5

Metaphor and the Politics of Subjectivity

Chapters 5-8 of this book explore the origins of three research program s that relied
upon the com puter as m od el, m etaphor, and tool: cybernetics, cognitive psychology,
and artificial intelligence (AI). Accord ing to the received histories of these field s, in
their early d ays they w ere all speculative and theoretical, w ithout m uch practical
im port. Their significance lay m ainly in their perspective on hum an nature: they
pictured m ind s as nested sets of inform ation processors capable of being d uplicated ,
in principle, in a m achine. In this sense, cybernetics, cognitive psychology, and AI can
all be classed as “cognitive” theories.

In contrast, I w ill argue that the cyborg discourse generated by these theories
w as from the outset both profound ly practical and d eeply linked to closed -w orld
d iscourse. It d escribed the relation of ind ivid uals, as system com ponents and as
subjects, to the political structures of the closed w orld . Cognitive theories, like
com puter technology, w ere first created to assist in m echanizing m ilitary tasks
previously perform ed by hum an beings. Com plete automation of m ost of these
activities -- such as aim ing antiaircraft guns or planning air d efense tactics -- w as not
a realistic possibility in the 1940s and 1950s. Instead , com p uters w ould perform part
of a task w hile hum ans, often in intim ate linkage w ith the m achines, d id the rest.
Effective human-machine integration required that people and m achines be
com prehend ed in sim ilar term s, so that hum an -m achine system s could be engineered
to m axim ize the perform ance of both kind s of com ponents. Work on these problem s
d uring and after World War II brought psychologists together w ith m athem aticians,
neurophysiologists, com m unications engineers -- and com p uters.

In the present chapter, I d iscu ss the political significance of com puter

m etaphors in psychological theories. To grasp w hat it m ight mean to speak of a
politics of m etaphor, I explore how m etaphors w ork and how they shape theories.
First, I argue that theories play a critical role in the politics of m od ern culture because
they assist in constituting the subject positions inhabited by ind ivid uals and the
cultural representations of political situations. Second , I claim that m etaphor, as a
m ajor m od e of representation, frequently help s to organize theories of all sorts. I use
Lakoff and Johnson’s conjectures about m etaphors in ord inary language to d escribe
their system atic, w id e-ranging structural effects. Third , I exam ine som e of the
entailm ents of com puter m etaphors in psychology and com pare them w ith the
m etaphors used in other psychological theories.

1
 Psychological theories d escribe su bjects: how they m ake d ecisions, how they
com m unicate, and how they und erstand their relation to objects. In representing
possible su bject positions, they sim ultaneously d escribe one of the tw o faces of
m od ern political ord er, nam ely the ind ivid ual. Cyborg d iscourse links the
psychology of cognitive actors to the social realm of closed -w orld politics: the
institutional and id eological architecture those subjects inhabit.

Politics, Culture, and Representation

Let’s start w ith politics, w hich w e can d efine as the contest am ong social groups for
pow er, recognition, and a satisfaction of interests. The contest is acted out in m any
arenas and w ith varying d egrees of visibility. Institutions of governm ent, such as the
m ilitary and the legislature, are only the m ost obvious and m ost d iscu ssed d om ain.
Organizations and institutions in civil society, such as labor unions, factories, and
universities, constitute another.

But to say that politics is about acquiring pow er and satisfyin g interests is not
enough. What is pow er? Is it an actual force that can be created and exchanged ? Or is
it m erely an analytical concept for nam ing the shifting contingencies that lead to
victories, useful only in retrospect? Why d oes the political recognition of persons
m atter? Is it im portant in itself, or only in conjunction w ith p ow er and m aterial
gains? What is an interest? H ow d o groups com e to recognize collective interests in
the first place, and how d o they d ecid e w hat counts as their satisfaction? Do sim ilar
interests som ehow create coherent, politically m eaningful groups from otherw ise
unconnected ind ivid u als, or d o pre-existing group id entities d eterm ine ind ivid ual
interests? Do group id entities such as gend er, race, and fam ily originate in som e sort
of prim ord ial status, w hile others such as econom ic or social class stem from specific
political cond itions? Or are all group id entities in som e sense outputs of political
system s? These questions, perennial problem s of political theory, begin to open the
space for an interrogation of w hat I w ill term the politics of subjectivity.

To und erstand how pow er is created and em ployed , recognition expressed

and interpreted , and interests fashioned and fulfilled , w e m u st first grasp the
relationship betw een ind ivid ual su bjective d esires and the objective political interests
of groups.1 Most political theories attem pt to explain one of these as a consequence of
the other. Such explanations increase in com plexity along w ith the d egree of
d ifference betw een how people actually act, w hat they actually w a nt, and w hat the

1 N ote that I u se the su bjective/ objective op p osition in the H egelian sense of ind ivid u al w ants and
d esires vs. collective need s and good s, not the p ositivistic sense of im aginar y vs. real or cap rice vs.
certainty.

2
theory assum es they ought to d o and w ant if they are acting rationally and in their
ow n best interests. The sim plest political theories are those based in classical
econom ics, w hich circularly assum es that w hat people get is w hat they really w ant
and vice versa. Utilitarian d octrines stem m ing from the w ork of Jerem y Bentham fit
this m old . For them the problem of d em ocratic politics am ounts to little m ore than
arranging for free, unhind ered voting. Preferences revealed through the vote
constitute the electorate’s straightforw ard jud gm ents about the relative value of the
choices it has been offered , just as preferences revealed through the m arket m ark pre -
existing need s and their valuation.

More sophisticated theories note that politics, like ad vertising, not only
announces the availability of various choices but attem pts to transform the recipients
of its m essages into consum ers w ho w ill be satisfied by choosing am ong the options
they are offered . Dem ocratic elections, for exam ple, prom ote no t only various
cand id ates but also the id ea of voting itself. The exercise of the right to vote becom es
a sim ultaneous experience of d ifference and unity, one’s group id entity vis -à-vis
other social groups and one’s m em bership in a single com m unity of part icipants. It
reconciles electoral losers to their fate by afford ing them recognition. Thus the
electorate com es to know that it has gotten w hat it w anted by learning to want what it
gets. In politics, the vehicle of such transform ation is political theory itself.
Dem ocratic theory, for exam ple, involves the prem ise that m aking the right choice is
less im portant than having the right to choose. In the liberal political trad ition, being
respected as a Kantian chooser m atters m ore than receiving the Bentham ite benefits
of som e m ore stream lined system . As political theorist Robert Meister puts it, “to be
free” w ithin the m odern liberal state “is to be recognized as an ind ivid ual by an
institution that one recognizes as a state.” 2 This requires that w e explicitly experience
our subjectivity in our roles as voters and p articipants in state politics, and that w e
com prehend the state as com prised of our collective subjective choices.

The point here is that theories of politics, in the m od ern w orld , play a d irect
and m ajor role in the construction of political su bjects. Political theory is actually
about the relations of subjects to objects. That is, it d escribes how people d ecid e w hich
things and services they value and how the political system shapes and / or pro vid es
their access to these things and services. More subtly, any political theory can be said
to d escribe how the relations of subjects to each other are m ed iated through their
relations to objects. This insight w as m ost thoroughly articulated by H egel, w ho
argued , as Meister puts it,

2 Robert Meister, Political Identity: Thinking Through M arx (Cam brid ge, MA: Basil Blackw ell, 1990), 43.
Althou gh I have ad ap ted it heavily to m y ow n end s, m y d iscu ssion of p olitical theory here largely
reflects Meister’s im p ortant w ork. Meister’s book cap tu res only a sm all p art of a very large bod y of
thou ght; I learned m ost of w hat I know abou t his id eas in classes, sem inars, and p rivate conversations
at the University of California, Santa Cru z. Any fau lts in the concep ts I d iscu ss here are, of cou rse, m y
ow n.

3
 that others can control us by controlling the external objects w e need and
value. [H egel] also su ggests that our aw areness of m aterial need s has a social
d im ension, even to begin w ith: w e need things partly because they are
recognized as valuable by others as a m eans of social control; the satisfaction
of our need s is in part, therefore, a w ay of gaining recognition from others for
the autonom y of our d esires. For this reason H egel insisted that the relative
value of things is inherently intersubjective: the things w e need w ill d efine the
nature of our d epend ency, autonom y, and pow er in relation to others. 3

At the core of d em ocratic political theory lies a theory of subjectivity as a

lim ited sovereignty, that is, a d om ain in w hich ind ivid uals choose for their ow n
reasons -- or for no reason at all, since the very basis of the theory is that they need
not justify their political choices. At the sam e tim e, political recognition takes place
w ithin an intersubjective field of articulated reasoning: “Freed om of the ind ivid ual . .
. is the d evelopm ent of an id entity through w hich one gains recognition for one’s
choices by learning how to m ake the reasons for them intelligible to others.” 4

Yet this p articular subject position -- subjectivity as lim ited sovereignty and
shared rationality -- is largely a creature of the theory. Und er som e political system s
(and the theories that justify them ) d ifferent people’s choices receive d ifferent
treatm ents, w hile und er others som e ind ividuals d o not m ake political choices at all.
Theory creates political subject positions that ind ivid uals inhabit and that form the
precond itions for the constitution of collective political actors. This analysis points to
the crucial im portance of culture as another political d om ain.

