Just Who is a Hacker?

Upon exploring the readings associated with hackers in this week's assignment, one key trend immediately surprised me: hackers are inherently right-brained people. Since their occupations, fascinations, and persuasions typically resolve around computers, hackers are typically viewed as technological, left-brained people. However, for hackers, computers are merely a tool to a larger end, just as marble is merely a tool used by a sculptor to achieve something more important. As many self-proclaimed hackers explain (and I alluded to in my previous post), hackers are artists.

                Some hackers actually come right out and say that they identify very closely with traditional artists: hacker Paul Graham in his 2003 essay “Hackers and Painters” says that “Hacking and painting have a lot in common. In fact, of all the different types of people I've known, hackers and painters are among the most alike. What hackers and painters have in common is that they're both makers… trying [to] make good things.” Later in the essay, Graham furthers his view on hacking by saying that hackers are like artists in that they can only learn by doing, unlike scientists or mathematicians. No one would dispute that artists (painters, sculptors, musicians, etc.) are very heavily right-brained people. It is becoming clear to me that hackers are just as right-brained as their artist counterparts.

                More evidence for the artistic and expressive nature of hackers can be found through studying their behavior and personality. As “A Portrait of J. Random Hacker” explains, common hacker hobbies include science fiction, music, medievalism, chess, backgammon, and other intellectual games. All of these make heavy use of the creative and artistic capacities of the brain and each of them help participants learn how to solve problems in new and interesting ways or encourage creative development, both of which are central to the hacker’s mission. Just as artists and musicians, many hackers typically hold leftist politics, think highly of themselves, occasionally indulge in recreational drugs and other substances, and don’t care for societal conventions of race, gender, and religion. These are all marks of an intensely creative, right-brained person.

        Hackers’ inherent creativity and artistry are often accompanied by a certain mistrust of established ways of doing things, whether these things are other ways of hacking, sports, or the modern sociopolitical order. Eric Raymond, in his “A Brief History of Hackerdom,” chronicles the technological developments made by hackers over the latter half of the 20^th century. A common theme among the achievements was a desire to create contrasting systems, as seen in the rise of UNIX to supplant MIT’s early systems and later the compartmentalization of UNIX and its subsequent liberalization through the development of LINUX. Only later in the development of hacker culture when the internet and open-source became dominant did the mistrust of other computing systems erode away.

                    However, perhaps more importantly, many hackers have a mistrust of “the system,” or “the man.” I postulate that this is an artifact of the 1960s and ‘70s countercultural movements. Phrack Magazine contributor “The Mentor” expresses his mistrust of the system during his mid-‘80s juvenile years: “We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals.  We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals.” I can’t help but think of the image of the angst-ridden teenager fed up with the world and his superiors. 30 years later, The Mentor’s misgivings have been codified within the larger hacker culture: “they carry an ethic of disdain towards systems that normally allow little agency on the part of ordinary individuals.” (Brett Scott, “The Hacker Hacked”)
                    As an engineering student who has been doing stage lighting design for eight years and who will be going into investment banking after graduation, I have mixed reactions to the idea of “the hacker identity.” I certainly do not consider myself a hacker, but there are aspects of the culture I identify with. As a stage lighting designer, it is my job to leverage technology to create beautiful art. Such is also the occupation of the hacker. Like hackers, there are times when I prefer to use my right-brain to do things my own way. However, I have no mistrust of “the system” and in fact, I hope to be contributing meaningfully to it for many years to come. (See above about investment banking…) In a moment of self-reflection, I would imagine that perhaps I became an engineering student because I sit somewhere in between the hacker culture and the mainstream culture. Art and creativity are exhilarating (I can sit for hours working on CAD drawings of random buildings that pop into my head), but so are logic, technology, and mainstream constructs. The technical details of a microchip and the modeling of a mergers and acquisitions deal are more fascinating to me than science fiction, medievalism, or finding ways to outsmart “the system.” For these reasons, although I do somewhat identify with it, I would not consider myself a part of hacker culture.