by Lev Lafayette for the course "Critical Issues in the Social Sciences" (Murdoch University, 1990)
The 1980s were a period that many would probably remember by a general swing to right-wing elements within the West. It was the Reagan, Thatcher and Hawke era, the rise of fundamentalist Christianity, and the demoralization of the trade union movement. Even the youth of the eighties - traditionally the more radical element of society - tended, in general, to adopt the free-market and capitalist philosophies epitomized in the rise of the 'yuppie'.
But the 1980s also saw the origin of a sub-genere of science fiction which, as I will argue in this essay, is profoundly reflective of developing changes in technology and society. In addition, I will also argue that this s.f. subgenre is also reflectinve of a developing resistance - in the form of a subculture - of these changes in technology and society, or more specifically, the power structures and groups that engineer those changes. Both the s.f. subgenre and the associated subculture related to it are referred to as 'cyberpunk'.
The primary aim of this essay is to use the developing cyberpunk subculture as an example of a power/resistance dichotomy. The essay is broken down into three three components; the s.f. background to cyberpunk; The technological and social basis for Cyberpunk and Subcultural Synthesis (Gothic/Hackers), and a conclusion which shall attempt to draw these components into a cohesive whole.
Despite some claims to the contrary, science fiction does not necessarily open innovative, speculative, imaginative and progressive futuristic possibilities. Indeed, from the so-called 'Golden Age' of science fiction (the '30s and '40s) to most science fiction of the modern era, meets this response from s.f. author Ursula Le Guin:
".. The only social change presented by most SF has been towards authoritarianism, the domination of ignorant masses by a powerful elite... Socialism is never an alternative, and democracy is quite forgotten... In general American SF has assumed a permanent hierarchy of superior and inferiors, with rich, ambitious aggressive males at the top, then a great gap, and then at the bottom, the poor, the uneducated, the faceless masses and all the women..." (1)
Of course, not all science fiction has been written in this manner. There has been within science fiction a power/resistance struggle fo its own. On eone side the whole range of technolophiliacs from the right-wing Jerry Pournell, Larry Niven, Robert Heinlein, to the more liberal Issac Asimov. On the other side, writers against the grain, each with their own particular brand of resistance: Ursula Le Giun emphasized a combination of liberalism, Jungian psychology, Taoism and femnism. Michael Moorcock promoted a furious anti-Christian attitude. Norman Spinrad's writing are specked with satirical anti-capitalist views.
Up to at least the mid 1980s science fiction was dominated by the technolophiliacs. Then, in a single year, the entire s.f. world was changed; William Gibson's Neuromancer was published in 1984. In 1985 it won the Hugo, the Phillip K. Dick and Nebula awards, the three most prestigious in s.f. Neuromancer represented something substantially different to the old s.f. It postulated a dark near future world dominated by lawless megacorporations, technology dominated by human/machine interfaces and a huge gap between rich and poor. Most interestingly, were the 'heroes' Gibson choose; stree-scum, rebels, down-and-outs - the traditional 'baddies' of s.f.
The first cyberpunk novel had been published.
A flood of similar novels soon became popular along with new writers such as Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling - and some old allies like Norman Spinradf. For the past six years, cyberpunk has been the dominant form of s.f., with regular stories appearing in Omni, Internaon and even the fairly stuffy Issac Asimov's Science Fiction magazine.
Fairly definitive and coherent common elementys have now appeared in cyberpunk whioch has been noted by author Bruce Sterling:
".. The advence of sciences are so deeply radical, so disturbing, upsetting and revolutionary that they can no longer be contained... And suddenly, a new alliance is becoming evident: ... an unholy alliance of the technical world and the world of organized dissent - the underground world of popular culture, visionary fluidity, and street level anarchy.."
Certain central themes spring up repeatedly in cyberpunk. The theme of body invasion: prothetic limbs, implanted circuitry, cosmetic surgery, genetic alteration. The even even more powerful theme of mind invasion; brain-computer interfaces, artificial intelligence, neurochemistry - techniques radically redefining the nature of humanity, the nature of self...
The tools of global integration - the satellite media net, the multinational corporation - fascinate the cyberpunk... Cyberpunk has little patience with borders..." (2)
Suddenly, it become quite clear what these authors that shocked the s.f. world are trying to say. Essentially, they are doing what s.f. is supposed to do, i.e., reflect on current trends and extrapolate. The 1980s and 1990s and are supposed to be the origins of a very dark and very grim cyberpunk world. An interesting proposal to say the least.
The claim of the cuberpunks can be fairly much summarized into the following key elements: Firstly, technology, particularly information technology, has become more personal. Secondly, that technology is accelerating at such an incredible rate that elements of Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" are becoming very apparent. Thirdly, the world as a whole is becoming more intergrated, again, primarily as result in changes to information technology. Finally there is a growing level of organized resistance to those who are engineering these changes - by using the technology they create.
