Introduction
In
the following I
will first
refer to Pekka Himanen analysis of the hacker's passions that gave rise
to the internet. In the second part I will describe how the internet
became
the ambiguous place of a cyber-mythology. Taking some insights from
Emmanuel
Lévinas I suggest a twist of the hacker ethic into a passionate
"ethic of the Other." In the third part I deal with information
technology
from the perspective of the "technologies of the self" (Michel
Foucault).
I. Passions of the
Internet
In
"A
Brief
History of Computer
Hackerism" Pekka Himanen tells a story concerning the passions that
gave
birth to the internet. He writes:
"The
hackers transformed
computers and the Net into a social medium that was not part of either
the governmental nor corporate plans. Email was invented in July 1970
by
Ray Tomlinson, who is also the one to thank (or blame) for the @-symbol
in email addresses. Abbate describes the consequence of this unexpected
innovation: "ARPANET users came to rely on email in their day-to-day
activities,
and before long email had eclipsed all other network applications in
volume
of traffic." From then on, e-mail has been the most popular use of the
Net." (Himanen 2003)
Himanen
stresses
how the hacker
ideal of openness influenced the creation of new communication forms
such
as chat, invented by Jarkko Oikarinen, a student at the University of
Ouli
in Finland, in 1988 or the alt(ernative) news group domain, cofounded
in
1987 by California libertarian John Gilmore, and the worlwide hypertext
vision of Tim Berners-Lee, working at particle physics research center
CERN in Switzerland. A key issue in the creation of a free
digital
space, which according to Berner-Lee's dream should be "a space in
which
anything could be linked to anything," was the elimination of the
'operator'
"comparable in experience to the elimination of telephone operators"
allowing
a free and direct exchange between individuals. Personal computers
should
be used not to control but to free people (Himanen 2003). At the
beginning
of the hacker's tradition during the 1960s at MIT there is a leading
passionate
mood namely enthusiasm. Hackers are people who "program
enthusiastically."
(Himanen 2003) In the preface of his book Himanen remarks that the
concept
of 'hacker' has been applied by hackers themselves to "an expert or
enthusiast
of any kind." In other words, a hacker is a person who is
enthusiastically
or, as we may also say, passionately dedicated to his/her work (Himanen
2001). The hacker ethic's driving value can be stated as follows:
"The
belief that
information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an
ethical
duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and
facilitating
access to information and to computing resources wherever possible."
(Himanen
2003)
In the
site of his
well-known
book "The Hacker Ethic" – the book was planned as a collaborative work
with Linus Torvalds and Manuel Castells, authors of prologue and
epilogue – Himanen makes a difference between 'hackers' and
'crackers' or
between
a constructive and a destructive use of computers:
"Here,
the word
hacker doesn't refer to computer criminals but what the word originally
meant: a person who wants to do something that one is passionate about,
something in which one can realize oneself creatively, and something in
which one can build things for the good of all. The hacker ethic is a
new
work ethic questioning the old Protestant ethic." (Himanen 2001)
It
seems prima
facie
paradoxical to oppose, as Himanen does, hacker's ethic which is a 'work
ethic' to Max Weber's The Protestant
Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
instead of considering it in opposition to an ethic of leisure.
But, in fact, this is an opposition between two ethics of work.
Hacker's
values go, according to Himanen, beyond computer hackerism as they
promote
"passionate and freely rhythmed work." Its basis is not just
utilitarian
rationality but creative imagination (Himanen 2001). The same can be
said
with regard to hacker's money ethic. While in the Protestant ethic,
money
is made by "information-owning," hacker's money ethic is based on
"information-sharing."
Instead of being based on the efficient rationality of producing
(material)
things as a mean to an endless process of economic profit, hacker's
activity
is guided by "a desire to create something that one's peer community
would
find valuable -- a common attitude." (Himanen 2001) Finally Himanen
mentions
a third element of hacker ethic namely their "network ethic or nethic"
a dimension most closely related to modern Protestant ideals to freedom
of expression seen now as freedom of access to the internet. This seems
today's driving passion of the world wide and WWW debate on the so
called digital divide.
