Martial Arts and the Hacker Ethos of the Body

Whether present in our conscious awareness or not, there are certain archetypes that capture the our imagination. The dynamic has been remarked at at least as far back as Carl Jung, and elaborated upon by Joseph Campbell. These pioneers were most interested in deep-seated cross-cultural archetypes like the hero, the wise old woman, and countless others.

However, just as each culture has specific trappings that are idiomatic to the people who practice it, there are localized archetypes that possess especial resonance to those of a certain time and place. Ironically, the blossoming of a global contemporary culture has propelled universal archetypes into conscious awareness in a way Jung and Campbell could scarcely have foreseen.

Two new archetypes—new when measured against the breadth of the human species—which enjoy cachet in today’s Western-inflected global culture are the “martial artist” and the “hacker”. These seem distinct and, of course, they are. Archetypes are objects of essence, that which is reflected in different sides of different things. But yet they also bear their own fundamental similarities.

How are they similar while simultaneously distinguishing themselves as archetypes? This is because their contexts are totally separate. With respect to the martial artist and the hacker, the former operates in the physical world, the latter in the virtual. This, to me, is their only complete disjoint.

By no means am I the first to remark upon this. However, my remarks are original: I did not consult other perspectives in this essay, but drew from my own contemplation. As one with particular familiarity with both of these disciplines, I’m also confident that here I contribute something new.

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Hacking and martial arts not merely related, but have blended in notable works. The cyberpunk genre is fertile ground for intertwining the two disciplines. As in the martial arts film genre, hackers in cyberpunk are among the select few with the power to break the shackles of a merciless and oppressive order. The masters of the genre clearly detected the parallels, as their hackers make homages to their martial arts forebears.

• In William Gibson’s iconic character Molly Millions is described as a “street samurai”. True to the moniker, she is is undaunted by melee combat, razor blades literally ever in hand (as they are embedded in her fingers).
• Snow Crash expounds on the samurai imagery, with Neal Stephenson giving us a protagonist wielding an authentic historical katana, a weapon which requires incredible finesses to use adeptly.
• And of course, what treatment of cyberpunk action would be complete without Neo’s “I know kung fu” epiphany in The Matrix?

For Western audiences, especially in the pre-2000s, East Asian martial arts evoke the same mystique as hacking. The allusion was only too perfect for these cyberpunk trailblazers to resist.

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So what exactly was the connection that the cyberpunk greats saws? The link lies in the apparently supernatural ability to compromise complex systems by studied understanding of, and exacting practice manipulating, those systems.

Martial arts “hacks” human body mechanics the way that hackers “hack” computers. Martial practitioners unlock the full potential of the human body through precision coordination of the body’s muscular and energetic systems. Then they apply this painstakingly aligned motor execution to carefully selected vulnerabilities in human physiology. The same pattern characterizes hacking. Hackers absorb the esoterica of computer architecture, then access the most fundamental level of computer functionality by exploiting exact sequences of the countless running processes.

Traditionally, both these artforms are also transmitted from veterans to neophytes directly. Techniques are passed down by oral tradition, from one generation to the next. In both hacking and martial arts, this is in part because some techniques are closely guarded secrets belonging to a specific lineage. To let these methods escape the confines of the initiated would forfeit their school’s advantage, and take the luster out of their respective calling cards.

In fact, secrecy is a common feature of martial arts schools and hacking collectives. As with innumerable hacker cohorts, several styles of Chinese martial arts organize in secret societies that were, shall we say, “skeptical” of the state and its agents. Indeed, there are Kung Fu lineages that pass directly through criminal organizations. To mitigate the risk of exposure, they only admitted members who swore solemn oaths. Of course, much hacking is still criminal enterprise. But even as hacking has become more tolerated in the mainstream, going by such euphemistic appellations as “penetration testing”, hackers still organize in semi-underground associations like local DEFCON chapters.

Hacking and martial arts are also adversarial and meritocratic. The history of duels between martial artists is as old as the martial practice itself. In much the same way, hackers pit themselves against one another to prove their skills. “Capture the Flag” competitions are now commonplace at hacker conventions.

Finally, hacking and martial arts both fascinate the uninitiated for the apparently superhuman feats they enable. Martial arts resounds in cultural consciousness many decades after Bruce Lee introduced it to the West. Legendary feats like Bruce Lee’s one-inch punch cast ripples into the popular imagination that are still being felt today. Hackers, too, are revered, and feared, for their ability to seemingly materialize within any digital system and seize control. And as the world becomes more networked, their capabilities only grow—whereas the hackers of yore could only steal information, now they can manipulate markets, sabotage industrial equipment, control cars, and much more.

Underpinning all of this is an immense volume of hard work. In a quite literal sense, hacking is a form of Kung Fu, as the Chinese translates as “hard work over time” to the ends of acquiring skill. They are both proficiencies that cannot be assumed, bought, bartered for, or stolen. This, above all, is the basis of their respect: any worthy accomplishment is only hard-won.