops of a milieu in which they could operate. By Sloterdijk’s reasoning and definitions, that was the true birth of terrorism, or “atmo-terrorism”, and the birth of “environmental thinking”. By the latter, Sloterdijk means that it was the moment when breathable air was no longer a “given” – we could no longer take it for granted. The essence of Sloterdijk’s argument is that modernity is an assault on “givens” – it aims to question everything that is taken for granted. It is an assault on our environment, both real and conceptual.
Gas warfare snatched away our ability to unquestioningly trust the air, terrorism aims to disturb all placid or complacent enjoyment of life, modern art “wields terror against symbols” and uses the outrage as a measure of success and science is meticulously picking apart life’s meaning and replacing old, comforting mysteries with unfamiliar and disquieting ones.
Terms:
Circulation (people, goods, services, ideas, populations)