According
to
Himanen, hacker
ethic is passionate Platonic:
"This
passionate
relationship to work is not an attitude found only among computer
hackers.
For example, the academic world can be seen as its much older
predecessor.
The researcher's passionate intellectual inquiry received similar
expression
nearly 2,500 years ago when Plato, founder of the first academy, said
of
philosophy, "like light flashing forth when a fire is kindled, it is
born
in the soul and straightway nourishes itself." (Himanen 2001)
The
context of the
quotation
from the "Seventh Letter" (Ep. VII, 341 c-d) concerns Plato's famous
thesis
that true philosophic insight cannot be communicated through writing
but
arises "suddenly" ("exaiphnes") when people live together ("syzen")
and talk often and familiarly to each other ("synousias") about such
matters.
But hackers are not said to be true Platonists no less than followers
of
the Protestant ethic are said to belong necessary to the Western
civilisation,
so that for instance, no Japanese could adhere to it. In other words
Plato
and Weber are less historic examples than symbols of a specific view of
work and society. Hacker ethic is a passionate or erotic one and, in
this
regard, it is the opposite to the kind of ascetic work ethics described
by Max Weber (Weber 2000). Its historical precursor was not the academy
but the monastery. Hackers activity is described by Linus Torvalds in
the
Prologue as "entertainment" because it is "interesting, exciting, and
joyous"
and goes beyond the realm of surviving or of economic life. Himanen
prefers
Eric Raymond's word "passion" instead of "entertainment." (Himanen
2001)
In his essay "The Academy and the Monastery" dedicated to Eric Raymond,
Himanen writes:
"The
reason why
the hackers' open-source model works so effectively seems to be - in
addition
to the facts that they are realizing their passions and are motivated
by
peer recognition, as scientists are, too -- that to a great degree it
conforms
to the ideal open academic model, which is historically the best
adapted
for information creation." (Himanen 2003a)
Raymond
considered
the bazaar
instead of the cathedral as model for the spirit of open-source.
Himanen
prefers another pair namely the academy and the monastery. Following
the
ideal of the academic model hackers abhor plagiarism and submit
themselves
freely to the internal sanctions of their peers. Hacker's passion is
learning
in an "informal way, following their passions" the task of teaching
being
"to strengthen the learners' ability to pose problems, develop lines of
thought, and present criticism." (Himanen 2003a)
Hacker
ethic is
a Socratic
one. But hacker's passionate learning is not directed as Plato's
passionate
search for truth towards a world beyond the appearances. Computer
programming
is an embedded activity and near to "flesh life." Sandy Lerner liked
riding
naked on horseback. Richard Stallman was a "bearded and longhaired
guru."
Eric Raymond liked role-playing games (Himanen 2001). These examples
are
as far from Max Weber's monks, protestants, and bureaucrats as they are
from the Platonic contempt of the material world with its sensorial and
sensual pleasures. This kind of work ethic is closer to the Epicurean
than
to the Platonic tradition.
The
network
society as such
does not simply deny or supersede industrial society and its Protestant
work ethics. It would be an illusion to believe that technological
advances
would "somehow, automatically, make our lives less work-centered."
(Himanen
2001) In other words, it is not the technological passion of the
internet
that is going to change society but "an alternative spirit" that may be
able to "crack the lock of the iron cage" which, according to Max
Weber,
would be the stage of a lifeless and materialistic work-centered ethic
(Weber 2000, 188). But even if work in the sense of labor will not end,
as Himanen stresses following Manuel Castells, hacker work-ethic is
considered
as the opposite to the view of a society in which work has become an
end
in itself. If Protestant ethic moved the centre of gravity from Sunday
to Friday, then hacker ethic is itself moved by a "pre-Protestant"
ethic.
Why this expression instead of "Catholic ethic"? Answer: because,
although
Catholic ethic is more near to Sunday and to joy, it is hierarchical,
dogmatic,
and monastic. Hackers take the best of both traditions and meet
at
the Academy not at the cathedral. To put it in Greek mythological
terms,
their leading gods are not Sisyphus and Ares but Hephaistos and Eros --
working in the Academia. In order to realise their passions, hackers:
"are
ready to accept
that the pursuit even of interesting tasks may not always be
unmitigated
bliss. For hackers, passion describes the general tenor of their
activity,
though its fulfilment may not be sheer joyful play in all aspects.
