Hello,
I'm struck that transparency as making the inner workings of something apparent is a very old and I thought very common metaphor in various phrases.
For example the phrase "I saw right through him" to indicate you saw through deception and divined someone's true motives and plans. So when you see right through him you actually see him better than when you see him in the normal mode, just as when you understand a political process better when it is transparent.
This goes back to at least 1856 (and presumably far earlier but this was the earliest use I found on google books). Although arguably it suggests that we see right through someone's dissembling, lies etc. rather than through him, but it seems like a natural metaphor.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=OjEZAAAAYAAJ&dq=%22I%20saw%20right%20through%20him%22&pg=PA287#v=onepage&q=%22I%20saw%20right%20through%20him%22&f=false
Looking at some old usages I think the metaphor using the exact word "transparent" to mean "obvious" is pretty old also. So "my patriotic American ears burned with shame as I heard how an American had been gulled by such a simple and transparent operation." The transparency of the operation indicates that it is an obvious scam not a indiscernable one. http://books.google.ca/books?id=5GNEAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22transparent%20operation%22&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q=%22transparent%20operation%22&f=false
Perhaps, the word "clear" provides a case of the metaphor going the other way, since (according to etymological dictionary I checked http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=clear ) it starts by meaning something obvious ("bright"), keeps that meaning, but also means not blocking/encumbering light/vision and so means transparent (a clear day, clear water etc.).
Not sure I can justify it exactly, but I would have said transparency as a metaphor for divining inner workings is the inutive metaphor and that the CS metaphor making it synonymous with invisible or seamless is actually the less intuitive one (although it is still intelligible as a metaphor).
To me transparency connotes something you can see through but that still makes its presence known, the opposite of transparency is opaqueness or obscurity, whereas the opposite of invisibility is simply visibility.
--
Yours Truly,
Allan Olley, PhD
http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/
On Fri, 31 Oct 2014, Andrew Meade McGee wrote:
Image removed by sender.Putting on my hat as someone trained as a political historian: Tom's point on the divergent meaning is an interesting one. I've enjoyed this
thread. As I understand the derivation of transparency in a U.S. political context, the
origins lie with a metaphor centered on doors and windows, open versus closed.
Traditional machine politics -- Tammany Hall, smoke-filled back rooms, handshake
deals out of sight of voters, reporters, etc. -- is obscured to the external
observer by walls. Transparency here is akin to the Progressive-Era notion of a
window permitting light to stream through. What you're making permeable to vision
is the barrier external scrutiny, revealing the innerworkings. In government,
optimal transparency means you're supposed to see the workings as they're in
motion, but you are still outside the structure.
I'd liken Henri Bergson's thirties-era theorization of an "open society" as the
"glass-bottom boat model of democracy." In a truly open society, the citizen can
see all the fishies but doesn't have to get wet.
--AMM
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Andrew Meade McGee
Corcoran Department of History
University of Virginia
PO Box 400180 - Nau Hall
Charlottesville, VA 22904
On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 10:23 AM, Thomas Haigh <thaigh@computer.org> wrote:
It is actually the policy version of “transparency” that prompted me
to remember the quote. (Thanks to all those who responded). Journalism
sociologist/historian Michael Schudson from Columbia University was
visiting our Social Studies of Information group at UWM last week and
speaking on the “Origins of Transparency” which he located in the
1960s/70s developments of the Freedom of Information Act, public
disclosure of EPA impact statements, etc.
However, contrary to Matthew’s point, it seemed to me that the
meanings are actually opposite in the two areas. Something that is
“transparent” in CS is invisible – you look right through it without
seeing it. In the political sense, a “transparent” process is one
where all the details are visible to the public.
It seems to me that the CS sense is a more intuitive use of the
metaphor. Making a political process transparent would literally mean
that you see straight through it to whatever is behind it, but also
that the process itself is invisible. When we talk about making the
workings of government transparent the metaphor somehow seems to have
mutated to mean the opposite.
Tom
From: matthew.battles@gmail.com [mailto:matthew.battles@gmail.com] On
Behalf Of Matthew Battles
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 5:26 AM
To: Nabeel Siddiqui
Cc: James Cortada; thaigh@computer.org; sigcis
Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] Virtuality versus transprency -- trying
to locate a quote about the difference
All this does have me wondering about the internet-and-society field's
interest in, and advocacy for, a certain kind of "transparency" in
civil discourse shares lineage with transparency in the comp-sci
sense, to the effect that transparency (in the sense of openness and
publicness of bureaucratic or deliberative decision-making process) is
a quality that can be produced and modified computationally. There is
an ideological disposition there to see government as a kind of social
UTM upon which different norms, beliefs, and commitments may be run
like so many lines of code...
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Nabeel Siddiqui <nasiddiqui@email.wm.edu>
wrote:
Dear Tom,
I believe this is from an old 1978 poster that IBM released dealing with
virtual memory. It is sometimes attributed to Scott Hammer, who worked at
William and Mary before I got here as a graduate student. Here is him
explaining that this is the first time he saw it:
http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/92q3/seeit.html
Hope that helps.
Sincerely,
Nabeel Siddiqui
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 11:02 AM, James Cortada <jcortada@umn.edu> wrote:
By the way, Mike is alive and well. Mike can you pipe in and confirm. This
is a fabulous insight and expression. It should be quoted frequently!!
Cheers.
On Thu, Oct 30, 2014 at 9:24 AM, David Hemmendinger <hemmendd@union.edu>
wrote:
>I heard it from Mike Williams, when he had his professor of computer
science hat on! Here's how he said it:
>
>If it is there, but you can't see it, it is transparent.
>If it isn't there, but you see it, it is virtual.
>If it is there, and you see it, it is real.
>
>For the purposes of symmetry, what if something is not there and you can't
see it?
If it isn't there and you can't see it, you're ok.
David
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James W. Cortada
Senior Research Fellow
Charles Babbage Institute
University of Minnesota
jcortada@umn.edu
608-274-6382
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matthew battles
associate director, metaLAB (at) harvard
fellow, berkman center for internet and society
twitter = @matthewbattles
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