Engineering in Society (1985)

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THE PRESENT ERA: MANAGING CHANGE IN THE INFORMATION AGE 49 sector. Whether true or not, these perceptions contribute to a prevailing belief among engineers (and other professionals as well) that government employment is comparatively unattractive. Because of this image problem, government today has difficulty attracting large numbers of highly qualified engineers. And because of the very real inducements of industry employment, it also has trouble keeping experienced personnel. By and large, there is a unidirectional flow of engineers out of government and into industry—particularly in the federal government/military, and most particularly for those whose work has involved them in state-of-the-art development projects in electronics, computers, and other growing fields. This loss of experience and talent from the government work force is, in one sense, unfortunate; but it may also be beneficial in that certain positive values gained in the service of government are thereby continually being circulated into industry. These values derive from the third way in which engineering in government differs from engineering in the private sector; that is, most engineers in civil service are necessarily more attuned to broad social needs and concerns relating to their work than are their counterparts in industry. In many federal agencies they stand to some extent as intermediaries between economic forces and the greater public good, through regulation of industries, setting of safety and quality standards for industrial products and practices, and enforcement of those standards through testing. At the state and local level they also represent the more specific interests and needs of the people in the jurisdictions they serve for the entire range of government services. As the role of government has expanded, as regulation of private-sector activities has increased, and as general public interest in issues such as the environment, nuclear power, product safety, and government spending has intensified, this aspect of the government engineer's work has become proportionately more demanding. Intensification of Social Issues in Engineering As we have seen, an indirect effect of the changes in scope and scale of engineering activities in the postwar period has been an increase in the awareness and critical scrutiny of these activities by the general public. By the 1970s, changing societal attitudes had given rise to a prevalent mistrust of technology—often referred to as "antitechnology" sentiment (Florman, 1981). This change from the sanguine attitudes of earlier periods has been partly the result of rising educational levels in the population as a whole since World War II, so that there is less awe of the engineer, less willingness to trust engineering implicitly and to 

THE PRESENT ERA: MANAGING CHANGE IN THE INFORMATION AGE 50 accept on faith the value of engineering achievements. After all, the engineer is just another college graduate. Heightened critical awareness is also a function of the greatly expanded capacity of technology for doing harm to individuals, the environment, and society itself. While popular attitudes toward technology in general have become considerably more positive in recent years (Yankelovich, 1984), criticism of particular projects and programs is still often in evidence. Although antitechnology sentiment could be detected in the early part of this century (as in Chaplin's film "Modern Times"), the growth of social concerns regarding engineering activities in the present era can probably be traced from the atomic explosions that ended the war with Japan. Those events, effective as they may have been in ending the war quickly, were an appalling revelation of the power of science and engineering working in tandem. The environmental effects of industrial and auto emissions into air and water became a major issue during the late 1950s and early 1960s, made evident by urban smog and dying rivers, and publicized by books such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Underlying public concerns about technology and the morality of its purveyors increased during the Vietnam War, with its televised scenes of napalmed villages and defoliated jungles. During the same period, Ralph Nader projected questions about the responsibility of manufacturers in the design and production of consumer goods into the public consciousness. Later in the 1970s, Three Mile Island brought latent fears about the safety of nuclear power to the fore, further curbing development of that already struggling industry. Currently, the effect of automation on employment in large manufacturing industries is becoming a major social issue.1 The other side of the antitechnology coin is that with greater public awareness of the power of technology to shape society has come a new set of demands for technology to improve life. There are constantly rising expectations for better performance, reliability, and safety of products. We demand economic growth but expect technology to maintain a clean environment. We look to technology for the means to minimize the danger of war: inspection techniques, warning systems, etc. We want engineers to make us invulnerable—that is, to ensure that we can win any war—and at the same time we require that they provide 1 A lawsuit in the California courts as of the time of writing is a case in point. The suit challenges the right of California state universities to pursue research in automation, on the grounds that public funds are being used to further corporate interests to the detriment of workers—the "public." The suit charges that such activity is in basic conflict with the intent of the Morrill Act. 

THE PRESENT ERA: MANAGING CHANGE IN THE INFORMATION AGE 51 the technical means to prevent war. We expect medical benefits from biotechnology and new or extended energy sources from chemical and petroleum engineers. And, in fact, engineers and the engineering-related industries meet nearly all of these expectations. It is undeniable that without the technological advances made and implemented just since World War II, Americans would not be as well off as they are today. Without all the technology that supports our large population and modern service-oriented economy, the standard of living and the quality of life in the United States would both be lower. People would generally have less mobility, less leisure time, less entertainment, less time for education, less enjoyment, a less reliable food supply, a dirtier environment, and shorter lives. Yet with many technological advances comes a backlash. Effective detergents containing phosphates turn out to produce ''bloom'' on ponds. Cleaned up and lengthened industrial smokestacks turn out to cause acid rain. Engineering is required to solve these problems, too (and, ironically, is held partly to blame for them). What are the implications of these social concerns for the practicing engineer today? Antitechnology tides have ebbed and flowed throughout the twentieth century, but it is likely that engineering and technology will continue to be scrutinized and criticized on the one hand, and, on the other, asked to perform miracles. Engineers will have to learn, at least to some extent, how to operate in a fishbowl. Government engineers have for some time been aware of how intense this pressure can be. The panel suggests, then, that one new requirement may be for engineering education to prepare engineers to conduct their professional activities with a greater awareness of their social responsibilities. They should be trained to view their work in light of anticipated criticism—not just from a technical standpoint, but on a social basis as well. There are obvious problems inherent in this—beginning with the fact that, in industry, individual engineers have rarely had control over whether or not a given line of development is to be pursued. Once a decision has been made, usually the engineer's choices are regrettably well defined: participate or leave. But if more engineers move into corporate management, their influence in such matters will grow. In addition, if the majority of young engineers become sensitized to the social ramifications of their work during the course of their education, their collective viewpoints may come to represent a formidable force within their respective industries. This would indeed be a powerful demonstration of the exercise of professionalism and professional responsibility in the modern engineering context. 

THE PRESENT ERA: MANAGING CHANGE IN THE INFORMATION AGE 52 The engineering profession as a whole has tended to be wary of becoming involved in broad social questions relating to engineering work (see Christiansen, 1984). For one thing, such issues are often highly charged politically and emotionally, and full of ambiguity. As such, they are not very compatible with the rational, pragmatic style of mind that characterizes the engineer. For another thing, such issues tend by their nature to threaten the stability and security of the corporate and commercial world in which most engineers work. But concerns of this kind are increasingly impinging on the professional ethics of engineering. And, as was just pointed out, they may do so increasingly in the future. The panel believes that it is entirely appropriate for engineers and the engineering profession to formulate reasonable views on these matters—in fact, professional responsibility requires it. Armed with the pertinent facts and a broad view of the world around them, engineers should find that they can apply the engineering problem-solving approach effectively even to nonengineering problems. Certainly the professional societies, which have long grappled with ethical questions, can be instrumental in informing engineers and addressing large political and social issues on behalf of the profession. One logical mechanism for accomplishing this could be an umbrella organization like the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES), working in concert with the various professional and technical societies. Whatever the best means to meet it, the need for the profession to acknowledge and respond to social issues will continue to grow stronger.