Culture consists of the shared , inform al w orld of language, art, narrative, play,
architecture, visual im agery, im agination, and so on w ithin w hich social,
epistem ological, and ethical realities are constructed for hum an subjects. It also
includ es those theories (of anything w hatever) that becom e part of “com m on sense”
and the artifacts that em bod y these constructions and theories. Culture encom passes
the public m anifestations of subjectivity and the com m unicative practices that d efine
a shared “life-w orld .” While few concepts boast m ore ragged ed ges, the id ea of
“culture” d oes allow us to und erstand representation as an arena of political action.
The “politics of culture” refers to the em bed d ing of stru ctures of pow er and interests
in shared representations: concepts, m ed ia, and conventional structures of thought.

3 Ibid ., 33.
4 Ibid ., 42.

4
 Is culture an arena of true political pow er? Looked at broad ly, the concept of
“pow er” is usually operationalized in term s of coercive physical force (arm ies, police,
w eapons), w ealth (w hich can p urchase influence and tools for action), and the
institutionalized roles of those w ho m ake choices for groups (the presid ent, the
chairm an of the board ). But as Michel Foucault, am ong others, has show n , u nd er a
lens of higher m agnification such d efinitions help very little. As H egel observed of
the em erging d em ocracies of the nineteenth century, in the universe of m od ern
political subjects “w hat is to be authoritative . . . d erives its authority, not at all from
force, only to a sm all extent from habit and custom , really from insight and
argum ent.” 5 Und er d em ocracies, at least, argum entation com plem ents pure force and
arbitrary choice as a basic source of w orld -shaping d ecisions. Rationality itself has
becom e a source of pow er; consensual political system s require agreem ent in thought
as w ell as acqu iescence in behavior. Tw isting the liberalism of H egel’s point in light
of d ecad es of d iscussion of the politics of representation, w e m ust ask how any given
claim comes to count as an insight and from what source argum ents d erive their social
force.6

This problem has been ad d ressed m ost explicitly in the sociology of

know led ge. Recent social stud ies of science have term ed the epistem ological
stand point that assum es a relation betw een pow er and know led ge an “equivalence
postulate.” Barry Barnes and David Bloor, for exam ple, d escribe this position as
follow s:

Our equivalence postulate is that all beliefs are on a par with one another with
respect to the causes of their credibility. It is not that all beliefs are equ ally true or
equally false, but that regard less of truth and falsity the fact of their cred ibility
is to be seen as equally problem atic. . . . Regard less of w hether the sociologist
evaluates a belief as true or rational, or as false and irrational, he m ust search
for the causes of its cred ibility. Is [a belief] enjoined by the authorities of the
society? Is it transm itted by established institutions of socialization or
supported by accepted agencies of social control? Is it bound up w ith patterns
of vested interest? . . . All of these questions . . . should be answ ered w ithout

5 G. W. F. H egel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox (N ew York: Oxford University Press,
1952), 294 (ad d ition to Paragrap h 316).
6 In ad d ition to the variou s w orks cited in chap ter 1, see Jam es Clifford and George E. Marcu s, ed s.,
W riting Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Terry Eagleton, Ideology (N ew York:
Verso, 1991); Donna J. H araw ay, Primate V isions (Lond on: Rou tled ge Kegan Pau l, 1989); Ju lian
H enriqu es et al., Changing the Subject (N ew York: Methu en & Co., 1984); Ed w ard Said , Orientalism
(N ew York: Pantheon, 1978); Zoë Sofou lis, Through the Lumen: Frankenstein and the Optics of Re-
Origination (u np u blished Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Santa Cru z, 1988); and H ayd en White,
The Content of the Form (Baltim ore: Johns H op kins University Press, 1987).

5
 regard to the status of the belief as it is jud ged and evaluated by the
sociologist’s ow n stand ard s.7

Instead of looking for fixed , universal law s of logic guaranteeing the

connection of particular phenom ena to general concepts, sociologists of know led ge
seek the learned , contingent principles of thought actually used by hum an groups
and refuse the tem ptation to jud ge them against rules of their ow n. To investigate
signification and ju stification as social practices, w e have to explain w hy cognitive
approaches d iffer w ithout appealing to the “facts” of the w orld . Barnes and Bloor put
the point eloquently: “the general conclusion is that reality is, after all, a com m on
factor in all the vastly d ifferent cognitive responses that m en prod uce to it. Being a
com m on factor it is not a prom ising cand id ate to field as an explanation of that
variation.” 8 This returns us to the Foucaultian argum ent of chapter 1: pow er is
continuously constructed in very ord inary interactions via the prod uction and
circulation of d iscourse. The “m icropolitics” of pow er can appear in the construction
of “regim es of truth” as w ell as in the exercise of force. The cultural arena of
knowledge is an arena of pow er as w ell. (Pow er, as Foucault argued , is prod uctive as
w ell as repressive.)

To insist on the id ea of a cultural politics is to claim that political interactions --

the m aintenance and the shifting of pow er am ong groups and ind ivid uals -- occur in
the representation of situations as w ell as in the situations them selves. In fact,
representations are generally inseparable from the situations they d escribe, largely
because representation is itself a form of action. 9 The institution of slavery, to take an
obviously political exam ple, d epend ed upon the econom ic d em and for cheap labor
and the m aterial control of w hite m asters over black slaves, exerted through physical
m eans. But it could not have existed w ithout certain sem iotic “m eans” -- that is,
representations -- as w ell, su ch as the roles of slave and m aster, the id eological
justifications offered to explain the suitability of each race to its role, law s governing
the legal institution of slavery, and so on. Or consid er contem porary d ebates about
abortion, w here the “facts” of the situation -- the num ber of fetal brain cells, putative
consciousness or lack thereof, even viability outsid e the w om b -- d o not, and cannot
even in principle, present an unam biguou s picture w ith regard to choices betw een
the com peting claim s of m other and fetus. Even to d iscuss fetal “claim s” is to accept

7 Barry Barnes and David Bloor, “Relativism , Rationalism and the Sociology of Know led ge,” in M.
H ollis and S. Lu kes, ed s., Rationality and Relativism (Cam brid ge: MIT Press, 1982), 23, italics in original.
8 Ibid ., 24.
9 Am ong the m ost sop histicated treatm ents of this them e in science stu d ies m ay be fou nd in Ian
H acking, Representing and Intervening (Cam brid ge: Cam brid ge University Press, 1983), and Peter
Taylor, “Bu ild ing on the Metap hor of Constru ction,” m anu scrip t, Dep t. of Science and Technology
Stu d ies, Cornell University, Ithaca, N Y (1994).

6
one of several plausible m etaphorical representations of the situation. Larger cultural
system s su ch as class, race, and religion (w ith their clashing id eologies of freedom ,
fam ily, and m otherhood ) play crucial roles in how d ifferent groups represent that
situation.

Thus m aterial culture and representation m aintain a reciprocal, not a

reflective, relationship. Representations shap e m aterial culture as w ell as the reverse.
Representation can be a political act, and its political significance increases as a given
representation becom es em bed d ed in ord inary language -- or in scientific d iscourse,
w hich in the m od ern w orld serves as the parad igm of rational “insight and
argum ent.”

The id ea of a politics of culture and representation w ill be useful w hen w e

turn to the historical construction of certain m etaphors for the hum an m ind ,
especially the m etaphor of the m ind as a kind of com p uter. Com puter m etaphors
w ere constructed and elaborated by scientists w orking in relatively unconstrained
laboratory situations. H ere w e w ill find accounts neither of scientists coerced into
prod ucing particular theories, nor of theories that m erely reflect und erlying relations
of prod uction. Instead w e w ill encou nter practices of w hat Donna H araw ay has
called “constrained and contested story-telling.” Such story-telling “grow s from and
enables concrete w ays of life,” in H araw ay’s w ord s; scientific “theories are accounts
of and for specific kind s of lives.” 10 Pow er and know led ge, in French pouvoir/savoir --
being able to d o som ething and know ing how to d o it -- arise together in these
practices and w ays of life.

Metaphor is, of course, one m od e of representation. It is also a key d iscursive

process, one that relates concepts to each other through shared experiences. The
m echanics of metaphor in language is our next point of exploration.

