Customer Reviews

The Existential Pleasures of Engineering (Thomas Dunne Book)

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Florman is a civil engineer. He writes about engineering, society, man's relationship to technology and nature, overpopulating, pollution, and other critical technology-related issues. He writes the best essays about these topics I have ever read. In general, he supports the status quo and he is an optimist, but he is not blind to the shortcomings of technology and dangers like overpopulation and over development. Much of this book is devoted to a gentle rebuttal of the 1960s anti-technology philosophies embraced by Mumford, Reich and Schumacher. Florman presents all points of view. He leans over backward to present opposing points of view accurately, by quoting authors at length.

Florman writes about product safety, industrial standards, risky research and development in unproven technology, job satisfaction, social alienation, recruiting women into engineering, and many other topics. He illuminates the discussion with examples drawn from history, ancient and modern literature, grand opera, Tom Lehrer songs, and rock music. He writes with such wit and clarity you almost feel it is a shame he became a civil engineer instead of an author, or a historian or journalist. Nearly every page has some quotable, piquant paragraphs like these:

"Our contemporary problem is distressingly bvious. We have too many people wanting too many things. This is not caused by technology; it is a consequence of the type of creature that man is. . . ."

"It is common knowledge that millions of underprivileged families want adequate food and housing. What is less commonly remarked is that after they have adequate food and housing they will want to be served at a fine restaurant and to have a weekend cottage by the sea. People want tickets to the Philharmonic and vacation trips abroad . . . The illiterate want to learn how to read. Then they want education, and then more education, and then they want their sons and daughters to become doctors and lawyers. . ." (p. 76)

This is one of the few books I have seen recommended by the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker, Time magazine, and the American Society for Engineering Education.

I recommend Florman's other books, especially "Blaming Technology," which is out of print, unfortunately.

This is a book for new engineers. For a student who is choosing to learn mechanical, civil, aerospace, electrical, software, or another engineering discipline. For the high school student contemplating academic options. For the university student working through courses. For the apprentice engineer working on real problems for the real world for the first time.

For all of these it can be invaluable to know that the engineer is not only defined by the science and math geeks finding something they are good at. That is important. In addition the engineer has a valuable role in society. And the creative and analytical urges that may separate the student from the crowd are fundamental urges of the human. We create. We build. And we take joy from this. It is in the genome - from the baby working over the blocks to The Skunk Works building a U2 or SR-71.

Samuel Florman has written a philosophy text on why engineers do what they do, and feel what they feel. The mature engineers will have fought through any resistence and anti-technology populist imagery. We learn to laugh and reflect on Chaplin caught in the gears, and keep an eye on overwhelming those who the technology should serve. Indeed, the practicing engineers will also have learned to deal with the guilt tossed our way by the league of environmentalists who treat modern technology as a planetary evil.

Those engineers will enjoy this book but probably not be altered by it. As we know from the numbers, fewer and fewer students are entering the engineering professions each year. This is where the book is important. One of the most rewarding and fulfilling professional directions is often considered a social problem through negative "press", reinforced by peer treatment in school. Don't we all learn early that engineers will create something that will destroy us all? And the engineers are unnatural, nerdy types who do not fit normal society.

Witness the Q equivalent in Alias. Quick, name a positive example of an engineer in prime-time television. Has there been one since MacGyver?

Give students this book and allow them to form a more positive impression. Let them read quotes from works that praise engineers and their contributions. Let them learn that the engineer has had a good image through earlier history, reflected in works of art. This book can help the young engineer build some pride and sense of greater purpose, and not feel guilty about enjoying the creative process.

Perhaps this book would not have been written if there had not been a strong anti-technology sweep in American society. (And shared in many others worldwide). In that sense it is an apology for the engineering professions. Yes, sometimes our creations break. And those creations are sometimes critical to society. That does not negate the professions good. And engineers are not ones to dodge responsibility. We build it as best we can for the common good. It breaks, it is our fault, and we will improve and improve again.

Where would we be without the creations in the first place? None of us want the power grid to fail and the lights to go out. But how many want the lights to never go on?

I received The Existential Pleasures of Engineering while in college (first edition, mumble years ago). It boosted my confidence that I was preparing to do important things for society and that I would enjoy the work. That is a good thing for a book to deliver.

I suggest clicking to read the back cover.

Samuel Florman gives himself a significant task: to explain who engineers are, what motivates them, how they derive pleasure in their work, and, most importantly, how their work is connected to the overall progress of civilization and the human race. He succeeds brilliantly, in a work that has deservedly become a classic.

Florman covers a great deal of ground in his book, with a focus on the last 150 years of the engineering profession. He quotes extensively from other works of literature and culture (from Homer to Paul McCartney), and has obviously read widely and thought deeply about his subject matter. He spends a good portion of his book refuting the views of people he calls antitechnologists, whose views were popular among the Sixties counterculture crowd. But ultimately, what Florman accomplishes is to provide a constructive, pragmatic philosophy of the Engineering profession, that allows society to move forward to solve the never-ending set of problems that we face.