(...)
Passionate and creative, hacking also entails hard work." (Himanen 2001)
We may
conclude
that the hacker's
passion is this networking of joy and work, of Sunday and Friday that
goes
beyond the alternative 'either pure work or pure leisure.' The object
of
this passion is life itself, passionate life, creativity. The key issue
is that such a fundamental attitude is not restricted to computer
hackerism.
This means that the passion of life is stronger and broader than the
passion
of the internet. In order to make sense, the passion of the internet,
hacker
ethic in a narrow sense, has to become a passion for life. But there is
an ambiguity in hacker ethic as it seems to blur the difference between
the passion of doing good work with the passion of being good or of
joyful
and creative activity. The tension between technical knowledge ('techne'')
concerning how to produce ('poiesis') something and ethical
knowledge
('phronesis') dealing with what kind of action ('praxis')
makes ourselves better and happier is, according to Aristotle, a
crucial
one. It seems to me as if this tension is particularly difficult
to perceive within the perspective of information technology as far as
we intend to program not just production processes but human action.
There
is a tension between ethics and informatics, i.e., between the passion
of programming life and the passions of life itself (Capurro 1990,
2003).
This tension shines forth when we explore them in the internet.
II. Passions in the Internet
Passions
are
overall present
in the internet particularly the passions of the body but also, of
course,
the ones of the soul. This sounds paradoxical since according to John
Perry
Barlow:
"Cyberspace
consists
of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a
standing
wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both
everywhere
and nowhere, but it is not where bodies live." (Barlow 1996)
Barlow's
"Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace" is based on the dichotomy between body and
thinking or, more precisely, between an ontology of matter and a
digital
ontology (Capurro 2002). The exclusion of the body from cyberspace
concerns
no less the political and economic life. Barlow proclaims:
"Governments
of
the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from
Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of
the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no
sovereingty
where we gather. (Barlow 1996)
This
kind of
digital divide
is, of course, not eliminated in case every human being has access to
the
internet and/or a homepage. In contrast to Barlow's proclamation the
internet
has become a common place for all kinds of sexual, economic, and
political
transactions with their corresponding passions and inequities. The
"global
conversation of bits" between "virtual selves" (Barlow 1996) looks like
a parody of an angelic society (Capurro 1995, Esterbauer 1998). The
prophets
of the internet promise no less than "salvation in cyberspace"
(Niewiandomski
2002). This is indeed a kind of "cyber-gnosis" (Wertheim 1999). The
alternative
"bits or bodies" (Frohmann 2000) means no less than the exclusion of
the
social and material basis of human existence. The Canadian information
scientist Bernd Frohmann writes:
"Since
information
always refers us to materiality and social practices, a leading issue
of
information ethics, such as access, cannot be construed simply as
access
to something called "information". Access to information refers us to
access
to social practices. The problem for the poor, the marginal, the
outsiders,
is not that they lack laptops, but that they are unjustly excluded from
the social networks essential for trust in documents, in utterances, in
representations and texts of any kind, in short, for information to
emerge
for them at all." (Frohmann 2000, 434)
The
leading
passion of our time
is the passion of communication which is indeed an angeletic passion. I
use the neologism 'angeletic' in order to draw the attention to the
phenomenon
of messages and messengers. According to sociologist Niklas Luhmann,
there
is a difference between message ("Mitteilung"), i.e., the action of
offering
something (potentially) meaningful to a social system ("Sinnangebot"),
information ("Information"), i.e., the process of selecting meaning
from
different possibilities offered by a message, and understanding
("Verstehen"),
i.e., the integration of the selected meaning within the system, as the
three dimensions of communication within social systems (Luhmann 1987,
196). Message and information are related but not identical concepts:
- a
message
is
sender-dependent,
i.e. it is based on a heteronomic or asymmetric structure. This is not
the case of information: we receive a message, but we ask for
information,
- a
message
is
supposed to bring
something new and/or relevant to the receiver. This is also the case of
information,
- a
message
can
be coded and transmitted
through different media or messengers. This is also the case of
information,
a message is an utterance that gives rise to the receiver's selection
through
a release mechanism or interpretation.