The Pow er of Metaphor

The linguist George Lakoff, w orking w ith the philosopher Mark Johnson, has been
the forem ost recent exponent of the view that language and thought are essentially
structured by m etaphor.11 Lakoff and Johnson’s w ork has show n that, far from being

10 H araw ay, Primate V isions, 8.

11 Mark Johnson, The Body in the M ind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); George Lakoff,
W omen, Fire, and Dangerous Things (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987); George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson, M etaphors W e Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). For other, sim ilar
p ersp ectives, as w ell as critiqu e, see R. P. H oneck and Robert R. H offm an, ed s., Cognition and Figurative

7
a literary or occasional phenom enon, m etaphor is ubiquitous in hum an language.
Furtherm ore, m etaphors form coherent system s that reflect the coherence of certain
aspects of experience. At the sam e tim e, the elaboration of coherent m etaphorical
schem es and the d evelopm ent of correspondences am ong schem es can itself structure
experience. A unique feature of their theory is that it d oes not p icture conceptual
structure as a reflective representation of external reality. Instead , it view s concepts
as essentially structured by hum an life and action, and especially by the hum an bod y
in its interaction w ith the w orld .

Lakoff and Johnson em phasize the w ay in w hich aspects of em bod im ent -- the
physical experience of having a bod y and m oving around in the w orld -- form the
basis for innum erable m etaphors in ord inary language. For example, the m etaphor
H APPY IS UP , SAD IS DOWN appears in expressions like these:

I’m feeling up.

That boosted m y spirits.

My spirits rose.

Thinking about her alw ays gives m e a lift.

I’m feeling down.

I’m depressed.

I fell into a depression.

My spirits sank.12

They suggest a basis for these m etaphors in the physical experience that “drooping
posture typically goes along w ith sad ness and d epression, erect posture w ith a
positive em otional state.” H ow ever, the conclusion is not -- as m ight be assum ed
und er an objectivist p hilosophical schem e -- that physical experience d eterm ines the
m etaphorical expression of m ore abstract term s. Rather, ind ivid ual m etaphors are
frequently chosen because they cohere w ith others to form a larger system .

Language (H illsd ale, N J: Law rence J. Erlbau m , 1980), 393-423, and A. Ortony, ed ., M etaphor and Thought
(N ew York: Cam brid ge University Press, 1979).
12 Lakoff and Johnson, M etaphors W e Live By, 15.

8
 For exam ple, happiness also tend s to correlate physically w ith a sm ile and a
general feeling of expansiveness. This could in principle form the basis for a
m etaphor H APPY IS WIDE; SAD IS N ARROW . And in fact there are m inor
m etaphorical expressions, like “I’m feeling expansive,” that pick out a
d ifferent aspect of happiness than “I’m feeling up” d oes. But the m ajor
m etaphor in our culture is H APPY IS UP ; there is a reason w hy w e speak of the
height of ecstasy rather than the bread th of ecstasy. H APPY IS UP is m axim ally
coherent w ith [other core m etaphors such as] GOOD IS UP , H EALTH Y IS UP , etc.13

Thus, w hile m any m etaphors ultim ately have a physical, experiential basis, just
w hich aspects of experience form core structures of m etaphorical system s is heavily
influenced by other factors, especially culture.

Lakoff and Johnson em phasize that the m etaphorical structuring of concepts is

alw ays only partial. This m eans that w hile m etaphors reveal hid d en aspects of reality
(by provid ing a fram e that highlights them ), they also alw ays hid e other features.
Perhaps the best exam ple com es from the CON DUIT m etaphor, in w hich people
d iscu ss the nature and functioning of language using the com plex m etaphor

IDEAS (OR MEAN IN GS) ARE OBJECTS.

LIN GUISTIC EXPRESSION S ARE CON TAIN ERS.

C OMMUN ICATION IS SEN DIN G .

Language is thus conceived as a cond uit through w hich objects (id eas), packaged in
containers (w ord s and phrases), are transferred from a send er to a receiver. C ON DUIT
m etaphors are extrem ely com m on:

It’s hard to get that idea across to him .

Your reasons came through to us.

It’s d ifficult to put my ideas into words.

Try to pack more thought into fewer words.

13 Ibid .

9
Your words seem hollow.14

As Lakoff and Johnson note, w ithout prom pting m any of these expressions d o
not seem m etaphorical at all. For them , this ind icates the d epth to w hich the CON DUIT
m etaphor fund am entally structures our thinking about language. H ow ever, the
m etaphor has a num ber of “entailm ents,” or m etaphorical and logical consequences,
that w hen exam ined m ore closely reveal what the CON DUIT m etaphor hid es. Most
notably, the characterization of m eanings as objects and w ord s as containers for
m eanings entails that m eanings exist outsid e contexts and beyond the personal
intentions of speakers. This picture of language w orks w ell m uch of the tim e, w hen
m eaning is unam biguous and context d oesn’t m atter. Yet there are m any
circum stances w here context d oes m atter and w here no clear m eaning can be said to
exist apart from the intentions of the speaker w ithin a shared context of use. It w as
the d om inance of exactly this CON DUIT m etaphor that prom pted Lud w ig
Wittgenstein’s repud iation of the logical-atom ist view of language as a picture of
reality and forced him to the conclu sion that m eaning m ust be und erstood as
em bod ied in the use of language -- in a context, for a purpose.

On this theory, certain aspects of hum an experience actually require

m etaphorical structuration. These are d om ains that lack the relatively clear, d efinite,
and read ily shared structures w e encounter in physical experience. While Lakoff and
Johnson hold that physical experience ground s m etaphorical structuration, they d o
not conclud e that physical experience is ther efore m ore basic in som e ontological or
epistem ological sense. Instead , it is sim p ly m ore com m on and convenient to
conceptualize the (less clearly d elineated ) nonphysical in term s of the (more clearly
d elineated ) physical.15 More abstract d om ains of experience such as the m ental and
the em otional, w hich initially acquire structu re from physical-experiential m etaphors,
m ay com e in turn to serve as m etaphors for each other and for physical experience,
though this is less typical.

Im portant evid ence for Lakoff and Johnson’s theory of m etaphor is that m any
m etaphors exist not in isolation, but are elaborated into com plex system s w hose
coherence em erges from the experiential coherence of the source d om ain of the
com parison. For exam ple, the m ajor m etaphor AN ARGUMEN T IS A JOURN EY, expressed
in such phrases as “w e have arrived at a d isturbing conclusion,” relies upon the
com m on hum an experience of taking actual journeys. Other elem ents of the journey
experience (for exam ple, that a journey d efines a pa th, and the path of a journey is a
surface) lead to other w ays of using the m etaphor, such as “w e have covered a lot of
ground in this argum ent,” since the m etaphorical logic entails that TH E PATH OF AN

14 Ibid ., 18.
15 Ibid ., 13.

10
ARGUMEN T IS A SURFACE.16 Furtherm ore, m etaphorical system s frequently interact
w ith each other. Thu s argum ents are also m etaphorically structured in term s of
BUILDIN GS (to buttress an argum ent) and CON TAIN ERS (to have the right id eas in an
argum ent). Elaborations of these m etaphors lead to areas of com patibility (as in the
expression “as w e go along, w e w ill go into these issues in depth,” w hich contains
elem ents of both the JOURN EY m etaphor and the CON TAIN ER m etap hor), as w ell as to
areas of d ifference. For exam ple, it w ould be senseless to speak of “buttressing an
argum ent in depth,” since the aspect of the BUILDIN G m etaphor picked out by
“buttress” and the asp ect of the CON TAIN ER m etaphor picked out by “d eep” d o not
cohere.

Lakoff and Johnson conclud e that m etaphors have tw o crucial consequences

for the und erstand ing and u se of concepts. First, they provid e concepts w ith
necessary system atic structure, in a fully Wittgensteinian sense. Second , all
m etaphors characterize only certain aspects of the concept they delineate. Partially
coherent system s of d ifferent m etaphors for the sam e concept help cover the gaps left
by any given m etaphor, but even a w ell-elaborated system typically obscures som e
aspects of the experience it d escribes.

The ultim ate conclu sion of the Lakoff-Johnson theory of m etaphor is that
experience itself has m etaphorical com ponents.

Som e natural kind s of experience [i.e., d om ains of experience that form a

single gestalt] are partly m etaph orical in nature, since m etaphor plays an
essential role in characterizing the structure of the experience. Argum ent is an
obvious exam ple, since experiencing certain activities of talking and listening
as an argum ent partly requires the structure given to the concept “argum ent”
by the ARGUMEN T IS WAR m etaphor. The experience of tim e is a natural kind of
experience that is und erstood alm ost entirely in m etaphorical term s (via the
spatialization of tim e and the TIME IS A MOVIN G OBJECT and TIME IS MON EY
m etap hors).17

Metaphor, then, is far m ore than a rhetorical d evice. It m ed iates the

relationships am ong language, thought, and experience. The elaboration of
m etaphorical schem es is both a central fu nction and a central m ethod of cultural
exchange, and it is based in action and experience.