In looking at these claims I will be using three essential texts. Firstly, Alvin Toffler's "The Third Wave" - not so much for theory, but as a mine of information, and recognition of trends in technology. Secondly, Tessa Morris-Suzuki's very perceptive social and economic analysiis of what she terms "information capitalism". Although the book is more specifically attuned to Japan it is adaptable to most 'high-tech' nations. Fionally, I wish to look at the very unusal form of resistance expressed in the text "The Electronic Pirates" by John Chesterman and Andy Lipman.
In "The Third Wave", Alvin Toffler simplifies all of history into three waves of technology. The first being agricultural, the seond industrial and the third is information. Toffler claims that the 'second wave', that is the industrial world, is currently undergoing a period of crisis as it tries to adjust to the introduction of 'third wave' technologies. These third wave technologies will, according to Toffler, completely alter how society operates in a fundamental way.
Toffler's theoretical framework can be criticised on atl east two grounds. First, his assumption that social structures are dtermined by technological change rather than a situation where the two interact with each other within their own paramters. Secondly, Toffler de-emphasizes power structures within current 'second wave' societies. Whilst he does note that there are those who are supportive and those who are opposed to the introduction of third wave technologies, his emphasis in on 'winning of minds' - essentially an idealist perspectivbe in social change, a feature of many reformists.
But Toffler does provide some useful information, particularly in trends in modern technology. He notes four clusters of related industries that are likelt to form the background of the third wave of technology. These are electronics and computers, the space industry, aquaculture and genetic engineering (3).
The advancement in the last few decades of the computer and electronics industry havs been nothing short of outsyanding and it is fairly clear that current trends are showing no indication of slowing down. According to Computerworld magaizine. "If the auto industry had done what the computer industry has done over the last 30 years, a Rolls Royce would cost $2.50 and get 2,000,000 miles to the gallon." (4)
For the space industry and aquaculture it is still quite debateable whether these industries are developing to any great extent. Toffler notes that there is numerous medical and metallurgical uses in the space industry due to the effects of microgravity. A rather visionary scientist, Gerald K. O'Neil has developed space colonies that could hold thousands of people. (5) Toffler suggests multiple uses aquaculture inclding mining and even methods of helping solve the global food crisis - unfortunately he fails to recognise that the global food crisis is overproduction (rather than underproduction) and the inability of profit dominated markets to be able to adapt to the contradictions between overproduced human necessities and those needs (6).
Genetic engineering has been a most discussed topic in the past decade with the possibilities of cloning and genetic selection etc. Toffler notes these concerns and the myriad of possibilities - but completely fails to recignise a related field which is causing just as much debate - that of reproductive technology.
Referring back to Bruce Sterling we find the clain that: "Technology itself has changed. Not for us the giant steam-snorting wonders of the past; the Hoover Dam, the Empire State building, the nuclear power plant. Eighties tech sticks to the skin, responds to the touch; the personal computer, the Sony walkman, the portable telephone, the soft contact lens".(7)
Referring to the cyberpunk emphasis to Toffler a contradiction is noted. Toffler still sees 'big technologies' (aqua culture, space industry) playing a dominant role. The cyberpunks emphasize 'personal tech'. The new technologies that will become dominant are those that relate directly to the human individual; information technology (personal computers, networks) and medical technologies (bionics, genetics, reproductive technologies, drugs). The non-personal technologies (including space industry, aquaculture) are very much secondary technologies.
This new change in technology that emphasizes the individual is referred to by Tess Morris-Suzuki as "information capitalism". Suzuki notes that the technocrats have created a utopian view where the new information technologies will solve a myriad of social problems: "Throughout much of the writing on the information society, the Utopian goals of human crativity, social harmony and diminishing materialism are presented as the spontaneous outcome of technological transformation".(8) The theoretical base is highly similar to that of Toffler's; "the development of huiman society has proceeded through three types of societal technological; hunting, agriculture and industrial ... information technology can be called the fourth societal technology." (9)
The term "information capitalism" is used to differentiate from terms such as "information society" which reflects "an indeterminate society being structured by the dominate technology" (10). Information capitalism suggets an interaction between a particular form of technology an a particular social and economic system. The key change in capitalism that Suzuki sees is the expropriation of social knowledge:
"Information capitalism ... not only exploits the labour of those directly employed by the corporations, but also depends, more than any other form of economy, on the indirect exploitation of the labour of everyone involved in the maintenance, transmission and expansion of social knowledge: parents, teachers, journalists - in the end, everybody. The old society in which the microcosmic exploitation of the worker by her/his boss precisely mirrored the macroeconomic exploitation of the proletariat by the ruling classes is (in Alain Touraine's words) that 'between the different kinds of apparatus and user - consumer of more simply the public - defined less by their specific attributes than by their resistance to dominantion by the apparatus'.
