Hacking: The Performance of Technology? Review of Douglas Thomas, "Hacker Culture" [Book Review]

Techne 9 (2):151-154 (2005)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The word “hacker” has an interesting double meaning: one vastly more widespread connotation of technological mischief, even criminality, and an original meaning amongst the tech savvy as a term of highest approbation. Both meanings, however, share the idea that hackers possess a superior ability to manipulate technology according to their will (and, as with God, this superior ability to exercise will is a source of both mystifying admiration and fear). This book mainly concerns itself with the former meaning. To Thomas this simultaneously mystified and vilified, elusive set of individuals exemplifies “the performance of technology” xx), showing the way in which “the cultural, social and political history of the computer...is fraught with complexity and contradictions” ix). In fact, he claims that hacking is more a cultural than technological phenomenon, citing Heidegger’s, “[t]he essence of technology is not anything technological” (56).

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Characterizing Hacking: Mundane Engagement in US Hacker and Makerspaces.Sarah R. Davies - 2018 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 43 (2):171-197.
High 'Techne': Technology and Art in Modernity and Beyond.R. L. Rutsky - 1991 - Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles
Inquiring Hacking as Politics: A New Departure in Hacker Studies? [REVIEW]Johan Söderberg - 2017 - Science, Technology, and Human Values 42 (5):969-980.
Sustainable technological citizenship.Govert Valkenburg - 2012 - European Journal of Social Theory 15 (4):471-487.
Determining technology: myopia and dystopia.Gregory Swer - 2014 - South African Journal of Philosophy 33 (2):201-210.
Technological Rationality.Lorenzo C. Simpson - 2012 - In Jan Kyrre Berg Olsen Friis, Stig Andur Pedersen & Vincent F. Hendricks (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Technology. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 189–194.
Thinking Essence, Thinking Technology: A Response to Don Ihde’s Charge.Bowen Zha - 2020 - Open Journal for Studies in Philosophy 4 (1):1-10.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-07-29

Downloads
562 (#49,931)

6 months
68 (#86,177)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Cathy Legg
Deakin University

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references