Implications of a Modular Society
In critique of my blog post last week regarding my almost blind excitement for the potential of Digital History to democratize information, I have come across several articles and books in the field of Critical Code Studies that endeavor to look beyond simply what code does and more deeply at how the structure of code and computing languages have been reinforced by AND have reinforce the socio-cultural milieu since the second half of the 20th century.
I will specifically explore the article by Tara McPherson, “Why are the Digital Humanities so White? Or Thinking the Histories of Race and Computation.” McPherson examines how computer codes, languages, and operating systems created in the post WWII/Cold War Era and parallel to the Civil Rights Movement have developed in response to these social factors. McPherson suggests that languages like C++ and Operating systems such as UNIX may have been organized to further isolate race as well as “cordon off race and contain it.” (Debates in the digital humanities 143)
In essence, McPherson states that “if digital computing underwrites today’s information economy and is the central technology of post-World War II America, these technologized ways of seeing and knowing took shape in a world also struggling with shifting knowledges about and representations of race” (Debates,143)
The 1960s Civil Rights Movement can be seen as an historical event that underwrote more covert forms of racism in the second half of the 20th century. Those who pushed for socio-political change such as women, African Americans, Native Americans, and the LGBT community saw shifts in their status as human beings and as citizens of the United States of America. However, it may also have established a shift towards more covert policies of sexism, racism, and homophobia encoded not only in our computational systems, but also in various other physical manifestations.
Consider the policy of urban renewal and highway construction in the Mid-20th. under the guise of urban revitalization, the United States Government underwrote policies of slum clearance, redlining, and highway construction. In tandem, these policies essentially razed homes in predominantly poor and minority neighborhoods to make room for the construction of highway systems that bisected their communities. Once highway systems were in place, the poor and minorities in search of homes were directed by realtors to a specific side of the highway. The highways became physical barriers that separated blacks from whites and poor from affluent. This spatial modularity is evident in the rise of black ghettoes in the 1970s and 1980s.
Spatial and technological modularity can be understood as such: discrete nodes that do not intersect. Thus, humans, in regards to ghettoization and ideas about humans in regards to the rise of modularity in computing culture, do not interact. Their is a lapse in integration and understanding. McPherson calls this “lenticular logics” an analogy to “the rigid coating on 3-D postcards…a structural device that makes simultaneously viewing of the various images on the card nearly impossible.” (Debates, 144)
Why is this so important? Because modularity does not favor context. How can we understand the problem in regards to computing culture? Computing languages are made up of strands of code that mean something in our culture, it can be related to the Sassurian concept of the signified and the signifier, I.e. humans suggest the meaning for an abstract symbol of something real. Because humans create meaning, racism, sexism, and homophobia have the potential to be written into code. But, even more than that, computing systems are becoming increasingly MORE module for ease of use. Early operating systems like UNIX that are long strands of code encrypted onto software and in some ways more transparent are giving way to web-based applications and cloud computing. Modules are independent of information from other modules, for example apps do not “talk” to other apps. Therefore, the possibility of code embedded with racial or sexist undertones or meaning, has the potential to slip into a module that is discrete and non-contextualized. For someone using the module, like an app, systems of meaning in regards to code are nearly invisible, but that does not mean they are not there.
McPherson suggests that the increasing move towards modularity in computing parallels the rise of modularity in other sections of society including the university. Increasingly, the university system created departments to “accommodate” a more pluralistic point of view in the 1970s. Yet, it is suggested that departments act as silos or nodes, where professors and students of one discipline rarely speak with those of others. professionalism has undermined communication.
As a member of the intradepartmental MGAA, I can say that this is absolutely true. It is very difficult to foster communication even with a common self interest such as workers’ rights. This is equally clear in regards to the lack of Digital courses offered to humanities students. There are programs on UWM campus that have the potential to foster DH; yet, those courses not listed under one’s program and course catalog are all but invisible.
To conclude, DH is not the answer to all of our pedagogical prayers. While, DH and other forms of computation might, in some ways democratize information, it also increasingly erases context in favor of ease and modularity. It is important as historians to be diligent in exploring not only what programs do, but how they work and what their language means so that we do not fall prey to the lenticular lens. Equally, we must extract ourself from module thinking. Professionalism should not challenge open communication and cross-disciplinary work. It is with physical manifestations of modularity like the university system or urban renewal, that the issues with computational language and modularity can be better understood.