More precisely, the economic system itself has become a vast mechanism for converting theknowledge created by society into a source of corporate profits..." (11)
The resistance to a the domnination by the corporate apparatus has become a high-jacking of the technological itesm against the wishes of the owners of the means of production. In general, this has been limited (if that can be considered the right term) to the information technologies. Chesterman and Lipman note:
"The tape-recorder, the video cassette, and the photocopier make it possible for almost anyone to duplicate almost anything at will. The computer, in its mass-prodiced foorm as the PC (personal computer) or micro, is used to copy software, and since it contains copyright material in design, it can itself be 'pirated' or 'cloned'. The fifth machine is the telephgone, which is certainly the oldest, and may yet be the most important of them all. This is because it allows anyone who opwns a computer to access to the whole electonic communications system (12).
Chesterman and Pitman go into an extensive account of the huge level of information piracy that is conducted not only as part of organised crime, but primarily, by individuals who tape videos, copy records, download software etc. It is noted for example, that hte cost to the booktrade by photocopying has increased by nearly 1000% from 1967 to 1987 (13); hometaping in the U.K. is costing the corporations 50% more than organized piracy (14).
If the data from Chesterman and Lipman is combined with the theories of Suziki it is quite clear what is actually happening. The social knowledge that has been expropriated by the corporation sis being recaptrured by individual electronic 'criminals' who are by-passing corproate profits in their copying of data. Stealing from thieves? This is a fundamental example of a power/resistance struggle in information technology.
So far this essay has dealt with two components. Firstly, it examined the development of the cyberpunk subgenre of science fiction and its reflectinve writings of current trends. Secondly, it looked at current trends in technology, the social and economic structures they operate in, and resistance in information technology by using the tools of information technology.
Examined in this third section is the development of a 1980s youth subculture, gothics, and a process of synthesis they are having with computer hackers. It is the claim here that the to a certain extend the cyberpunk subculture already exists within this synthesis and that it promises to become the dominant youth subculture.
Or to put into other words; just because there is a somewhat exessive amount of home-taping etc, this is not necessarily a reason to assume the existence of organized resistance and a dissent of the power structures that control information technology. Instead, this essay seeks the organizers of samizdata.
The principle theoretical sources in this taks are Hall and Jefferson's "Resitance Through Rituats", Hebdige's "Subculture: The Meaning of Style" and Levy's "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution". In addition, due to a lack of source material, the author uses a significant amount of personal observation from involvement with gothics anbd the synthesis that this subculture is having with computer hackers.
Gothics were the most significant youth subculture of the 1980s, being born of on the more intellectual and arts-orientated wing of the punk subculture. As the energy of the punk subculture gradually fadedm the gothics developed and grew at their own gradual pace. In many ways, the gothics represented an antothesis of the dominant behaviour of youth in the 1980s, adopted a style that constituted both message (bricolage) and as a signification of practice. Whilst the majority of the eighties youth adopted pastel colours, the gothics draped themselves in plain black and white, slightly romanticized clothes. The majority looked to the future through the buzzwords of marketing and commerce and adopted the ideology of the new right to the extreme form of the yuppie, whilst the gothics lived isolated lives and reaffirmed the traditional liberal values of their founders in the gothic literary movement (such as Poe, Shelley etc). The gothic wearing of the crucifix represented a mockery and in many cases an identification with the occult, in opposition to the rise of fundamentalist Christianity.
Hackers originated in the late 1950s/early 1960s around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Working with huge bulking machines that did not even remotely look like contemporary personal computers. tyhey established a framwork and a code which has been described by Levy as the 'The Hacker Ethic'. Essentially this ethic promoted a freedom from copyright on the grounds that "all information should be free" (15). In addition to computer useage and afffiliation with those vaguely nerdy pastetimes such as science fiction and roleplaying games creates an interesting juxtaposition with the highly fashion-conscious gothics. Biut something strange has happened to the modern hacker, as this quote from an interview with Synergy shows:
"The old hacker is disappearing... All those long-haired techno-nerds with medieval codenames like "Grand Wizard" who spent long and lonely nights bathed in the pale green glow of the PC surrounded by capsized pizza cartons and cola cans.. these people are being superceeded by a new hacker with a belief system, a vision of the all-information age that beckons. The new hacker likes fast drugs and rational anarchist politics. The new hacker is a cyberpunk." (16)
But the change has also occurred with in the gothic subculture from about 1985 onwards to such an extent that most gothics differentiate between "romantic" goths and "techno" goths. The latter group have incorporated computer use, electro music, and a more streamlined style of clothing. To some it is only a matter of time before a large proportion of the gothic subculture is converted to a new cyberpunk/technogothic subculture.