16 Ibid ., 59.
17 Ibid ., 90.

11
 For m y purposes here, the m ost significant feature of this theory is w hat it tells
us about the political pow er of m etaphor. All m etaphors are political in the w eak
sense that they focus attention on som e aspects of a situation or experience at the
expense of others. A m etaphor channels thought and creates a coherent schem e of
significance not only by m aking certain features central, but by establishing a set of
connections w ith other m etaphors and openings tow ar d further elaboration. This
m eans that m etaphor is not m erely d escriptive, but also prescriptive. Often, if not
alw ays, our representations of situations contain w ithin them ind ications of
appropriate responses and attitud es.

This, in itself, is intriguin g but trivial, if only because ord inary language is
rid d led w ith m etaphorical constructions. It is im possible to notice every aspect of a
situation at once, and foolish to treat all aspects as equally im portant and equally
interconnected . Metaphor serves the im portant com m unicative purpose of
structuring und erstand ing and guid ing the lim ited resources of hum an attention.
Little of interest can be said about the political aspects of m etaphor in m uch of our
everyd ay language, where our focus shifts frequently (and appropriately) d epend ing
on our purposes and our partners in conversation.

It is not the sheer fact of m etaphorical language, but the larger patterns of
m etaphor in d iscourse that are political in a stronger sense. Som e m etaphors becom e
entrenched so d eeply that they guid e and d irect m any other system s of d escription.
These “m aster tropes” 18 provid e w hat am ount to basic structures for thought and
experience. They m ay also actually provid e constitutive fram ew orks for institutions.
Som e exam ples are TIME IS MON EY and LABOR IS A RESOURCE, root m etaphors in
capitalist econom ic system s but irrelevant, even incom prehensible, in subsistence or
barter econom ies. Another is TH E BODY IS A MACH IN E, a m etaphor crucial to m od ern
Western m ed ical science but altogether absent from m any trad itional m ed ical
system s.

Abstract concepts such as freed om or the m ind d o not have bound aries as
obvious and clearly d efined as concrete, experiential concepts such as bod ily
orientation, containers, fighting, or fever. To a m u ch larger d egree they are literally
constructed by and w ithin our language about them . Since it is so d ifficu lt to talk and
think about them d irectly, and so relatively easy to talk and think about concrete
concepts, m etaphorical constructions d o more than provid e a convenient w ay of
und erstand ing a pre-existent, Platonic w orld of the abstract: they play a key role in
the construction and u se of the concepts them selves. Metaphor is part of the flesh of
thought and culture, not m erely a thin com m unicative skin. Therefore the politics of
culture is, very largely, a politics of m etaphor, and an investigation of m etaphor m ust
play an integral role in the full und erstand ing of any cultural object. The m ind is such
an object, and the com puter is such a m etaphor.

18 I ow e this u sefu l p hrase to H ayd en White.

12
Computers as Metaphors

Com puter m etaphors are neither as pervasive nor as obviously politically resonant as
som e of the others I have d iscussed . Yet the com puter lies at the center of a series of
unusually significant d iscourses about the hum an m ind and about the nature of
certain essentially political problem s. Since World War II, com puter m etaphors have
been central in the reconstruction of certain conceptual bound aries, both w ithin and
outsid e scientific d iscourse, such as those betw een hum ans and m achines,
intelligence and intuition, rationality and em otion.

The m ost fam ous exam ple of the use of com puters as m etaphors is the so -
called Turing test for m achine intelligence d iscussed in chapter 1. In this test, a
hu m an interrogator sits at a term inal connected to tw o entities, one a com puter and
the other a person, in another room . The com puter is programm ed to im itate as
closely as possible ord inary hum an capacities. The interrogator attem pts to d iscover
w hich entity is hum an by com paring their responses to questions, w hich m ay be on
any subject and take any form .

Turing m eant the test to be taken literally, as a criterion for determ ining
w hether a m achine could be counted as intelligent. But historically its m ajor effect
w as to crystallize, in a single im age, a m etaphorical structure that connects m ind s
w ith com puters via tacit assum ptions about both com m u nication and inform ation
processing. Und er the regim e of the test, w ritten natural language m ust be seen as an
ad equate representative of hum an com m u nication. Turing d id not require that the
com puter im itate a hum an voice or m im ic facial expressions, gestures, theatrical
d isplays, laughter, or any of the thousand s of other w ays hum ans com m unicate.
What m ight be called the intelligence of the bod y -- d ance, reflex, perception, the
m anipulation of objects in space as people solve problem s, and so on -- d rops from
view as irrelevant. In the sam e w ay, w hat m ight be called social intelligence -- the
collective construction of hum an realities -- d oes not appear in the picture. Ind eed , it
w as precisely because the bod y and the social w orld signify hum anness d irectly that
Turing proposed the connection via rem ote term inals.

The Turing test m akes the linguistic capacities of the com puter stand for the
entire range of hum an thought and behavior. The content of a com m unication
process is thu s assum ed to be ind epend ent of its form ; in the sam e w ay, the content
of intelligent thought is assum ed ind epend ent of its form . The m anipu lation of
w ritten sym bols by com puter and hum an being becom e processes exactly analogous
to, if not id entical w ith, thought. These postulates represent the basic principle of the

13
Turing m achine, nam ely that any precisely specified problem can in principle b e
solved by a com puter.

The Turing test thus u ses the com puter as a m etaphor not only to d elineate the
nature of intelligence abstracted from any em bod im ent, but also to d escribe us to
ourselves. It provid es a graphic im age w ith w hich to und erstand the m e aning of
hum an com m unication and thought. In the test com puters serve not only as channels
for com m unication and processors of inform ation, but as m etaphors for the structure
of com m unication and the process of inform ation processing. They represent, in a
sense, pure subjectivity, abstracted from the physical, experiential, and cultural
contexts in w hich hu m an relations w ith objects and others ord inarily take place.

Turing conceived his test at a tim e w hen com puters w ere still enorm ous
m achines und erstood and used by only a few élite scientists and m ilitary personnel.
Since then, com puters have becom e far m ore accessible to a w id e range of users. By
now , in fact, m ost of the Am erican m id d le class has probably had som e kind of d irect
experience w ith com puters in school, at w ork, or at hom e. This phenom enon has
provid ed the cond itions und er w hich a m etaphor can evolve into a living elem ent of
language and thought. The computer has becom e, in Sherry Turkle’s em inently
useful p hrase, an “object to think w ith.” 19

The experience of having a “m ind ” -- know led ge, perception, consciousness,

rationality -- is exactly the sort of nonphysical experience w hose ow n structure is too
w eak to support the dem and s m ad e upon it by ord inary language, m uch less by the
m ore rigorous investigations of science. Richard Rorty has argued that Descartes
essentially invented the m od ern concept of “m ind ” by gluing together a list of
heterogeneous elem ents of thought, action, and experience using an analogy to
m athem atics. For Descartes, the experience of certainty found in m athem atical proof
provid ed the core m etaphor by w hich such d iverse phenom ena as perception, w ill,
belief, know led ge, d enial, love, and im agination could be w eld ed together into a
single concept.20 Read ing Rorty’s analysis of Descartes through the lens of Lakoff and
Johnson, w e m ay conjecture that the Cartesian concept of m ind becam e a problem for
philosophy because the m ind -as-m athem atics m etaphor w as too w eakly structured
to bear the burd ens of further elaboration. Attem pts to extend it failed , and the
m etaphorical ed ifice collapsed , piece by piece.

The com puter m etaphor contributes to the und erstand ing of “m ind ” its far
greater concreteness and vastly m ore d etailed structure. For cognitivism , this
m etaphor provid ed a pow erful new fram e through w hich groups of previously
unrelated phenom ena could be view ed as connected , as w ell as a source of

19 Sherry Tu rkle, The Second Self (N ew York: Sim on & Schu ster, 1984), p assim .
20 Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the M irror of N ature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979),
chap ter 1.

14
experim ental d esigns. For the eventual subcu ltures cent ered around com puters, such
as hackers and com pu ter scientists, it offered a unified w ay to grasp life, w ork, and
experience. For the w id er w orld , it eventually cam e to constitute a cultural
background w hose term s -- like those of p sychoanalysis, as Turkle has argued --
increasingly pervad e the self-u nd erstand ing of ord inary people.21

Entailments of Computer M etaphors

As Lakoff and Johnson have show n, one w ay to evoke the full range of a m etaphor’s
cultural potentialities is to explore its entailm ents. What are the entailm ents of the
Turing-test m etaphor TH E MIN D (OR BRAIN ) IS A COMPUTER? The m ost obvious ones are
these:

The brain is hardware.

The brain is a rapid, complex calculating machine.

The brain is m ad e up of digital switches.

The m ind is software.

The m ind is a program or set of programs.

The m ind manipulates symbolic representations.

The m ind is an information machine.

Thinking is computation.

Perception is computation.

Mem ory is looking up stored data.

The function of the m ind and brain is information processing.

21 Tu rkle, The Second Self, 23-24. For a sim ilar, rather frightening view of the p ow er of this effect, see
Fred erick Crew s, “The Myth of Rep ressed Mem ory,” N ew Y ork Review of Books, Vol. XLI, N os. 19 & 20
(1994), 54-59, 51-57.

