Summary
In Chapter 12
Woodhouse describes the question of engineers as politicians and their work as
a political force around the world. Engineering can be viewed as highly
political under the assumptions that politics is “the struggle for who gets
what, when, and how” (148) and that it “occurs wherever there is authority to
act in ways that have public consequences” (148). In which case, Woodhouse
argues they are simultaneously like legislators, bureaucrats and military
officers. Like legislators engineering practice “establish[es] a framework for
public order that will endure over many generations" (151), and it could
be said the morphing of their innovations within society and the market act as
legislators’ debates and discussions. Like bureaucrats and military officers it
could be said that they are merely hired hands; while they decide the technical
details, like how a mission is carried out, they do not determine the project
itself. Finally Woodhouse argues that in the political world of engineers, the
political allies are those who purchase and implement those innovations, and
those who believe the world was better off without their innovations are their
opponents. He ends saying engineers work as a whole has “contributed to a pace
of innovation that pretty clearly is ill-suited to the relatively slow pace of
human learning and adaptation" (156). He argues that to progress, we must
be ready and willing to learn and adapt what engineers give us, not just shoot
it down or use it as we are told.
Analysis & Synthesis
I came into RPI as
an Architecture major because I wanted a more technical form of art that would
allow me to make social change. Buildings literally shape how people live, but
subconsciously they can change workers’ efficiency, mood, desire to interact with
each other, sense of tiredness, etc. I switched to Design, Innovation, and
Society because my classes were full of technical analyses, legal requirements,
and so on. Design, Innovation and Society more directly approaches the effect
design, technology, innovation have on, well, society. It is most often a dual
degree with Mechanical Engineering. Woodhouse’s commentary on engineers’
political aspect sounds a lot like the DIS curriculum, which leads me to
believe that DIS gives engineers the political, systematic and self awareness
that engineers need to design in a way that is more like the legislators side
of things. DIS allows engineers to design so their innovations are the result
and in response to a conversation with society, rather than with their boss or
project constraints.
The businesses
engineers work for shape daily life by deciding the flow of goods and the
durability of them, environmental quality and damage, quality and availability
of entertainment, of things like food, medicine, and daily household
technologies. Friendships are shaped by media, technology like the internet as
well as video and voice communication, transportation and how much free time
jobs allow for. Romantic relationships have significantly been changed by
modern contraception. It would appear that "production,
communication, construction, transport, and consumption technologies sometimes
are more definitive than law in shaping social life" (150). So what do
engineers get to do?
Well, coalitions
of corporate executives "decide a nation's industrial technology, the
pattern of work organization, location of industry, market structure, resource
allocation" (157). They may decide a town needs a bridge, but I learned
from my experience with architecture that all those technical details really
add up. If it’s a rainbow colored, sleek and modern, heavy exposed steel, solar
generating, it will make a huge impact on how many people use it and how they
use it. Just having a single window in a room drastically changes our
perception and enjoyment of the space. If the pieces are innovative, if a couple gets to have safe sex,
if a brother is able to Skype his sister in the army, if people enjoy using
their mobile phones for things other than phone calls, there will be a drastic
difference in how people experience their world and each other. It is
inevitable. All engineers need is the ability to see this in every detail they
decide on. DIS requires engineers take courses like this one so they see this.