It may seem strange that gothics and hackers could possibly synthesize into a viable subculture. At one end we see a group reviving the supernaturalistic romanticism of the seventeenth and eighteenth century literary movement. AT the other end, a group living amongst computer technology and with a twenty-first, twenty-second century literary movement. What could they possibly have in common?
If a subculture is seen as the way a social groups develops an expressive form of material life-experience, there is an interesting point where the gothic and the cyberpunk s.f. subgenre overlap - and that is with the great gothic classic, Frankenstein. A reflective novel emphasizing the dread felt by many people regarding the sudden and destabilizing advances of science and technological change at the time.
The gothics of the seventeenth and eighteenth century reflected on these changes and reacted against them. The cyberpunks are likewise reflecting on the very real and destablizing technologies of today. But unlike the gothics, the cyberpunks intend to highjack technology, in practice, in the form of electronic piracy, in ideology with the Hacker ethic, and in style, adopting the communication expression of the techno-gothics. It is here where the organisers of information technology resistance lie.
There are numerous consideration of the developing cyberpunk subculture, and indeed, its ideology that could have been included in this essay but have not. The metaphysical questiuons regarding eugenics, prothetics and cybertechnology have been left (although also provides a synthesis with the gothic concern of 'what it means to be human'). In additoin this essay has also left out the many 'horror stories' regarding the abilities and the extent of computer hackers and information technology.
These were not the aims of the essay, although they may be interesting topics in their own right. This essay was formed with the fundamental objectives of (i) the historical background of cyberpunk within science fiction (ii) the social and technological foundations for organized resistance in information technology and (iii) the form that this resistance is taking.
The postmodern problematic, according to Stephen White, is founded on four compoennts: the increasing unpersuasiveness of metanarratives, the rise of new information technologies, the growing awareness of the new problems associated with societal rationalization and the emergence of new social movements (17). In all these components, the cyberpunk subculture is relevant, and its ideology corresponds with the postmodernist views of justice. As White notes, most postmodernits theories have failed to adequately discuss existing social inequities (18). The cyberpunk movement could very well be an example on how these inequities will be resisted.
Naturally enough, there are limitations with the cyberpunk movement. Firtstly, its emphasis between science/technology and subculture has been to date been very much based on the former, leading to a male dominated subculture (which differs significantly in from the gothics were females are often leaders). In addition the subculture is fairly specific to the middle-class western youth - computers aren't that cheap yet. However in both these cases the limitations can be overcome, firstly by the increasing number of women invbolved in information technology and a 'natural' flow-on from the gothics and secondily, by the increasing number of people who are finding themselves part of the 'white-collar proletariat', as technology and production increases without corresponding increases in wages. The white collar middle-class is very quickly becoming the white collar working class.
The question remains however, on whether or not the widespread electronic piracy and manipulation that occurs will be galvinised into an ideological resistance to the owners of production by the cyberpunks. Their existence, albeit slowly, is being recognized. As the postmodernists emphasize (19), their success will be mostly based on their ability to establish autonomous new discourses and find the structural power to be a viable resistance.
References
1. Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Language of the Night", p99 2. Bruce Sterling, Preface to "Mirrorshades: A Cyberpunl Anthology", pp xii-xiv 3. Alvin Toffler, "The Third Wave", pp 156-164 4. Advertising and Publishing News, quoted in Toffler, p 156 5. See Gerald K. O'Niel, "The High Frontier" 6. Toffler, op cit, p 159 7. Bruce Sterling, op cit, p xiii 8. Tessa Morris-Suziki, Beyond Computopia, p15 9. The Information Society and Human Life, pp5-7, quoted in Morris-Suzuki, p13 10. Morris-Suzuki, ibid, p70 11. ibid, p83 12. John Chesterman and Andy Lipman, "The Electronic Pirates", p16 13. ibid, p26 14. ibid, p41 15. Steven Levy, "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution", pp26-37 16. Brave, Green World of the Cyberpunks, The Age (Australia), April 1, 1989 17. Srephen K. White, "Justice and the Postmodernist Problematic", p306 18. ibid, p316 19. ibid, p312
Bibliography
Chesterman, John., Lipman, Andy., "The Electronic Pirates", Routledge, 1988 Hall, Stuart., Jefferson, Tony (eds)., Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britian, Hutchinson, 1982 Hebdige, Dick., Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Mentheun, 1987 Levy, Steven., Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, Anchor/DoubleDay, 1984 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa., Beyond Computopia, Kegan-Paul, 1988 Toffler, Alvin., The Third Wave, Collins, 1980 Toffler, Alvin., Future Shock, Pan, 1974 Sterling, Bruce (ed)., Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology, Ace, 1988 White, Stephen K., "Justice and the Postmodernist Problematic", Praxis International, 7 (3/4), 1987/8.
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