[D66] 'Mono-atheism'

[A.O.]

Paul Virilio in 'The administration of fear':
p.76

Would you say that the dynamic of progress, the desire
for constant liberation, has outstripped its content
(bestowing human happiness), or has the notion of
promise itself disappeared?

PV:
The notion of promise has indeed suffered from
the nihilism that has settled deeply into our
modernity. Nazism led the way. As a Christian, I
like to remember the following thought: A
philosopher says to his interlocutor, "So, you don't
believe in God?"-"No."-"But you believe in
everything else ! " It is "everything else" that is
coming to an end. Soon we will not believe in
anything and nihilism will have reached its zenith.
We will have entered what I call mono-atheism,
the paradoxical faith of those who believe in nothing
at all. Even the areas most open to nihilism, like
the financial sectors, are undermined by hyper­bolic
nihilism. The actors of the financial world
are no longer confident, which is extremely worri­
some because confidence and competition are
the cornerstones of capitalism. Why do they lack
confidence? For a reason of biblical simplicity.
Because confidence can never be instantaneous. It
must be built, earned, over time. Instant confi­dence,
like instant faith, doesn't work. You need
time to have confidence; you need time to have
faith. It must be built: it has a tempo and a
rhythm . That is why the liturgy, as an "act of the
people" is vital. In a way, mono-atheism consists
of not believing in anything of the "big" at all.
The time of philofolly will then begin and spread,
and along with it a kind of hyper-fascism. We are
on the edge of this extremism with the systemic
stock market crisis.

Aren't you going too far?