Volume 2, Issue 1
Winter 2002

Abstract

Introduction: The Technology of Code

Code and Power

Code and Religous Texts

Works Cited

Blood, Sweat and Code: A New Text, Power and Illiteracy in the Context of Gender

Claudia Herbst, Pratt Institute

Abstract:

Programming languages, code, are a new form of text. Culturally influential texts, that is, those reaching the masses concurrently and consistently, have historically been texts based on narrative. Code, on the other hand, contains no narrative and has no narrator and no narratee. Code, not unlike religious texts, lies outside of the realm of the fiction/non-fiction category. Like religious texts, code sets rules and commands, it is linear, hierarchical and, mirroring patriarchy, it is male. Religious texts and code are both highly gendered forms of text produced by an elite group of men. Code, however, commands not people but technology. This is crucial as experience itself, including the practice and distribution of language, is increasingly mediated by technology. Code, largely invisible to the general population, is a non-public, if not stealth, form of text. To write code is to have power, or rather, code is power. Code announces a radical break with the tradition of the narrative/power correlation indicating a variation in the definition and exercise of power. Women largely remain illiterate when it comes to this new and influential text. Today as in the past the consequences of illiteracy are far reaching.

Programming languages, code, represent not only new language forms but, more important, a new form of text. Code is a powerful text in part because it literally makes technology work and characterizes the nature and purpose of software. Code, by means of its power to give structure to interfaces which filter communication, that is, communication among individuals as well as between individuals and technology, dictates behavior and shapes content. As experience itself, such as the practice and distribution of language, is increasingly mediated by technology, code invariably warps the lenses through which we interpret, analyze, and seek to understand the world. In short, code informs technology; technology in turn informs culture.

Code mediates the technology through which we practice communication and language and holds a special and arguably powerful place in the realm of text. More and more general language is becoming subject to code during the course of its technologically interceded exchange. Code is a meta-level text because it informs the tools used for the distribution and expansion of language in addition to informing the exchange and practice of language, be it verbal or visual. In this respect code is not necessarily intertextual but instead demonstrates governing, if not superincumbent, qualities. Even more important, code is a seemingly discontinuous form of text, historically as well as in terms of appearance.

Visually code often consists of widely spaced paragraphs littered with seemingly random indentations along with a mix of incessant and rather foreign usage of symbols. For writers of code, these symbols are powerful administrators, and the spacing, while accidental in appearance, is an expression of the compulsive need for ordinance in this new form of text.

Code deals not with grammar but with syntax (i.e., the rules for combining symbols and words) and evolves in a category of its own: First-generation languages communicate with the computer in ones and zeros. Second-generation, also called assembly, languages use code composed of letters and numbers. Third-generation languages (e.g., C, Pascal and Fortran) consist of English words such as “Read” and “Write.” Fourth-generation languages are designed to query databases or languages for performing advanced mathematical manipulations and solving scientific problems, etc.

Aside from its apparent discontinuity with other forms of text, code quite radically breaks with other characteristics of the text/power correlation and heritage, suggesting a variation in the definition and exercise of power. In particular, the lack of narrative distinguishes and separates code from other culturally influential texts.

Culturally influential texts, that is, text reaching the masses concurrently and consistently, have historically been texts based on narrative. Prior to code there has been no text that is as culturally relevant and yet so devoid of narrative. Code contains no narrative, has no narrator and no narratee. Judicial text provides an example of a text that is authoritative because of the narratives it contains, however numerous and varied: we learn, enforce, and punish by means of example. Written history offers another model of the text/power correlation; it shapes our understanding of power and authority in part through the narratives it contains. Since Jean-Francoise Lyotard argued the collapse of the modern metanarrative of reality, the issue of a loss of narrative has been addressed within the larger post-modern discourse. The loss of narrative addressed here, and this is crucial, deals with the absence of narrative within an entire body of text through which power is exercised surreptitiously.

