3.21.2004
Hacker Manifesto -Education
Wark's Manifesto is a nice breakdown of social class and its predetermined contexts of individuals. The 'hacker class' seems far superior to all the other shmucks who fell into the constructs designed for the unoriginal. My favorite point of the essay was the section on education.
She writes, "They [middle class] work in factories, but are trained to think of them as offices. They take home wages, but are trained to think of it as a salary. They wear a uniform, but are trained to think of it as a suit. The only difference is that education has taught them to give different names to the instruments of exploitation, and to despise those their own class who name them differently."
OK, fine. But for hackers she writes, "The hacker class desires knowledge, not education. The hacker comes into being though the pure liberty of knowledge in and of itself. The hack expresses knowledge in its virtuality, by producing new abstractions that do not necessarily fit the disciplinary regime of managing and commodifying education. . Hacker knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result to a network of peers. Hacker knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge subject to the claims of public interest and free from subordination to commodity production. This puts the hacker into an antagonistic relationship to the struggle of the capitalist class to make education an induction into wage slavery."
Wow, that seems like a lot of mumbo jumbo for the same definition that Carelson students would argue for their factory positions. How is replacing the word 'knowledge' education any different than replacing the word 'salary' for 'wage'? Here is where I am pretty hazy on the construct of the Hacker class...who pay's their morgage? I mean Wark seems to portray a complete disregard for structured capitalism, but aren't the hackers just falling into the same societal confines that every other American must do? How are hackers any different than the Mark Twain of writers who didn't want to conform? This new age approach to society sounds like the same old song and dance.
She writes, "They [middle class] work in factories, but are trained to think of them as offices. They take home wages, but are trained to think of it as a salary. They wear a uniform, but are trained to think of it as a suit. The only difference is that education has taught them to give different names to the instruments of exploitation, and to despise those their own class who name them differently."
OK, fine. But for hackers she writes, "The hacker class desires knowledge, not education. The hacker comes into being though the pure liberty of knowledge in and of itself. The hack expresses knowledge in its virtuality, by producing new abstractions that do not necessarily fit the disciplinary regime of managing and commodifying education. . Hacker knowledge implies, in its practice, a politics of free information, free learning, the gift of the result to a network of peers. Hacker knowledge also implies an ethics of knowledge subject to the claims of public interest and free from subordination to commodity production. This puts the hacker into an antagonistic relationship to the struggle of the capitalist class to make education an induction into wage slavery."
Wow, that seems like a lot of mumbo jumbo for the same definition that Carelson students would argue for their factory positions. How is replacing the word 'knowledge' education any different than replacing the word 'salary' for 'wage'? Here is where I am pretty hazy on the construct of the Hacker class...who pay's their morgage? I mean Wark seems to portray a complete disregard for structured capitalism, but aren't the hackers just falling into the same societal confines that every other American must do? How are hackers any different than the Mark Twain of writers who didn't want to conform? This new age approach to society sounds like the same old song and dance.
