The relationship between Psychoanalysis and Information Technology

In our late capitalist climate, what is the relationship between psychoanalysis and information technology? What each discipline shares in common are the concepts of the unconscious and the source code. What are these concepts and how are these seemingly disparate disciplines deeply implicated with each other?

To begin with psychoanalysis and the unconscious, what is this? Simply and vulgarly, the unconscious is not just the site of an individual’s repressed desires but is also the basis of an individual’s autonomy. In this sense, an individual who is aware of and able to access and understand his or her unconscious desires is in a greater position of autonomy vis-a-vis someone who can’t; the former will always have greater knowledge of how to approach and deal with that that frustrates him or her in their day to day interactions with others.

Likewise, the role of the source code in information technology plays a similar role to that of the unconscious in psychoanalysis. How so? This is primarily because one who knows how to access and understand how to program the source code is an infinitely more able and autonomous user of a, computer, for example, than one who does not. A software program’s source code is a kind of “master key” that allows the programmer to modify the software’s code based on their personal needs. Knowledge of how to program software in this way is thus a vital necessity for any literate IT technician.

But the unconscious and the source code differ in one very important respect. Most software that is sold today categorically FORBIDS modification of its source code. Given the ubiquity of information technology in our late capitalist climate, this is certainly disturbing. In fact, in psychoanalytic terms, this would be the equivalent of one’s family or culture prohibiting the understanding of one unconscious. In other words, prohibition in terms of source code access has the effect of undermining the inherent autonomy of individuals and societies.  A society aware of how its social imagery is produced and functions is an autonomous society. In these kinds of societies therefore, unjust forms of “private property” may thus rightfully be challenged and questioned. By contrast, heteronymous or non-autonomous societies, like ones that prevent discussion about the unconscious or prohibit access to the source code of software, generally tend to conceal how a society’s laws are created and where they come from.

While autonomy may sound warm and fuzzy, my comments here nevertheless appear to be leading to the disturbing conclusion that, if psychoanalysis and information technology have something in common, it must be because human beings are just machines. Quite to the contrary however, I believe to have shown that the opposite is in fact true, namely, that through the imperfections of our machines and societies, we come to understand our finitiude as human beings. If, as many of us do today, we ridicule the bible for its outrageous claims to truth, the day will come when many of us equivalently look upon contemporary technology and its claims to “truth” and “private property” with an equal degree of skepticism. Is it really sustainable to believe that technology can be made private property and rendered “profitable”? This is what psychoanalysis and information technology teach us today; in the long term free, open and equal access can only be denied through short term repressive mechanisms that are never able to fully placate the subject.