15
All these claim s have in fact been m ad e, in m ore or less these term s, by cognitivists
over the last four d ecad es. They have achieved such currency that som e of these
id eas, such as the notion that the brain processes inform ation, no longer seem
m etaphorical at all.22

The entailm ents of the COMPUTER m etaphor lead off in a range of d irections,
som e obvious and som e less so. For exam ple, the m etaphor of the m ind as a s et of
program s, or sym bolic instructions that process inp uts and control outputs, provid es
a rich set of analogies that allow us to portray the com plex, hid d en, abstract processes
of thinking and the prod uction of behavior in term s of the relatively sim ple r and
m ore concrete ones involved in com puter program m ing. Like m uch hum an behavior,
m ost com puter program s are not built in or “hard -w ired .” This im p lies that behavior
and thought patterns can be changed , erased , or replaced . Im perfect com puter
program s have “bugs” -- flaw ed instructions that cau se erratic, unw anted results.
H um an behavior and thought, too, can “go hayw ire.” The com puter m etaphor
im plies that w ith d iligence “bugs” can be located and corrected . Program s, especially
sim ple ones, are quite rigid , prescribing patterns of action that are not alw ays right
for the situations that trigger them . Thus to say that som eone “acts like a com puter”
has the negative connotation that s/ he respond s in rigid ly patterned w ays, rather
than flexible, appropriate ones.

The com puter is m ost fam iliar as a calculating m achine and a sym bol
processor. It m anifestly d oes not betray any capacity for em otion or sensitivity to the
em otions of hum an beings. The COMPUTER m etaphor also im plies, then, that em otion
is either irrelevant to the und erstand ing of hum an thought, or that em otion m ight
som ehow be represented as a sym bolic process. The com p uter is a logic m achine.
Thus the COMPUTER m etaphor privileges one m od e of hu m an thou ght at the expense
of other, paralogical or tropological m odalities.23 It points tow ard a red uctive
explanation of the paralogical, the tropological, and the intuitive in term s of a m ore
rigorous, m athem atical or quasi-m athem atical logic. In effect, it returns to the
Cartesian m etaphor of the m ind as a m athem atical engine, but w ith a m assively
elaborated concrete structure that vastly enriches the Cartesian concept.

Other M etaphors for the M ind

22 See chap ter 7. Com p are David E. Leary, ed ., M etaphors in the History of Psychology (N ew York:
Cam brid ge University Press, 1990), esp . Karl H . Pribram , “From m etap hors to m od els: the u se of
analogy in neu rop sychology,” 79-103, and Robert R. H offm an, Ed w ard L. Cochran, and Jam es M.
N ead , “Cognitive m etap hors in exp erim ental p sychology,” 173-229.
23 I borrow these term s from H ayd en White to d escribe how hu m an thou ght and consciou sness are
often stru ctu red in the form of trop es, or figu res of sp eech. See H ayd en White, M etahistory (Baltim ore:
Johns H op kins University Press, 1973), esp ecially the Introd u ction, and Tropics of Discourse (Baltim ore:
Johns H op kins University Press, 1978).

16
Let us com pare the entailm ents of the computer m etaphor w ith som e alternative
m etaphors current in other epochs.

First, consid er the classical anim al-m achine m etaphor, A N IMALS ARE REFLEX
MACH IN ES. If H UMAN S ARE AN IMALS as w ell (a claim that d eeply entangles literal and
m etaphorical connotations), then H UMAN S ARE REFLEX MACH IN ES. This m etaphor
com pares hum ans to the anim als of the parad igm atic behaviorist experim ents, such
as Pavlov’s d ogs, Tolm an’s rats, or B. F. Skinner’s pigeons. The Pavlovian picture
d raw s a parallel betw een the transference of a natural reflex (salivation at the sm ell of
food ) onto an arbitrary stim ulus (the sound of a bell) and the “mental” process of
associating w ord s (“Dinnertim e!”) w ith their m eanings. For Tolm an, the w orld w as a
m aze m uch like that navigated by his rats; cognition involved m apping the m aze.
The Skinnerian picture is sim ilar but places em phasis on cond itioned “operant”
behavior -- sem i-rand om , novel exploratory operations on or in the environm ent
rather than built-in reflexes. Skinner’s rats and pigeons learned to press bars or peck
at d ifferent colors and shapes (operant behavior) in ord er to receive rew ard s;
Tolm an’s rats learned to navigate com plex m azes. For Skinner, mental processes are
essentially rand om operant behaviors (such as babies’ babbling) shaped into
structured responses (such as ad ult language) by the d ifferential rew ard s offered by
the environm ent, includ ing other people.

These m etaphors entailed consequences su ch as the follow ing:

Mental processes are tacit physical behaviors.

Mental processes are controlled by the environment.

Learning is a process of d ifferential reinforcement.

Thoughts are tacit conditioned verbal responses.

The REFLEX MACH IN E m etaphor has certain parallels w ith the COMPUTER m etaphor, but
it lead s in w holly d ifferent d irections. For exam ple, sym bolic activity (such as
language, problem -solving, and perception), physical behavior, and em otional
responses are all on a par und er the REFLEX MACH IN E conception. The m etaphor
d irects attention tow ard the external variables controlling a response rather than
tow ard internal transform ations. It suggests that d eep insights into hum an behavior
can be gained from the stud y of anim als. The REFLEX MACH IN E m etaphor d irects the
experim enter’s focus tow ard how behavior is learned (built up from sim ple

17
com ponents) rather than tow ard the structure of (com plex) established behavior
patterns.24

Second , consid er a metaphor for the m ind d raw n from the very d ifferent
perspective of psychotherapy. Freud found ed his system of psychoanalysis upon the
m etaphor TH E MIN D IS A H YDRAULIC SYSTEM , a sort of com plex, leaky netw ork of
plum bing governed by pressures and flow s. This entails:

Unconscious thoughts burst through or leak into consciousness.

Instincts and em otions exert pressure on the conscious m ind .

Sexual energy builds up and m ust be released.

The H YDRAULIC SYSTEM m etaphor invites us to view em otion and instinct, rather than
rationality or action, as the central features of the m ind . A hydraulic m ind need s
“outlets” for inevitable build ups of pressure. Societies that provid e insufficient or ill -
d esigned ou tlets for their constituents m ay im plod e in d ecad ence, w ar, or internal
violence. Ind ivid uals m ay require extensive therapy to be able to “contain” or
“d ivert” their irrational im pulses. Civilization itself, as Freud saw it, w as a set of
structures for d iverting the forces of sexuality and aggression into creative channels:
“sublim ation.” 25

The REFLEX MACH IN E and H YDRAULIC SYSTEM m etaphors d o not sim ply
contrad ict specific entailm ents of the COMPUTER m etaphor. Rather, each lead s off in a
d ifferent d irection. If TH E MIN D IS A COMPUTER, it m ay be reprogramm ed , w hile if it is
a REFLEX MACH IN E, its responses m ay be m od ified through new cond itioning. While
reprogram m ing and behavior m od ification are d ifferent processes, they have in
com m on the precept of a flexibility of the m ental apparatus and the possibility of
change and learning. In contrast, the H YDRAULIC SYSTEM m od el offers the d iversion of
unchanging instinctual pressures into new channels, rather than w holesale changes
in m ental structure.

The instinctual sources of p sychic energy cannot, on the Freud ian view , be
altered -- only red irected . The analyst provid es one vessel into w hich these flow s m ay
be channeled , and psychoanalysis em phasizes the therapeutic relationship as a

24 See Lau rence D. Sm ith, “Metap hors of know led ge and behavior in the behaviorist trad ition,” in
Leary, M etaphors in the History of Psychology, 239-266.
25 Sigm u nd Freu d , Civilization and its Discontents, trans. Jam es Strachey (N ew York: W. W. N orton,
1961).

18
vehicle for und erstand ing and potential change. The REFLEX MACH IN E m etaphor
concentrates instead on environm ental variables as triggers for behavior, sugges ting
a focus on the social system of rew ard s as the ultim ate “technology of behavior,” in
Skinner’s phrase. Since the notion of operant behavior presum es rand om creativity,
and even reflexes are subject to d eliberate restructuring, the REFLEX MACH IN E
m etap hor lead s to a view of behavior as infinitely flexible. The COMPUTER m etaphor
instead d raw s attention to the internal structure of the m ind and its representational
schem es. It suggests the possibility of “reprogram m ing” the m ind by setting up new
thought patterns or restructuring its “hard w are” w ith d rugs, surgery, or im planted
m icrochips. But it also prom ises to reveal inalterable high -level structures, genetically
program m ed , such as Chom sky’s universal gram m ar.

Thus the d irect entailm ents of d ifferent m etaphors for the m ind point to
rad ically d ifferent sets of questions, ethical positions, and view s of hum an nature.
The kind s of questions scientists should ask, the kind s of m orality appropriate to the
correspond ing concepts of hum an nature, and the sort s of expectations hum an beings
m ight reasonably have of each other und er the three schem es are quite d ifferent
(although not in every respect). As usual, each m etaphor draw s attention to certain
features of the d om ain of the m ental, obscures others, and th rough its elaboration
m ay actually generate new form s of experience.

