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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