Code and Power

Historically, the source of power has been identifiable as its effectiveness often depended on its perceptibility. Predominantly, there has been a need for the obvious presence and representation of the power source (such as, for example, the visual representations of state and church), especially when addressing the masses. Visual symbols representing the sources of power have been instrumental in the identification of power. Some of the most power-driven systems have also been the most visual, Nazi Germany offering but one powerful example. The ability to induce fear is inherent in power-based systems. Detectable presence is required because power has to be demonstrated in order to be recognized.

Previously, text concerned with power and its distribution has been not only visible by means of symbol and representation but also widely accessible, such as has been the case with judicial and religious texts. Code on the other hand, while it reaches the masses by way of technology, is largely invisible to the general population. Code is a non-public, if not stealth, form of text. Not only is it invisible to the general public, but should one happen to catch a glimpse, it is also wholly inaccessible except to the technologically advanced. As code breaks with most of the prevalent narrative/ text /power characteristics, the expansion of code indicates a variation in the exercise and distribution of power through text.

The nature of the text is the nature of its power. Among code’s most defining characteristics are its inaccessibility and covert nature. The authors of code are numerous and largely anonymous. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a pervasive secrecy surrounds digital technology sustained by code. The amount of passwords required to access accounts of all types has exploded with the rise of digital, code-based technologies. Data has to be protected by surveillance, protection, and security interfaces. Incidentally, the exercise of power is linked to the ability to monitor.

Foucault states the objective of power is to discipline. In order to discipline, subjects and their behavior must be exposed. "The exercise of discipline presupposes a mechanism that coerces by means of observation; an apparatus in which the techniques that make it possible to see induce effects of power, and in which, conversely, the means for coercion make those on whom they are applied clearly visible" (170-71). Power, surveillance, and discipline are intricately linked.

By way of technologies such as the Internet, surveillance has come to envelop us in a seductively simple way and as though by default. At best it is difficult to tell who (government, corporations, system administrators, et al.) might be keeping track of our communication, consumption, possible gains and losses, in short, data, be it shared or personal. Through code, power has become less centralized. If no one knows who is looking at it, it may potentially be anyone’s gaze that is upon us. Additionally, some invite the peering eyes of strangers by mounting web cameras in places once considered private. In the age of code we are the observers and the observed, ourselves endorsing the very power mechanism with which we are being watched and controlled. Technologies such as tracking and global positioning devices offer additional examples.

Foucault also points out to us the disintegrating corporal punishment and the disappearance of the physical, and therefore of presence, in the process of punishment (8). While originally the exercise of power was a public event it soon became institutionalized:

Hierarchized, continuous and functional surveillance may not be one of the great technical “inventions” of the eighteenth century, but its insidious extension owed its importance to the mechanisms of power that it brought with it. By means of such surveillance, disciplinary power became an “integrated” system, linked from the inside to the economy and to the aims of the mechanism in which it was practiced. (Foucault 176)

If in the past the exercise of power and with it the exercise of discipline has evolved from the public spectacle to the institutionalized system, it has taken on a new form in the age of code. By means of access to commercialized information and surveillance technologies such as the Internet, the exercise of power has become individualized. In the age of code, power has been rendered invisible, its source decentralized, and its reach individualized and, thus, arguably vastly expanded.

Code and Religous Texts

Code, not unlike religious texts, lies outside of the realm of the fiction/non-fiction category. Like religious texts, it sets rules and commands. Elias Canetti remarks in Crowds and Power that commands permeate our lives in the world of work, of war, and of religion. Further, Canetti reminds us that the oldest command is a death sentence. A command initiates action and a command admits no contradiction, allowing for neither discussion, explanation, nor question (303-4). Code largely consists of strings of commands. While the rigidity inherent to the command addressed by Canetti is found in both code and religious text, its presence is distilled and purified in the text that is code.

