How did the Noisy and Cruel 20th Century Look Like in the Eyes of Philosopher Alain Badiou? (video in Armenian)

The 20th century began with great hopes for progress, dreams and fireworks illuminating the sky. People were full of hope that a bright path was ahead of them. Even those people, who eventually suffered the most, believed in it. It was a time when the millennial dream of human beings came true. With the invention of airplanes, they were finally able to fly in the sky. 

The new era perfected the old weapons. The powers greeted the century with explosions of new weapons and a determination to redraw the political map of the world. In 1914, World War I broke out, killing 10 million people, injuring 20 million people. It was during World War I that Turkey committed the first collective crime against humanity, the Genocide, which killed 1.5 million of the 2.5 million Armenians living in the empire. 800 thousand Armenians emigrated; 200 thousand Armenians were forcibly converted to Islam. 

The first decade of the 20th century did not answer the old questions. In fact, it added up new questions. Humanity continued to improve military equipment. The following decades were a phase of military-technical race to prepare for a new war. The biggest war in human history, World War II, began in 1939. During the 6-year war, more than 50 million people died and 95 million became disabled. The states that had unleashed the war, were eventually the ones to lose the war. 

During World War II, Nazi Germany committed the second collective crime, the Holocaust. The Nazi regime carried out the persecution step by step. First, the legal framework for persecution was established, and then concentration camps were built. 6 million European Jews were systematically exterminated.

During World War II, the United States tested the first atomic bomb. On the morning of August 6, 1945, American bombers dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, and on August 9, on Nagasaki, turning it into a pile of ashes. World War II did not solve the problems of the 20th century either. The winning states became the new centers of world politics. 

The second half of the 20th century was mainly spent in the ideological conflict of the Cold War. The clash of socialism and capitalism ended in the total destruction of socialist ideology.

In his "Century" book Alan Badiou presents the 20th century from the philosophical point of view. How to perceive that century? How to understand the essence of the "classic crime" - the Holocaust, the Gulag? According to the French philosopher, these crimes are characterized by a lack of thought. It was replaced by statistics, giving millions of victims, losses and setbacks.