At the symbolic threshold of the end of the 20th century, amidst the aftertaste and melancholy of an orgy left behind by the various revolutions, the achievements of technology and genetics, the explosion of information technology, and the unpredictability of economic fluctuations, an explanation is required for the nature of extreme phenomena: AIDS, crashes, computer viruses, and cloning constitute the extreme phenomena against which the rationality of systems has no power and will intensify as our systems become more elaborate.

The information and genetic revolution brings the individual face to face not with others but with themselves. The individual is now the antibody of their own self through a sudden reversal of the immunological process, through the dislocation of their code, through the destruction of their defenses.

Everything attempts to neutralize otherness through an aseptic diffusion of communication, through the illusion of transaction and contact. Communication forces society to become allergic to itself. Transparency regarding information and governance makes the body allergic to its own self. We banish otherness, but its ghost returns as self-destruction.

In the language of Jean Baudrillard, this is the transparency of Evil.

“What will always distinguish the functioning of man from that of machines, even the most intelligent, is the intoxication of function, the enjoyment. What is fortunately still beyond the capabilities of man is the invention of machines that feel enjoyment. Various artificial limbs can assist in the enjoyment of man, but it is impossible to invent one that feels enjoyment in its place [...]. For this to happen, machines would have to conceive some idea of man, to be able to invent man, but it is too late for them; it is man who has invented them.”
Jean Baudrillard