Most religious texts (those of Judaism, Christianity, Islam) enforce their power by enforcing “His Word.” Both religious text and code are generated, based on education, by an elite group of men. The spaces in which they are produced are in their own ways sacred: the monastery and the computer lab. Both tend to be places marked by the absence of women, particularly in the early stages of their existence. Etymology reveals “monastery” comes from the Late Greek monazein, to live alone. The interaction with a computer can be similarly introspective. While the experience of the production of these forms of text may be a solitary one, in both instances the circulation and distribution of the resulting text have been extraordinarily widespread.

Georges Bataille addresses the significance of Christianity’s fundamental commandments, “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not perform the carnal act except in wedlock” (42). As Bataille illustrates, the taboos connected with the entrance and exit of life have been a principal concern of religious text, Christian or otherwise. Our understanding of death as well as sex and reproduction has in part been defined by religious text.

Code informs technology. Today some of the most technologically relevant developments are to be found in the military (many of the technologies encountered daily, such as the Internet and wireless communication, originate in the military). Military technology is mostly designed in the name of destruction. Another key discipline of the 21st century in which technology, and therefore code, has played a decisive role is biotechnology. Applied in the field of genetic engineering, code based biotechnologies tap into the very building blocks of life. Whether we are dealing with religion or code-based technologies, in either instance the text at hand informs how we come to interpret the creation as well as the destruction of life

Code's Genderedness

The similarities between religious text and code are varied. Religious texts shape gender roles among others and consequently women’s place and status in society. In part this is due to women’s absence from the production of these texts. Most likely, women’s place in the world would have taken on another meaning had they been able to take part in the production and transcription of the text shaping their lives. Today women again are absent from the production of a culturally highly influential text.

Code is linear and hierarchical, and, mirroring patriarchy and produced almost exclusively by men, it is a gendered form of text. Code is devoid of emotion and enforces singularity over multiplicity. Those who have attended computer conferences are likely to have seen them: programmers proudly wearing shirts featuring the phrase “Blood, Sweat, and Code,” The slogan implies the potent and unforgivable character of code. As a form of text, code has no poetic qualities. Rather it represents the categorical rationalization of language, no longer instrument for lyricism but tool to command technology. For the production of this text, traits typically identified as female are inconsequential. When it comes to the production of code, women remain largely illiterate. To write code means to have power, or rather, code is power. And as women are on the whole illiterate with regard to this new language, they are by default excluded from this influential arena.

Code commands indirectly in that it commands not people but technology. Since the Scientific Revolution technology has increasingly become the medium through which we aim to subdue and exploit nature. As Carolyn Merchant states in The Death of Nature, “Nature and women are both perceived to be on a lower level than culture, which has been associated symbolically and historically with men” (144). Women traditionally have been associated with nature, men with culture and the technology informing culture. Nature is systematically being conquered by technological means. Code is twice removed from nature and that which is typically identified as female: through the application of technology we subdue nature, through the application of code, in turn, we govern technology.

As ever, the consequences of illiteracy are far reaching: limited access to language limits action. Illiteracy affects social and economic standing and has also been linked to reproduction. It has been linked to significantly higher birth rates in Third World countries. In the developed world an inability to partake in the production of the text that upholds technology will exclude women from the process of inventing and sustaining new technologies. As long as this is the case, women will not be able to incorporate and consequentially not be able to express their own voices in new technologies. Because technology informs culture, the absence of women’s voices in the development of new technologies brings with it a limitation on women’s valuable and culturally defining contributions.

The power of code as a culturally defining text should not be ignored; neither should code’s genderedness. This imminent text carries with it, however invisibly, the capability and force to shape not only our lives but also those of many generations to come. Envisioning the future, would it not be reassuring also to encounter a female inflection?

Works Cited

Bataille, Georges. Erotism: Death and Sensuality. Trans. Mary Dalwood. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1986.

Canetti, Elias. Crowds and Power. Trans. Carol Stewart. New York: Noonday Press, 1998.

Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 1975. Trans. Alan Sheridan. 1977. New York: Vintage, 1995.

Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature. Vol 10. Minneapolis, MN: U of MN P, 1985.

Merchant, Carolyn. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Harper Collins, 1983.