What are we being educated for?

Part of my dissertation work is about whether or not engineers think any differently about issues of the environment now than they did a century or so ago, and how these changes (or non-changes) affect technological development. But first, I must ask, What fundamentally drives technological development? The answers are not surprising--materialism, industrialism, and profit. Sure, many might say that technology and the role of the engineer is fundamentally for the good of human beings--to decrease mortality, to combat disease, to provide electricity, to supply clean drinking water. Okay...But, how did the profession of engineering come into being?

As David Noble paints beautifully in his book America by Design: Science, Technology and the Rise of Corporate Capitalism, the engineering profession as we know it today stemmed from the rise of modern industrial capitalism, and the need for engineers to fill the matrix of large industrial bureaucracies and corporations. Noble writes:

Modern technology, as the mode of production specific to advanced industrial capitalism, was both a product and a medium of capitalist development. So too, therefore, was the engineer who personified modern technology. In his work he was guided as much by the imperatives that propelled the economic system as by the logic and laws of science. The capitalist, in order to survive, had to accumulate capital at a rate equal to or greater than that of competitors. And since his capital was derived ultimately from the surplus product of human labor, he was compelled to assume complete command over the production process in order to maximize productivity and efficiently extract this product from those who labored for him. It was for this reason that mechanical devices and scientific methods were introduced into the workshop. It was for this reason also that the modern engineer came into being. From the outset, therefore, the engineer was at the service of capital, and, not surprisingly, its law were to him as natural as the laws of science. If some political economists drew a distinction between technology and capitalism, that distinction collapsed in the person of the engineer, and in his work, engineering. (page 28)

Noble points out how engineering curriculum development was guided by the needs of industry and in antagonism to the classical colleges' curricula. I find today that the bulk of engineering education is still focused on the needs of industry, and not that of thinking about when technical solutions to problems are appropriate. In my engineering education, there is very little mention of what it means to be an engineer, and how we must deal with the responsibility and authority that is given to us. And so, I wonder, are we still being educated to serve as fodder for ecologically and humanistically violent corporations? I believe so, and Rebecca believes that corporations thrive on young blood.

But this doesn't necessarily concern engineering. It concerns all of "higher education." And so I ask, What are we being educated for? Are we being educated to be an informed citizenry? A citizenry that can be critical of policies and actions? A citizenry that will speak up when something critical will be said? Or, are we being educated to be consumers, free to speak only when nothing critical has to be said, free to have "jobs" when they are in line with the broader values of government and industry? What do you think your education has meant to you? Has it prepared you to be a leader, to change social norms, to fight injustice, to be peaceable, to be thoughtful, to be caring, to be holistic, to be critical? Or has you education prepared you to be another cog in a vast machine?

A chink in the armor may have been found

The recent Occupy movement has meant more to me than just financial reform. It has exposed to the public the incredible greed of corporations and wealthy individuals, and an inhumane lack of compassion on part of the government and private sector for those that are most vulnerable, those that are caught in the circles and tentacles of poverty and injustice and degraded environments. I hope you see the threads and connections, too. It is hard to deny the omnipresence of corporatism in our lives. Our conversations are mediated through their gizmos, our politicians are influenced by their monies, our food is "produced" in their labs, our life savings are eaten up in instants.

In class one day, Professor Parson, the most brilliant person I have met, was talking about an experience that he has had several times over. He has the in in policy circles; he has the in on meetings in which the head honchos of major corporations, these powerful, rich people, get together and discuss policy issues regarding the environment. After days of discussion, many of them end up hanging their heads in defeat, saying, "We just need to educate the next generation to make better choices."

I am a student (and employee?) at the University of Michigan. Each year, a couple of large student groups and the Career Center in the College of Engineering hold Career Fair--a two-day long event that brings recruiters to campus. You see tons of engineering students, dressed up in business-casual attire, lined up waiting to be told impersonally to apply for any positions "on the company website." You can assume who is doing the recruiting...all the big guns--defense contractors, oil exploration corporations, mining companies.

