Carrol Cox wrote:
>As a matter of fact back in the '70s Bill Mauldin drew a whole series
>of cartoons in effect blaming consumers for the "gas guzzlers" of the day.
>And of course TV viewers are regularly blamed for the real and
>supposed defects of TV.
yeah, but i don't consider them leftist analyses, let alone nuanced and rigorous analyses.
>And my whole profession is built on the
>assumption that 95% of the human species are defective because they
>don't read the books we tell them to.
well, yeah, i've been saying that over and over again abt my own discipline and *all* social theories. sheesh! if you and i can know this abt our own professions, carrol, then i have faith that others can.
so tying this togetherL
1. they claim to empower people but also claim they "see" or "do" something ordinary people can't or won't see or do. physicians, with the help of the state and wealthy sponsors, managed to make midwives and quacks illegal. what is going on re geeks and the true v poseur geek rhetoric is precisely the same boundary marking: some geeks are like the midwives of over a century ago, while the "script kiddies" are like the quacks. it is all informal now, but the song of Hacker Agonistes will, no doubt, play a part in the development of formalizing, credentializing processes that will mark official boundaries of who doesn't and doesn't belong in a similar way. it will also involve other intraclass struggles, below.
2. they claim to provide something for people that no one else has provided, or special insight into a new technology, or that the older elite roots of the profession provided only to the well-to-do. part of that process was an attack on the established elites, a tearing down of the aristocratic roots of the profession, claiming that they were self-serving and helping only the elite, not all of humanity. (the parallel: the attack on microsoft and closed code)
3. in order to do 2. they had to claim that they weren't self-serving, that their mission was to serve the greater good and that the income/benefits they derived from it were only secondary. (woudn't want to appear too much like BillBuoy!) in that sense, they appeared to be embracing values counter to the utilitarian market oriented ethos of the day.
<<i hear echoes in hacker/geek discourse.... we aren't making that much money, look at gates! look at all the technoentrepreneur poseurs making money hand over fist with their dot.coms and etc!>>
4. they have to strike a balance especially wrt 1. if they do not, their failure is the source for a common lament on this list: 'why can't these fools use a language ordinary people can understand? how can they "help" people if no one but insiders "gets it"?' (the common lament about geek/hacker hostility to the luser, the obfuscating specialized language. i mean come on. UNIX lore about the man anyone? sheesh!)
so, they can't get too obscurantist; but they cannot be too accessible and nor can they be practiced by just anyone because were that the case, then they couldn't command the respect, status and incomes they command.
5. what is going on with geeks/etc is that they are and will continue to be for various reasons under pressure to professionalize and establish formalized gatekeeping methods to demarcate who can and cannot do that work. it isn't going to happen easily because the labor market is too tight right now.
5.a. the phenom of a discourse which tries to identify the "true" geek v. poseur (script kiddie, microsoft IT, IT mgrs, IT entrepreneurs, etc) is--voila!--going to be a significant
factor. professionalizing gatekeeping will occur primarily to establish formal mechanism through which to separate the shit from the pony, as ac said.
5.a. the whole "should you hire a hacker" debate and the demonization of hackers is, i say, going to play a crucial role, particularly as more and more firms start to engage in
e-commerce and security people keeping harping on the theme: the real source of you
threat is "insider jobs". your bosses are going to want seeing some proof that he's got
a "real" hacker and one who follows a formal code of ethics.
5.c. you already have all the major associations associated with computing engaged in decade long debates offer the politics of professionalization, particularly with engineering as a model
6. the concerns about users getting down and dirty with code is about marshalling consumers in the struggle against the powerful forces that stand in the way of the full flourishing of the occupation. if users can just be shown how they need open source code and how they've benefited, and that they can utilize it just like geeks do, then they make good pawns in the war against microsoft. they are also more than that since there is a legitimate claim: people really want to empower users. no doubt. at the same time, the effort to instill the idea that users need to be educated abt their true needs is a process which infantalizes users, as you point out carrol.
>And I believe your whole argument that 'geeks' fit a pattern followed
>by other professions is strengthened by noting that this blaming of
>consumers is a regular part of professional life. The original professionals
>were the clergy -- and who do you suppose they blamed when their
>parishoners went to hell?
heh. well, i think there are some differences here too. because there is something to be said for 1. the social relations of work "on the shop floor" as the labor process theorists tell us and because 2. the nature of the knowledge being monopolized and how it is monopolized is related in important ways.
kelley, (long sig quotes ahead!)
The emergence of professional markets in the competitive phase of capitalism was development in a much more formidable transformation. In structure and ideology, the emerging modern professions foreshadowed much that could be realized in practice only when capitalism entered its corporate phase. Professions are a distinctive feature of industrial capitalism, even though they claim to have more "noble" and pre-modern roots, a claim they use to insist that they are actually countering the dominant values of the day in which all is subverted to the "cash-nexus". And, more often than not, they are not exploiting a pre-given markets for their services, but must organize to *create* them."
from, _The Rise of Professionalism_ Magali Sarfetti Larsen
"Far from indicating the triumph of technocratic meritocracy, the development of professions is only a new variant on the familiar process of stratification through monopolization of opportunities"
"Professions emerge as occupational communities, organized explicitly within the realm of work itself rather than in the sphere of consumption. Its basis is the practice of certain esoteric and easily monopolized skills and the use of procedures that by their very nature work most effectively through secrecy and idealization. The experiences of selling of such services and striving to protect their esoteric quality and ideal image give a common basis for an associational group to form; the interests of the members in recognition and prestige motivate them to institutes strong informal and, eventually, formal controls over insiders and to seek to sanction outsiders'; and their resources--skills, techniques and opportunities for playing on laymen's emotions, wealth, and personal connections that can be translated into political influence--enable them to organize an occupational community with strong controls and DEFENSES."
(hmmmmm)
Many of these techniques by which the professions became organized originally and achieved their status were based on mystification and secrecy regarding their real skills and use of the status rather than their technique per se.
A better explanation of the claims of altruistic deeds of ethics is that they are defenses against the potential distrust of the public and those they claim to serve. An occupation that monopolizes an important skill and reserves the right to judge its successes or failures among the community of accepted others can provoke considerable antipathy among those who depend on it. (hmmmmmmmm!!! sound like the rel. between lusers and geeks or what).
Moreover, even among the most talented, the outcome is never perfect and mistakes are made. In order to protect themselves against the anger of unsatisfied publics, the occupational groups profess strict standards and enforce them against those who bring the entire group into disrepute.. As Zilboorg puts it, it was the public who created the Hippocratic Oath rather than the doctors themselves. " (hmmmmmm.)
( i'd add that the medical profession become quite powerful and pushed midwives out of business way before they had any real scientific knowledge upon which to make the claim that what they did was superior.)
the above quotes from The Credential Society, Randall Collins.