Subject Positions and Cyborg D iscourse

Theories of m ind are a case of “constrained and contested story -telling” because such
theories are necessarily, and sim ultaneously, representation s or constructions of
possible subject positions. Whether scientific, quasi-scientific, or popular, theories of
m ind concern the relation betw een subject and object: perception, mem ory, d ecision -
m aking, m otor action. They are also about m od alities of inter subjective relations:
language, com m unication, em otion. Just as dem ocratic theory plays a crucial role in
constructing political subjectivity, theories of m ind are central to the construction of
subjectivity m ore generally. Like political theories, theories of mind are largely about how
people recognize and choose among alternatives. The phrase “cyborg d iscourse,”
introd uced in chapter 1, captures the COMPUTER m etaphor’s creative potential for
structuring subjectivity.

In the early 1980s, Sherry Turkle stud ied Boston -area subcultures centered
around com puters. H er w ork d ocum ents, in effect, the progressive elaboration of the
COMPUTER m etaphor am ong child ren learning to program com puters, vid eo game
players, hard w are hackers, university-based softw are hackers, and AI researchers.
Against the backd rop of a virtual explosion of com puters into popular culture

19
(follow ing the introd uction of inexpensive personal com puters), Turkle explored how
com puters provid ed a new m ed iu m for self-u nd erstand ing.

Mark, one of Turkle's interview ees, w as a junior com puter -science m ajor at
MIT. Through his experience w ith com puters and the concepts of com puter science,
he grad ually d eveloped a d etailed and highly sophisticated m od el of his ow n m ind .
Mark’s m od el assum ed that the brain w as a kind of com puter.

“This d oes not m ean that the structure of the brain resem bles the architecture
of any present-d ay com puter system , but the brain can be m od eled using
com ponents em ulated by m od ern d igital parts. At no tim e d oes any part of the
brain function in a w ay that cannot be em ulated in d igital or analog logic,”
[Mark says.] . . . In Mark’s m od el the com putational actors in the brain are
sim ple. Each is a little com puter w ith an even sm aller program, a nd each
“know s only one thou ght.” . . . [A]ll of the processors have the sam e status:
they are “observers” at a long trough. Everything that appears in the trough
can be seen sim ultaneously by all the observers at every point along it. The
trough w ith its observers is a m ultiprocessing com puter system . 26

Mark’s m od el d escribes consciousness as a “passive observer” that sees only

som e of w hat gets “d um ped ” into the trough and that analogizes the processors to
neurons. H e conclud es that consciousness is epiphenom enal and , therefore, that the
notion of free w ill is an illusion. In his w ord s,

You think you’re m aking a d ecision, but are you really? For instance, w hen
you have a creative id ea, w hat happens? All of a sud d en, you th ink of
som ething. Right? Wrong. You d id n’t think of it. It just filtered through -- the
consciousness processor just sits there and w atches this cacophony of other
processors yelling onto the bus and skim s off the top w hat he thinks is the
m ost im portant thing, one thing at a tim e. A creative id ea just m eans that one
of the processors m ad e a link betw een two unassociated things because he
thought they w ere related .27

26 Tu rkle, The Second Self, 286.

27 Qu oted in ibid ., 288.

20
The up shot, Turkle conclud es, is that “creativity, ind ivid ual respo nsibility, free w ill,
and em otion [are] all . . . d issolved ” in Mark’s picture of hum an nature. The
COMPUTER m etaphor p lays an im portant and d irect role in Mark’s self-und erstand ing
and in his ethical system , as w ell as in his m ore speculative thinking abo ut the nature
of the m ind .

Mark und erstand s him self as a Turing m achine, a m echanical m ind stripped of
precisely those qualities Turing’s test w as d esigned to m ake irrelevant to the
und erstand ing of m ind and intelligence. As a political subject, he is a t otally rational
d ecision-m aker. But freed om in the H egelian sense is not a value for him ; he d oes not
require recognition as a Kantian chooser, since he d oes not und erstand his choices as
being up to him . Seeing him self as a system com posed of m any -leveled subsystem s,
Mark is a true cyborg subject. Political unfreed om w ould be an inefficient use of his
“processors,” but it w ould not offend against any sense of inherent w orth.

Mark’s is only one of m any possible versions of the self to d raw upon the
COMPUTER m etaphor. H ow ever, a variety of observers suggest that sim ilar
constructions of selfhood are com m on am ong subcultures centered around
com puters.28 By exploring how su ch subcultures use the COMPUTER m etaphor in
articulating key cultural form ations such as gend er and science, w e can d iscern som e
of the salient patterns in cyborg subjectivity.

In a key insight, Turkle d iscovered tw o very d ifferent approaches am ong

child ren learning to program in the LOGO language at a private school. Those she
nam ed “hard m asters” em ployed a linear style that d epend s on planning, ad vance
conceptualization, and precise technical skills, w hile “soft m asters” relied upon a less
structured system of grad ual evolution, interaction, and intuition. In her w or d s,

H ard m astery is the im position of w ill over the m achine through the
im plem entation of a plan. A program is the instrum ent for prem ed itated
control. Getting the program to w ork is m ore like getting to say one’s piece
than allow ing id eas to em erge in th e give-and -take of conversation. . . . [T]he
goal is alw ays getting the program to realize the plan. Soft m astery is m ore
interactive . . . the mastery of the artist: try this, w ait for a response, try
som ething else, let the overall shape em erge from an interaction w ith the
m ed ium . It is m ore like a conversation than a m onologue. 29

28 In ad d ition to Tu rkle, see (for exam p le) J. David Bolter, Turing' s M an (Chap el H ill, N C: University
of N orth Carolina Press, 1984); Steven Levy, Hackers (N ew York: Anchor Press, 1984); and Josep h
Weizenbau m , Computer Power and Human Reason (San Francisco: W. H . Freem an, 1976).
29 Tu rkle, The Second Self, 104-105.

21
Turkle thus establishes a d ualism at the heart of cyborg subjectivity, a “hard ” self and
a “soft” one. This is an evocative, problem atic, and parad oxical d ichotom y.

“H ard ” and “soft” are exceptionally rich w ord s that cover a variety of
overlapping conceptual field s. “H ard ,” accord ing to the Random House Dictionary,
includ es am ong its fifty-four uses the m eanings not soft; d ifficult; troublesom e;
requiring effort, energy, and persistence; bad ; harsh or severe, unfriend ly; and sternly
realistic, d ispassionate. “Soft” m ay m ean not hard , easily penetrated ; sm ooth and
agreeable to touch; pleasant; gentle, w arm -hearted , com passionate; responsive or
sym pathetic to the feelings of others; sentim ental; not strong, d elicate (the exam ple
given is “H e w as too soft for the Marines”); easy; subm issive. The w ord s also have
obvious sexual connotations.

What is it about being a Marine that requires a sufficient “hard ness” in a m an?
H ow is that kind of hard ness linked to the hard ness of control, planning, and the
“im position of w ill over [a] m achine”? H ow is a gentle, d elicate softness linked to the
id eological role of w om en in w ar, and how d oes it connect to the conversation-like
artistry in the interactive approach of “soft m astery”? For though Turkle provid es
both m ale and fem ale exem plars of each style, she ad m its that boys tend to opt for
the “hard ” approach w hile girls prefer the “soft.” H ow d oes the com pute r becom e a
foil in the politics of su bjectivity?

The “hard ” m aster of com puters is a subject w hose m ajor cognitive structures
are preconceived plans, specific goals, formalism s, and abstractions, w ho has little
use for spontaneity, trial-and -error, unplanned d iscovery, vaguely d efined end s, or
inform ality. This is also Am erican culture’s prevalent im age of scientists, generically
portrayed as d isciplined thinkers w ho d eploy long chains of logical and
m athem atical reasoning to arrive at their subtle, pow erful und erstand ing of nature’s
w ays. Men, too, are supposed ly tough -m ind ed , rational, unsw ayed by em otion --
good w ith m aps and m athem atics -- w hile w om en supposed ly outd o them in m ore
“intuitive” skills such as nursing and child care. Com puters, scientists, and m en are
“hard ” subjects; child ren, nurses, and w om en are “soft” ones.

In practice, of course, the im age is false. Scientists of both sexes, includ ing
com puter scientists, m ay experience their w ork as a visceral, creative, social, and
unpred ictable enterprise. For m any, form al, linear thinking is only a part of a larger
process involving m any kind s of thought and practice. Many w om en are fully
capable of all the “hard ” tasks of science and com puter w ork; equally, m any m en are
not w ithout a certain “softness.”