And so it is particularly defeatist, ironic, and hypocritical of these very rich men and corporations, who (corporations are people, too, right?) have their sway in policy circles, to say that we should leave it to the next generation to solve the myriad of issues that face us. But, it is true that the lifeblood of these large corporations is the young; corporations prey on the young to continue their legacies, to continue to buy their products. The young can be lured by six-figure salaries and quick repayment of their debts. Having been through an undergraduate engineering degree at the University of Michigan, I know that engineers are not made to think about the consequences of engineering. And so, many undergraduates may have never heard about Engineers Without Borders, or the phrase "appropriate technology." Indeed, the government-industry-military-university complex does not train these engineers to be activists. Rather, they train them to be passively engaged in violent and Earth-raping activities.

Furthermore, the way large bureaucracies are set up, there is very little individual blame or responsibility put on engineers. Write Martin and Schinzinger in their book Ethics in Engineering,

Large-scale engineering projects involve fragmentation of work. Each person makes only a small contribution to something much larger. Moreover, the final product is often physically removed from one's immediate workplace, creating the kind of "distancing" that [Stanley] Milgram [who conducted the famous experiments in which he concluded that people are willing to abandon personal accountability when placed under authority] identified as encouraging a lessened sense of personal accountability. (pg. 94)

Such lack of accountability allows young people to easily convince themselves that what they are doing is benign, and allows their moral compasses to be swayed by hierarchy. While talking about corporatism and having dinner with Rebecca the other night, we talked about the chink in the (corporate) armor that Professor Larimore had brought up in August. She said, "Corporations feed on young people. They are always looking for new, young recruits." There are many reasons why, it seems.

It is ultimately clear to me that these corporations must be brought down, or at least their structure--where they are no longer allowed and privileged and encouraged to endure forever--must be restored to "the original definition...as an association granted temporary privileges for the purpose of carrying out some socially useful task, with charters that must be reviewed and renewed periodically by state legislatures," as Scott Russell Sanders writes in his essay, Breaking the Spell of Money, in Orion.

But I really do think Rebecca has found one of the weaker spots of corporatism--the need for new blood.

On the scarcity argument for technology

One of the key arguments in favour of technological "progress" is the notion of scarcity. Over time, the concept of "progress" has become synonymous with technological advancement. Aidan Davision, in his book Technology and the Contested Meanings of Sustainability, says, "...social stability [became] synonymous with dynamic progress, for stability is thought to be founded upon the ability of social activity to overcome external limits." Scarcity is an external limit, one which moved with us everywhere, all throughout time. Humans have continued to have a remarkable tendency to deplete what sustains them, more so than any other creature than I can think of. If we were to look at some of the negative manifestations of our behaviour, we would note overfishing, deforestation, soil erosion, nutrient depletion in soil, water table decline, and so on. What this favours is then a new look at the technologies that allow us to deplete and overextract, and we of course find out that there are "better" ways to deplete and extract, such that we can get the same amount out for less input. Davison writes, "...fear of scarcity becomes fuel for progress. Scarcity is the goad that stimulates the productive fervor necessary to prevent technological society from collapsing on itself."

Biofuel research is a great example in which the notion of scarcity is fueling technological advancement, without a deeper understanding of social and behavioural dimensions to the problems facing us. Biofuels are being investigated as alternatives for traditional fossil fuels in combustion applications, the reasons for doing so differ depending on who you talk to. One of the reasons is that biofuels may have the ability to have "net-zero" carbon dioxide emissions, that is, the carbon dioxide emissions that occur through burning the fuels will then be reabsorbed by those very plants, that will then be converted back into fuel, and so on. Yet what seems to me equally, if not more, fundamental drivers of biofuel research are 1) an inability to move away from technological systems already in place (cars, planes, etc.) and 2) the drive to overcome external limits, in this case, limited fossil fuel stocks. This second point leads to all sorts of national security arguments, which I talked about in a previous War and the Environment post. In fact, much of the work being done in biofuel research is being done by the Air Force and Department of Defense.