The
message
phenomenon implies
thus a heteronomic structure between sender and receiver. I have
suggested
that we need not only a theory of media but a theory of messages and
messengers
or an angeletics (Capurro 2003a).
The
passion of
communication
is a modern one ever since the Enlightenment proclaimed the ideal of
censorship-free
production and distribution of messages that culminated in the
principle
of freedom of the press. This principle, which can be seen as
the
modern version of the principle of freedom of speech in oral
societies,
became a basic element of modern democracy. The passion of
communication
gave rise in the middle of the 20th century to a new technology of
message
distribution and use that we call the internet. With its different
possibilities
of distributing messages (one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many,
one-to-one)
the internet brought about a paradigm shift with regard to the
hierarchical
structure of mass media particularly since the widespread social use of
such tools as e-mail, chat, and mailing lists. With the development of
cellular phones these internet tools became ubiquitous. The question of
freedom of access is seen as a crucial issue as far as
networked
mediated communication plays a major role in the economic, political,
social,
and cultural development of nations. The involuntary exclusion from the
internet is called the digital divide.
But
we live
indeed in a time
of "empty angels" or “mediatic nihilism”, in which we forget what
message
is to be sent while the messengers multiply as Peter Sloterdijk
remarks:
“This is the very disangelium of current times” (Sloterdijk
1997).
Nietzsche's word "Disangelium" (Nietzsche 1999, 211) in contrast
to evangelium, points in this case to the empty nature of the
messages
disseminated by the mass media, culminating in Marshall McLuhan's
dictum:
"The medium is the message." This is a paradoxical outcome of hacker
ethic
with its passions for free, open, and joyful research. Hacker's
alternative
spirit that would "crack the lock of the iron cage" (Max Weber) has
produced
an invisible cage of surveillance, oppression, and exclusion. Secondly,
the abhorrence of plagiarism has turned into a generalised
copy-and-paste
syndrome. People lose the ability and the joy to think by
themselves.
This
is exactly
what Plato
put into the mouth of the Egyptian king Thamus who was not convinced
about
how useful the invention of writing was, as suggested by god Theut, the
Hermes of Greek mythology. According to Theut's marketing slogans,
writing
was a medicine ('pharmakon') for improving memory and making
people
wiser but, in fact, king Thamus was not convinced with this kind of
technology
assessment and foresaw that his people would become idle and forget the
capability of remembering and thinking on their own (Phaidr. 275 a-b).
Finally, the message society suffers from the call syndrome. Everyone
seems
obsessed with the idea of receiving or not a message that might be of
crucial
importance for her life, his business, their business etc., and vice
versa,
everyone seems obsessed with the idea of sending messages all the time,
to anybody, and anywhere that might be of no less importance with
regard
to all these objectives. The first obsession can be called the apocalyptic
obsession, the second one the prophet obsession. Between
them
we can find all possible degrees of passions of and in the internet
that
becomes more and more the core of society as it turns to be invisible
and
trivial.
The
hacker's
passion of information
sharing turns into the cult of information protection. The Protestant
ethic
of profit takes the lead of the internet and creates for a few seconds
a new economy that immediately blurs and lets the iron cage become even
more powerful as it gets more digital intelligence inside. This seems
also
the case with regard to all kinds of 'flesh cages' that become
re-engineered
and integrated into a super bio-information system. But, in the
meantime,
people are still hungry and suffer in their everyday existence. It
would
be misleading to oppose the passion of eating to the passion of
speaking
or to believe that there is a simple logic as to what should be done
first.
But, obviously, first things first!
