I can only hope that you'll understand

Current Mood: esoteric
Current Music: "China Girl" by David Bowie

February 21st to February 28th is National Engineers Week.

Don't hesitate to show your favorite engineer just how much you care! Engineers need friendship and love just like everybody else. Remember, engineers are like the world's duct tape- we keep everything together.

In honor of this very special week, I present to you a selection of quotes from Samuel C. Floorman's book, The Civilized Engineer, an in-depth look at the nature of engineers and their roles in society past and present (as well as an insightful look at the future):

qualities and values
"As for honesty, conscience, and good citizenship, I believe that engineers stand up extremely well when compared with other groups, particularly groups such as lawyers and business executives, who have had the benefit of a traditional liberal arts education."

"Engineers have respect for learning infused with hard work and technical ingenuity."

"Most engineers tend to be pragmatists rather than idealogues. Ideology, after all, does not cure diseases or provide food and shelter."

views on the liberal arts
"Is not an engineering problem as complex, intellectual, creative, and existentially fufilling as a sonnet or a philosophical theorem?"

"The non-engineering faculty are often viewed as second-class citizens, and their offerings are thus tainted."

"Disdain for the liberal arts has become endemic in the engineering community, and the carriers of this disease are too often found among engineering academics."

American engineers
"And in the United States most engineers have come from the middle and lower middle classes. Engineers are not snobs. We may sometimes be dull, but we are hardly ever snobbish. Speaking of dull, there can be no doubt that the engineering view is essentially serious. Engineering work involves logic and precision. Unfortunately, this can lead to coldness and austerity."

"It has been said that doctors bury their mistakes and architects plant ivy. Most experts have a way of avoiding blame by claiming that their ideas were not given a fair trial. Economists are famous for this ploy. Politicians, as it is well known, never make a mistake. Engineers have no such evasions. Well, so be it. Somebody has to step forward to do what needs doing. We can't all sit around being critics, supervisors, and second-guessers. Thus a principal feature of the engineering view becomes the willingness to accept responsibility."