But as has been explored by myself and Dr. Jack Edelstein, Jevon's Paradox continues to rear its head in all technological applications. Now while there is nothing wrong with efficiency (shout out to Matthew L.=)), in many cases, we actually end up doing more harm trying to move away from scarcity by making something else more scarce, particularly because many engineering designs are not modular, and therefore not conducive to modification or reuse. With biofuels, while being a step away from fossil fuels, there have been increased tendencies to cut down trees to plant biofuel crops. We therefore deplete and make scarce trees, and consequently the ecology supported by those trees, let alone affect indigineous peoples and their homes.

I believe that something powerful that each and every one of us can do is consider more thoughtfully the impacts of our choices, because in today's world, many of our choices are technologically driven. Scarcity arguments will continue to be used to research and invest in ever more diverse, new technologies based off of extraction. Yet we continue to deplete and degrade with our quest for such technologies. It is important to realise that each one of us lends our patronage to this system if we choose to participate. Now while not participating in these systems may be difficult, as I wrote about yesterday, it is entirely feasible to limit our impacts and to continue to have discussions that will hopefully make those around you understand these points of view.

Engineering and sustainability ethics

One thing that I hope has become clear from this blog is that our decisions and choices have impacts far greater in scale, in space and time, than we think they do. This is of course quite obvious given global issues like climate change and biodiversity loss, but I have tried to link these global issues to our individual actions. With the added physicality of trash, which serves solely as a lens, I am hoping that people are encouraged to take actions themselves, not only for themselves, but for their neighbourhoods, their communities, their regions, our world.

To elaborate just a little bit more, with trash, for example (again, as a lens), much goes into making what we throw away (greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, mountaintop removal, fracking, processing), and then the trash itself is transported to places where those least (and not) capable of defending themselves - poor people, future generations, nature, etc. - are disrespected and treated unjustly (landfills, incinerators, their cities, etc.).This of course, calls for a new ethic, an ethic of a wider spatial and temporal scope, as Hans Jonas argues in The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for the Technological Age.

As an engineer, I am wholly aware that the engineering profession is complicit in this degradation of nature. We build bridges, missiles, cars, buildings, planes and nanoparticles, all of which have significant negative impacts on nature, regardless of whether they "serve the public" or not. The position of engineering in the society is an interesting and complicated one. As P. Aarne Vesilind and Alastair S. Gunn have written about in Engineering, Ethics, and the Environment, the public's perception of engineering is much different than engineer's perceptions of engineering. Engineers look at the net benefits of their actions, diminishing the importance of harm to the individual. Engineers tend to be utilitarians. That is the reason why cost-benefit analyses are frequently used in making engineering decisions. Yet engineers end up building things that do affect individual lives negatively. Engineers also tend to ignore or dismiss considerations that are unquantifiable. Engineers are positivists. Yet the objects that engineers build interact with people and groups of people. They consequently interact with minds and collections of minds, the emotions of which are unquantifiable. These interactions also might occur over long periods of time - bridges are built to last several decades.

As an aerospace engineer studying biofuels and air pollution, these thoughts are constantly on my mind. Therefore, part of my doctoral work will focus on sustainability ethics and decision-making using biofuels in aviation as a case study. While I am interested in why we choose to have technological solutions to social problems, I will specifically focus on how different ethical frameworks guide and change decision-making. And here is where I need your help. My advisors, Professor Wooldridge and Professor Princen, are interested in having this work open-source, easily relatable, easily understandable, and directed toward both younger and older audiences. Ideas of having this be a part of my blog, of being a magazine piece, of being an editorial piece, of being a Wikipedia page, etc. have been thrown around. What do you think would be an interesting and modular venue for this work? What do you think are important questions to be addressed? Please send me your thoughts. I really appreciate it.

The engineering of modification

I apologise again for not having posted yesterday - class is leaving little time to write.