"Grand
est le
manger" - "Eating
is great!" is a slogan of Rabbi Yohanan recurrent in the work of
Emmanuel
Lévinas, particularly in his comments to the Talmud or "the oral
law" (Ouaknin 2003). Human beings are not only speaking beings but also
hungry ones. Both passions, the passion of eating and the passion of
speaking
belong together. Emmanuel Lévinas' "ethic of the Other" is a
heteronomic
or, as we could also call it, an angeletic ethic as it takes the call
of
the other, namely 'I am hungry', as the basic one. But, at the same
time,
it reflects on this call in order to be able to answer to it not only
with
regard to the materiality of her stomach -- usually Lévinas'
ethic
is well known for the importance he gives to the face of the other
--
but in order to give her a message as well. Humans do not live from
bread
only.
The
passions of
the internet
and the passions in the internet are passions of speaking. Also with
regard
to them the ethic of passions, being a pre-Protestant or a Protestant
one,
that gives the primacy to our own passions can be ethically
twisted
through a reflection and action that gives the primacy to the passions
of the Other, particularly to her stomach, a word whose Greek origin
means
at the same time open mouth ('stoma') and stomach.
III.
Information
Technology and Technologies of the Self
Michel
Foucault
distinguishes
the following kinds of technologies, namely:
- "technologies
of production,
which permit us to produce, transform, or manipulate things,"
- "technologies
of sign systems,
which permit us to use signs, meanings, symbols, or
significations,"
- "technologies
of power which
determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or
domination, an objectivizing of the subject,"
- "technologies
of the self, which
permit individuals to effect by their own means or with the help of
others
a certain number of operations on their own bodies and souls, thoughts,
conduct, and way of being, so as to transform themselves in order to
attain
a certain state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or
immortality."
(Foucault 1988, 18)
How
can we ensure
that the benefits
of information technology are not only distributed equitably, but that
they can also be used by the people to shape their own lives? The first
part of the question refers to legal and institutional aspects. The
second
part goes further, and asks not only for living norms but also for
living
forms. All three aspects include questions of truth, power and desire,
that is, they include individual and social options concerning these
questions.
Under these premises we can ask, How can we ensure that institutional,
normative and "life-forming" options remain open? My answer is that a
legal
control of information technology is not enough, but that these
normative
aspects should rest not only on a "code-oriented" but also on a
"self-oriented"
morality.
Foucault's
distinction between
code-oriented and self-oriented morality does not imply a contradiction
between moral rules on the one hand and individual freedom on the
other.
It stresses, on the contrary, their complementarity. In order to become
moral subjects, it is not enough to have a code of ethics and to act
according
to it. There is another aspect concerning the different options through
which we can put rules into practice within the context of our personal
lives and within the cultural and historical context of different kinds
of communities. In this case we are not simply agents but we become, as
individuals and as communities, moral subjects of our actions. We are
not
an unchangeable "I" or "we," but an intersection of possible choices in
a process of becoming, individually and socially, ourselves within a
field
of linguistic and institutional practices (Dreyfus and Rabinow
1983).
The
"self" is
not the abstract
subject invented by epistemological theories but a dynamic intersection
of traditions and life projects through which individual and social
identity
is permanently created and questioned. But the ethical quest for
authenticity
is not only a process through which we become different by mutually
recognizing
our differences. It means, more radically, to be interpellated by the
other,
"face to face," as Emmanuel Lévinas (1961) says, particularly by
the have-nots. The quest for our "selves" is ethically preceded by the
questioning through the other, and the care of the self would be
completely
misunderstood if it were not interpreted as the intersection where we
take
care of our mutual relationships in the face of anonymous rules,
practices,
and institutions.
If
we
conceive
information
society as a deliberative and an imaginative one where the practice of
advising and consulting plays a key role, as should indeed be the case
in democracies, information networks could become the artificial
marketplace
for different kinds of deliberation, dissent and advice, according to
the
insight that "in designing tools we are designing ways of being"
(Winograd
and Flores 1986 p. xi). We have to learn not just to store, retrieve,
and
manage information but to become aware that what we primary do is to
handle
with biased knowledge, i.e., that our basic ability in an information
society
should be a hermeneutical one, which includes such critical arts as
interpretation,
aesthetic or creative design, and responsibility towards our lives. In
other words, we need information technology and technologies of the
self:
the art of friendship, the art choosing, the art of silence and the art
of laughter. Let us try to think about these technologies of the self
and
about information technology.