Regard less of its truth, how ever, the hard/ soft split plays a m ajor id eological
role. It is reinforced by the popular m ed ia and by professional cultural practices such

22
as the highly im personal style of scientific journals and textbooks. 30 It can also be
found red uplicated w ithin science (there are “hard ” sciences like p hysics and “soft”
ones like psychology). Even w ithin d isciplines, there are “hard ” and “soft”
approaches. Contests for legitim acy are staged betw een those w ho d eploy a “hard ”
cognitive approach, using a technical language, m athem atical or logical form alism s, a
technical apparatus (includ ing com puters), and the other trappings of the hard style,
and those w ho rely m ore upon the “soft” resources of nontechnical language, broad
heuristics, and nontechnical m ethod s such as clinical practice. Often,
experim entalism is not the key d istinction; ind eed , part of the role of the hard / soft
m etaphor is to d istinguish w hat counts as an “experim ent” from m ere clinical
observation or interaction.

Com puter scientists have usually enjoyed a m ystique of hard m astery, in this
sense. Com puter w ork is associated w ith vast m ental pow ers, a kind of genius w ith
form alism s akin to that of the m athem atician, and an otherw orld liness connected
w ith the classical pictu re of the scientist. Com puters sym bolize unblinking precision,
calculative pow er, and the ability to synthesize m assive quantities of d ata. At the
sam e tim e they stand for the rigid ities of pure logic and the im personality of
centralized corporations and governm ents. This reputation w as one source of their
authority in the construction of closed -w orld d iscourse.

These sem iotic d im ensions of com puters have m uch to d o w ith how they
function -- w ith w hat their use requires of their users. For the COMPUTER m etaphor is
articulated not only at the level of broad com parisons, but in the d etailed practice of
com puter w ork, w here the m achines have com e to serve as a m ed ium for thought,
like English or d rafting tools. Turkle’s phrase “objects to think w ith” captu res their
triple status as tools, m etaphors, and d om ains of experience -- supports, in the
Foucaultian sense, for cyborg d iscourse.

“Objects to Think With”

One w ay to think w ith a com puter -- in their first three d ecad es, alm ost the only w ay
-- is to learn its “language.” All existing com puter languages consist of a relatively
sm all vocabulary of ad m issible sym bols (from several hund red to a few thousand in
the m ost sophisticated ) and a set of sim ple but pow erful rules for com bining those

30 On the p rofessional p ractices of science, see, e.g., Bru no Latou r and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life
(Lond on: Sage, 1979); Bru no Latou r, Science In A ction (Cam brid ge, MA: H arvard University Press,
1987); Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (N ew H aven: Yale University Press, 1985);
and Violet B. H aas and Carolyn Perru cci, ed s., W omen in Scientific and Engineering Professions (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan, 1984).

23
sym bols to form sequ ential lists of m achine instructions. 31 They are m uch sim pler
and m ore restrictive than any hum an language, especially insofar as hum an language
tolerates -- ind eed , relies upon -- am biguity and im precision.32 In their half-century of
evolution, com puter languages have com e far closer to approxim ating hum an
language in vocabulary and gram m ar. But m istakes that w ould be entirely trivial in
an exchange betw een hum ans, su ch as a m isspelled w ord or m isplaced punctuation
m ark, still routinely cause catastrophic failu res in com puter program s. Attem pts to
get com puters to und erstand unrestricted spoken or w ritten English have been
plagued by precisely this problem . 33 Thu s, if a language is a m ed ium for thought, the
kind of thinking com puter languages facilitate is quite d ifferent from the reasoning
processes of everyd ay life.

Com puter scientist Jonathan Jacky has observed that each com puter language
tend s to encourage a particular program m ing style, as d o subcultures associated w ith
each one. Certain languages seem m ore likely to lead tow ard more organic, “soft”
m ethod s of program ming than “hard er,” m ore structured languages. Thus the Pascal
language w as d eliberately d esigned to prom ote a highly structured , “self-
d ocum enting” approach to program m ing, w hile AI languages su ch as LISP seem to
breed a m urkier, m ore intuitive and interactive approach, w ith unexpected results a
part of the goal.34 This correspond s to com puter program m ers’ stereotypes of each
other -- LISP program m ers as hackers, sloppy but artistic visionaries; Pascal
program m ers as precise but uncreative form alists, self-d escribed “softw are
engineers.” The ongoing invention and sp read of new com puter languages is a
sym ptom of the search not only for convenience of interaction, but for styles of
thinking -- subject p ositions -- congenial to d ifferent kind s of users and their
projects.35

Yet d espite these vivid d ifferences, all com pu ter program s w ork in essentially
the sam e w ay. They m anipulate sym bols accord ing to w ell-d efined , sequentially

31 Program m ing, of cou rse, is not the only w ay to interact w ith a com p u ter; u ser ap p lications p rovid e
sim p ler ap p roaches. Bu t their basic stru ctu re is sim ilar. For the sake of sim p licity I d iscu ss only
p rogram m ing here.
32 See, e.g., Geoffrey K. Pu llu m , “N atu ral Langu age Interfaces and Strategic Com p u ting,” A I & Society,
Vol. 1, N o. 1 (1987), 47-58.
33 See H u bert Dreyfu s, W hat Computers Can’t Do (N ew York: H arp er, 1979); Terry Winograd , Language
as a Cognitive Process (Read ing, MA: Ad d ison -Wesley, 1983); and Terry Winograd and Fernand o Flores,
Understanding Computers and Cognition (N orw ood , N J: Ablex, 1987).
34 Jonathan Jacky, “Softw are Engineers and H ackers: Program m ing and Military Com p u ting,” in Pau l
N . Ed w ard s and Richard Gord on, ed s., Strategic Computing: Defense Research and High Technology
(u np u blished m s., University of California, Santa Cru z, 1986).
35 See Sherry Tu rkle and Seym ou r Pap ert, “Ep istem ological Plu ralism : Styles and Voices w ithin the
Com p u ter Cu ltu re,” Signs, Vol. 16, N o. 1 (1990), 128-157, and Terry Winograd , “Thinking Machines:
Can There Be? Are We?,” in Jam es J. Sheehan and Morton Sonsa, ed s., The Boundaries of Humanity
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).

24
executed rules to achieve som e d esired transform ation of input sym bols into output
sym bols. Rule-oriented , abstract gam es such as checkers or chess also have this
structure. As a result, all computer programming, in any language, is gamelike.36

Many w riters have suggested that “hard ” m od es of thought, such as highly

d eveloped proced ural planning, m athem atical logic, and form al gam ing, seem m ore
fam iliar and friend ly to m ost m en than to m ost w om en. 37 They fit w ell w ith a
culturally d efined “m asculine” conception of know led ge as an objective, achieved
state rather than an ongoing, intersubjective process, and w ith a “m asculine”
m orality built on abstract principles rather than shifting, contextually specific,
em otionally com plex relationships. 38 The sim ilarity of such m od es to m athem atics
id entifies them w ith the Western trad ition of rationality itself, going back to the
ancient Greeks. In this “rationalistic trad ition,” as Winograd and Flores call it,

em phasis is placed up on the form ulation of system atic logical rules t hat can be
used to d raw conclusions. Situations are characterized in term s of id entifiable
objects w ith w ell-d efined properties. General rules that apply to situations in
term s of these objects or properties are developed w hich, w hen logically
applied , generate conclusions about appropriate courses of action. Valid ity is
assessed in term s of internal coherence and consistency, w hile questions
concerning the correspond ence of real-w orld situations w ith form al
representations of objects and properties, and th e acquisition of know led ge
about general rules, are bracketed .39

36 This is one reason p rogram m ing com p u ters to p lay chess becam e a favorite p u zzle of com p u ter
scientists in the early d ays of AI. Ru le-based gam es rem ain a centerp iece of the cu ltu re of com p u ter
science -- as w ell as one of its m ajor p rod u cts -- from chess to vid eo gam es to Du ngeons and Dragons.
Dou glas H ofstad ter’s Pu litzer p rize-w inning Gödel, Escher, Bach (N ew York: Vintage, 1979) reflected
the w id esp read fascination of com p u ter p rofessionals w ith art, literatu re, and m u sic based on
recu rsive and self-referential op erations -- art as a kind of m athem atical gam e. Gödel, Escher, Bach
rem ains to this d ay a kind of Bible for m any you ng hackers.
37 For variou s articu lations of the gend er cod ing of m od es of rationality, see Tu rkle, The Second Self;
Brian Easlea, Fathering the Unthinkable: M asculinity, Scientists, and the N uclear A rms Race (Lond on: Plu to
Press, 1983); Sally H acker, “The Cu ltu re of Engineering: Wom an, Workp lace, and Machine,” W omen' s
Studies International Quarterly, Vol. 4, N o. 3 (1981), 341-353; H araw ay, Primate V isions; Sand ra H ard ing,
The Science Question in Feminism (Ithaca, N Y: Cornell University, 1986).
38 On m en’s and w om en’s m oralities, see Carol Gilligan, In a Different V oice (Cam brid ge: H arvard
University Press, 1982).
39 Terry Winograd , “Com p u ters and Rationality: The Myths and Realities,” in Richard Gord on, ed .,
M icroelectronics in Transition (typ escrip t, University of California, Santa Cru z, 1985), m s. p . 3.

