Passions of the Internet and the Art of Living

The first part of the paper deals with the hackers' visions that gave rise to the internet as analysed by Pekka Himanen in his book "The Hacker Ethic." According to Himanen, hacker ethic is a passionate ethic of work that is seen as an alternative to predominant Protestant ethic in capitalist societies. Hacker ethic is based on such values as openness, information-sharing, and the passionate desire to create something together in a joyful way. In the second part of the paper I discuss how these passions turned into the opposite as the internet grew up, giving rise to cyber-mythology. Taking some insights from Emmanuel Levinas I suggest a twist of the hacker ethic into a passionate "ethic of the Other." In the third part I deal with information technology from the perspective of the "technologies of the self" (Michel Foucault).