The
Art of
Friendship
in the Face of Power
In
a
"healing
vision," (Christiane Floyd 1992) information
technology should be questioned insofar as structures of power and
oppression
do not allow its transformation by people who try to help themselves
and
to help each other in shaping their lives. This transformation means a
radical change of perspective: information technology is not just the
subject
that transforms us and our world, but at the same time, we have to
incorporate
it within different projects for saving and promoting the variety of
life
on this planet. We have been developing modern technology under the
banner
of mastery. Nature is giving us a last chance to do it under the banner
of friendship. Hans Jonas (1984) has shown that we cannot limit
friendship
to our present world but have to extend it to the generations to
come.
The
Art of
Choosing in
the Face of Oppression
Information
technology gives
us means for reality construction, but it would be fatal if we did not
make our choices dialogically, that is, through awareness of and
respect
of people and other living beings. As Christiane Floyd (1992) writes,
"An
important aspect of computer science is that it deals with creating
reality:
the technical reality of the programs executed on the computer, and the
conditions for the human reality which unfolds around the computer in
use.
Therefore, the conceptual categories 'true' and 'false' it relies on
are
not sufficient in themselves. We have to go beyond them by finding
categories
for expressing the felicity of our choices, for distinguishing 'more or
less desirable' as we proceed in making distinctions and decisions in
communal
design processes. This is essential for dealing with quality in
software
development and use" (p. 20).
The
Art of
Silence in
the Face of Verbosity
Information
technology is
a loquacious technology. We have to learn the art of silence in order
to
hear what others say and have to say and to be able to overcome the art
of taboo-silence issuing from the old paradigm of value-free science
and
technology. We need a universal ethical "logos" for coexistence in a
common
world. But this "logos" may remain monologic when it takes the
technological
shape of mass media. We have to learn to hear the differences between
the
"logoi" and to respect them. And we have to learn to hear our silent
dimensions,
namely finitude and suffering. To learn the art of silence means, on
the
one hand, to learn to confront ourselves with nothingness, i.e., with
this
nothingness we call our existence (Goguen, 1992), and, on the other
hand,
to feel responsible for the suffering of others, particularly when they
are just a picture on the TV-screen.
The
Art of
Laughter in
the Face of Fear
Technology
possesses some
of the characteristics of religious belief. In his famous novel The
Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco has shown that the art of laughter is
a dangerous art for all dogmatic beliefs. Just as there are many senses
of silence, there are also many kinds of laughter. I am referring now
to
a kind of laughter as an expression of insight into the basic weakness
of all our technological projects. In Antiquity, laughter was
considered
a sign of madness as well as wisdom. The art of laughter means our
ability
to question our personal and social identity. It is a sign of our
personal
or social openness for what we are not, or for what we do not
understand,
for the Other. This gives us an opportunity to question our values from
a not just "political" but also "poli-ethical" perspective. An "ethics
of care", as Thomas Froehlich (1991, p. 299) remarks, cannot be blind
to
the individuality and contextuality of problems and needs, by using
Rawls'
technique of a "veil of ignorance". To care is, of course, not the same
thing as to be fair (Rawls 1971). We should make sure that the
practices
of information become part of the practices of deliberation, advising,
and dissenting; they should become part of our self-questioning so that
they do not give rise to a new form of power, which strengthens the
discourse
of the panopticon into a super-panopticon (Poster, 1990).
Conclusion
I
call our
being aware of
the relationships between humans, world and technology, i.e., being
aware
of the fallacies of humanism, naturalism and technicism, synthetic
thinking.
The "care of the self" is synthetic thinking in the sense that we
positively
acknowledge our mutual dependencies: dependency of humans on nature and
technology, of technology on nature and humans, and of nature on humans
and technology. How can we ensure that the benefits of information
technology
are not only distributed equitably, but that they can also be used by
people
to shape their own lives? I think that the technologies of the self are
an essential part of the answer to this question.
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