25
 Cognitive “hard ness” -- the id eal of the rationalistic trad ition -- has a very long
history of evaluation as “m asculine,” and has often served as a kind of m aster trope
in the construction of gend er, politics, and science. 40 Com puters em bod y the values
of this trad ition and its intim ate association w ith science. The overw helm ing
perception (if not the reality) is that successfu l program m ing both d em and s and
helps engend er (as it w ere) a “hard ” style of thought. Furtherm ore, the d em and s of
com m ercial efficiency seem ingly preclud e the m ore unstructured style, although they
cannot elim inate it entirely.41

Another kind of link betw een gend er id entity, science, and com p uting has to
d o w ith the em otional structure of com puter w ork. Program m ing can generate a
strong sensation of pow er and control. To those w ho m aster the required skills of
precision, planning, and calculation, the com puter becom es an extrem ely m alleable
d evice. Trem end ously sophisticated kind s of play are possible, as w ell as vast pow ers
to transform , refine, and prod uce inform ation. Control of m yriad com plex system s,
such as m achines, robots, factories, and traffic flow s, becom es possible on a new
scale; all this is “hard ” and pow erful w ork. Mem bers of m any com puter subcultures -
- hackers, netw orking enthusiasts, vid eo gam e ad d icts -- becom e m esm erized by
w hat Turkle calls the com puter’s “hold ing pow er.” 42 The phrase aptly d escribes the
com puter’s ability to fascinate, to com m and a user’s attention for long per iod s, to
involve him or her personally. Many d escribe a kind of blend ing of self and m achine,
an expand ed subjectivity that extend s d eep into the com puter.

What gives the com puter this “hold ing pow er,” and w hat m akes it unique
am ong form al system s, are th e sim ulated w orld s w ithin the m achine: w hat AI
program m ers of the 1970s began to call “m icrow orld s,” 43 nam ing com puter
sim ulations of partial, internally consistent but externally incom plete d om ains. Every
m icrow orld has a unique ontological and epistem ological structure, sim pler than

40 See N ancy H artsock, M oney, Sex, and Power (N ew York: Longm an, 1983); Keller, Reflections on Gender
and Science; and H ard ing, The Science Question in Feminism.
41 Tu rkle qu otes one p rogram m er, the lone w om an on a large team , w hose exp erience of the m achine
tend s tow ard “soft m astery”: “I know that the gu ys I w ork w ith think I am crazy, bu t w e w ill be
w orking on a big p rogram and I’ll have a d ream abou t w hat t he p rogram feels like insid e and
som ehow the d ream w ill help m e throu gh. When I w ork on the system I know that to everybod y else
it looks like I’m d oing w hat everyone else is d oing, bu t I’m d oing that p art w ith only a sm all p art of
m y m ind . The rest of m e is im agining w hat the com p onents feel like. It’s like d oing m y p ottery. . . .
Keep this anonym ou s. I know this sou nd s stu p id ” (116–117). Tu rkle com p ares this to the kind of
“fu sion” exp erience d escribed by the geneticist Barbara McClintock and offered by Evelyn Fox Keller
as an alternative to the “m ascu line” m od e of su bject/ object sep aration in science [Evelyn Fox Keller, A
Feeling for the Organism (San Francisco: W. H . Freem an, 1983)]. The interview ee’s em barrassm ent abou t
her ow n style reflects the rationalistic tend encies of com p u ter cu ltu re.
42 Tu rkle, The Second Self, 14 and p assim .
43 Winograd , Understanding N atural Language.

26
those of the w orld it represents. 44 Com puter program s are thus intellectually useful
and em otionally appealing for the sam e reason: they create w orld s w ithout irrelevant
or unw anted com plexity.

In the m icrow orld , the pow er of the program m er is absolute. Com puterized
m icrow orld s have a special attraction in their d epth, com plexity, and im placable
d em and s for precision. The program m er is om nipotent but not necessarily
om niscient, since highly com plex program s can generate totally unanticipated
results. Com prehend ing even a sim ple program , especially if it contains subtle
“bugs,” m ay require extraord inary expertise and ingenuity. This m akes the
m icrow orld exceptionally interesting as an im aginative d om ain, a m ake-believe
w orld w ith pow ers of its ow n. For m en, to w hom pow er is an icon of id entity and an
ind ex of success, a m icrow orld can becom e a challenging arena for an ad ult quest for
pow er and control.45

H um an relationships can be vague, shifting, irrational, em otional, and d ifficult

to control. With a “hard ” form alized system of know n rules, op erating w ithin the
separate reality of a m icrow orld , one can have com plexity and security at once: the
score can alw ays be calculated ; su d d en changes of em otional origin d o not occur.
Things m ake sense in a w ay hum an intersubjectivity cannot. 46 Turkle notes that in
the cultural environm ent of MIT, com puter science m ajors of the early 1980s w ere
veritable outcasts, the loners and “lusers” (an in -group pun on com puter “users”) in
a culture of loners. Levy and Weizenbaum d escribe hacker culture, from the 1960s to
the present d ay, in sim ilar term s.47 Certainly w om en can be loners and outcasts. But
m ale gend er id entity is based on em otional isolation, from the d em and s for
com petitive achievem ent at others’ expense through the system atic repression of
m eans of em otional release (especially of grief and fear) to the organized violence at
the center of the m asculine gend er role. 48 It seem s likely that m any m en choosing
engineering careers replace m issing hum an intim acy w ith w hat are for them
em pow ering, because fully “rational” and controlled , relationship s w ith com plex
m achines.

What all this m eans is that the experience of the com puter as a second self is
the experience of the closed world of a rule-based game. The second self com puter users
find w ithin the m achine is, in general, a “hard ,” quasi-scientific, m ale self, an

44 See Roger Schank, The Cognitive Computer (Read ing, M A : Ad d ison-Wesley, 1984); Weizenbau m ,
Computer Power and Human Reason; Dreyfu s, W hat Computers Can' t Do.
45 See Tu rkle, The Second Self, esp ecially the chap ter on “H ackers: Loving the Machine for Itself.”
46 Cf. Tu rkle , The Second Self.
47 Levy, Hackers; Weizenbau m , Computer Power and Human Reason.
48 For a nu anced u nd erstand ing of the p lace of isolation in m ale p sychological id entity, see the
collective w ork of the Re-evalu ation Cou nseling Com m u nities, in p articu lar the jou rnal M en, ed .
Chu ck Esser (Seattle: Rational Island Pu blishers).

27
experience of reality in the term s of closed -w orld d iscourse. The d isem bod im ent of
subjects operating insid e the com puter has som etim es opened the possibility of new
articulations of gend er, age, race, and other id entities classically inscribed in the
hum an bod y (as others have argued ). 49 N evertheless, cyborg subjectivity d uring the
Cold War tend ed overw helm ingly to re-inscribe the rationalistic m ale id entity upon
its new electronic surfaces. Thus the cyborg -- as both experience and theory, subject
position and objective d escription -- is a profound ly and inherently political id entity.

In the follow ing chapters I explore the history and political context of cyborg
d iscourse. My ultim ate argum ent w ill be that just as political theory has played a
crucial part in constructing political subjects, cognitive theories and com puting
m achines assisted in constructing the subjects w ho inhabited the electronic
battlefield s of global cold w ar. Interpreting hum an m ind s as inform ation -processing
m achines, cyborg d iscourse created subject positions w ithin a political w orld
enclosed by com puter sim u lation and control. Cyborg d iscourse collaborated w ith
closed -w orld d iscourse on a technical level, generating techniques and theories of
hum an-m achine integration w hile d eveloping the long -term possibility of total
autom ation via artificial intelligence. At the sam e tim e, it collaborated in the creation
of pow erful closed -w orld m etaphors, analyzing the m ind as a closed control system
subject to technical m anipulation. Cyborg d iscourse integrated experience and action
at the level of ind ivid uals w ith the technology and politics of global w ar.

49 See the d iscu ssions of The Terminator and Terminator 2 in chap ters 1 and 10 of this volu m e. Also see
Pau l N . Ed w ard s, “The Arm y and the Microw orld : Com p u ters and the Militarized Politics of Gend er,”
Signs, Vol. 16, N o. 1 (1990), 102-127, and Levy, Hackers. For the op ening of alternatives to a m ascu line
cyborg su bject in the 1980s, see Donna J. H araw ay, “A Manifesto for Cyborgs: Science, Technology,
and Socialist Fem inism in the 1980s,” Socialist Review, Vol. 15, N o. 2 (1985), 65-107, and H araw ay, “The
Prom ises of Monsters,” in Law rence Grossberg, Cary N elson, and Pau la A. Treichler, ed s., Cultural
Studies (N ew York: Rou tled ge and Kegan Pau l, 1992), 295-337.

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