I want to add on to previous posts on objects and materials (here, here, here, here, here). In my last post, I wrote about the modification of engineering. One thing that current design, engineering and building education don't really address is what can be called modularity. We think of objects as single use, and they are built for single purposes. Vast amounts of energy and materials are invested in such objects, and significant ecological harm comes from the manufacturing. When one thing becomes "obsolete," (here, too) there is very little chance that the same components will be reused to make another object. Now, I have written many times that the most significant steps towards decreased ecological harm will come through behavioural and ethical changes, not newer objects. Yet, I understand that we have created objects and structures that surround our lives, and become part of them; I can appreciate that. Modularity, or adaptability is a better word, may help us design objects to be taken apart easily, put back together in a different manner, and still provide the change that is needed. Several issues arise from this, that I will address.

If we do create objects and spaces, how might they be modular? One interesting idea I came across the other day was at the art opening of Andy Kem (who we found out about on a random trip to Russell Industrial - a space for artists and craftspeople). His designs feature interlocking pieces, not pieces that are solidly put together. This means that you can take them apart easily, and put them back together, without tools. Here's an example of a rocking chair.

Now, of course, many things we have, like furniture, are built in this way. But many things are not, including the spaces we inhabit. Laura Smith mentioned how interior design is additive. In design, most time designs are not meant to be taken apart to conform to changing wants/needs. Therefore, we need to make things from virgin materials. But I wonder if we built simple, basic things in a modular way, whether we would be happy with what those objects can provide. For example, if we have an object that is placed one way, would we be able to change our perspective and bring some freshness to it by placing it another way? Maybe just tipped over? I know I might be sounding like some artist here, which I am not, and I am not compelled to always be surrounded by new objects, but many people are.

One issue that may arise in this is that it is difficult to design something for a purpose if we can't envision what that purpose may be. This I have addressed in some posts about limits of the human mind. But I do think that given all the physical things we have, we must conform our wants to fit the limitations and capabilities of these objects.

Ecological degradation stems from the way in which we physically modify the environment, violently extracting materials and killing trees, driven by ideologies and ethics that dictate such behaviour. But in the end, we are making the choices to physically modify the environment in destructive ways. If we just thought of such destruction, and didn't act on the thoughts, much of nature would still be intact.

The modification of engineering

As an engineer, we are taught to "solve problems." These problems are generally created by 1) a perceived lack of functioning of a system ("build another road so traffic can be mitigated"), 2) the never-ending quest for improved efficiency, 3) a social myopia that leads to the creation of objects that just don't fit context and are thus destructive (many examples of this are evident in health care). Yet in the end, what engineers do is create objects - objects that try to defy gravity, objects that span nature, objects that destructively use nature, and objects that have serious social and cultural implications (just like the bridge that is being proposed here in Detroit that I have written about in these past few days).

There are a couple of key issues that go almost completely unaddressed in the traditional engineering curriculum - 1) problem definition and 2) the implications of the approach used to solve the problem. Generally, when working for a big company, the orders for what to do come from above. It is the young engineer's job to obey and work on the given problem, many times without context. Indeed, the definition of what the problem really is is generally narrow and focused, and much of the writings on this blog have been about this reductionism. 

In the general engineering curriculum (you can see the University of Michigan's undergraduate aerospace engineering curriculum here), you can see that there is little if any thought about the implications of engineering, and the responsibility that comes with being given the power of such knowledge. In my time at the University, not a mention has been made of the ways in which knowledge can be or should be used. Without an understanding and thoughtfulness of what it means to create and modify, young engineers can be swayed easily into creating destructive objects - people are involved in the creation of toxic chemicals for warfare and polluting industrial processes. Furthermore, many engineers are given very little skills in seeing what they can do with what we have invested in already. The work environment always pushes towards the use of the new and the untouched, which results in destructive extraction from nature. 

Now while some work is being done to address these issues at the University, it is my experience that engineering is a very conservative field. Students are not taught to be critical readers or radical thinkers. If we are to move toward a more sustainable future, several things will need to be done. Engineers must be taught to see underlying themes to the issues facing us, rather than superficially addressing problems arising far downstream from the source. Ethical considerations must move beyond just the professional - issues of justice must be considered. Engineers should design and build only in the situations that necessitate them and should design and build by thinking of how what they are building may be disassembled easily and reassembled to meet any future needs - this might be called "the engineering of modification."