As a good work of philosophy (or science) should, Florman's book (originally published more than 30 years ago) provides an intellectual framework for interpreting events of today. Although the views of the "strong" antitechnologists have failed to incite a large-scale revolution of Americans returning to the agrarian villages of yesteryear or the communes of the Sixties, the battle between technophiles and technophobes continues unabated. Florman's book provides insights into the debates over issues such as energy policy, environmentalism, genetically modified foods and drugs, land use policy, globalization, as well as the future direction of the U.S. economy, especially after the technology/Internet boom and bust of the late `90s and early `00s.

Ultimately, Florman would argue that these are not issues of technology; engineers can be directed to build fail-safe nuclear power plants or super-efficient solar energy collectors or both or none. These are decisions to be made by an informed citizenry, their political representatives, and regulated profit-seeking corporations - ultimately, a society that understands technology and risk, and that does not exhibit Luddite antitechnology biases. Meanwhile, I am sure he would be dismayed to see U.S. college engineering enrollments declining, especially among native-born Americans - there are plenty of people in the rest of the world who still value the Engineering profession.

I highly recommend this book to anyone thinking about entering or already in the Engineering profession, to anyone interested in learning more about the profession, and to teachers and those in positions of influence over young people's choice of careers. Ideally it would also be read by politicians and antitechnologists; it would be very interesting to hear how someone would directly refute Florman's arguments.

As an engineer myself -- one with a soft spot for the liberal arts -- I really wanted to like this book. I'd purchased a copy for my father, a mechanical engineer, a few years back, and was curious as to why he still hadn't read it, since it looked like the kind of thing we both might enjoy. Now I know.

It's basically the sort of book that can be summed up in a single paragraph -- a paragraph, in this case, that isn't revealed until around page 150 or so -- and is otherwise crammed with wordy paraphrasings and reiterations of that same paragraph, with dozens of references thrown in for good scholarship. By the time I finally reached that paragraph, I'd pretty much checked out, having plodded for hours through Florman's rants against what he calls "the antitechnologists" (haters of technology, essentially; those broadly opposed to technological progress), apparently having forgotten that his primary audience -- i.e., engineers -- would need little convincing on this particular point.

So in short, I went in looking for an explanation of why engineering is so much fun; I came out (left early, even) having found little more than a long-winded rant against the tree-huggers. Could've been so much more.

This is a book for all engineers (and many scientists) who havbe ever had a crisis of faith in their work. It's a reminder, if one is needed, that engineering is human, humane work, and profoundly fulfilling in itself.

Florman gets off to a slow start, though. The first third of the book is apologetic, acknowledging the many social and environmental ills in which engineers have taken part. "Forgive us," he seems to say, "for not being better than the masters who command our work and the clients who demand it." The next third of the book takes on a shrill tone, an answer to the neo-Luddites of the 1960s and 1970s. Florman spends time answering their anti-technological absurdities and self-important elitism. Only in the last third of the book does Florman make the central point of this book.

Engineers, as a stereotype, seem boring, but perhaps that's becuase we lack so many of the stereotypical failings of other professions - avarice, personal arrogance, or violence. Engineering is no less creative than any of the "creative" arts, and is a profound expression of all that sets us apart from animals. It's part of the tradition of Homer and the Old Testament, where the ability to create was god-given, and the tradition of Chartres, where engineering skill was an offering to God. Florman notes that putting one's skills to the service of human needs is a living expression of the communal sense. I felt that myself when I acquired a breast cancer microarray dataset in the course of my work. It was the realization that those blank case numbers were real women, some now dead, and that I had a duty towards them (or their memories), their futures, and the futures of others. But most of all, Florman reminds us that engineering is fun. It answers personal, social, and even spiritual needs in ways that outsiders may never understand. I assure you, the greatest awareness of the world and its glories comes from direct involvement with it, and an engineer's life is about involvement with the physical world.

Issues have changed since Florman wrote this in 1976; it sometimes answers questions that aren't commonly asked any more. Still, it's the finest statement I know of what there is about engineering that makes a practitioner proud, even happy, to be a part of it.

//wiredweird

This book shows the inherent connection of the science of engineering and the things engineers build with the humanity of their application. This is an incredible book and should be mandatory high school reading. If I had read this book I would have been more likely to go into engineering - and would have been confident that double majoring engineering with a liberal art which would have best served my interests.

The lessons go beyond the profession of engineering. The book could be used in an ethics course for Banking, Medicine, Political Science and any other profession where power corrupts.

Chapter 3 is full of insights on why we always needed strict financial oversight of big business (remember Glass-Steagall Act?). See p. 19-20 for starters: "Although they were men of conscience, they did not assume that the world could be ruled by conscience alone. Civilized men had long recognized that laws and regulations, mutually agreed upon, are the only sound protection for society against the self-interest of each of us. The founding fathers of the Constitution considered this as a given. James Madison asserted that men needed governing because they were not angels. Even Thomas Jefferson, that great believer in popular democracy, said, 'In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down by the claims of the constitution.'"

There are some good ideas in this book, and a large variety of interesting references and historical anecdotes, but ultimately he is repeating himself over and over, and lacks the philosophical heft to properly reach his best conclusions. He should have applied Occam's Razor, in the same way he might have done as an engineer.

May be a more interesting read for a non-engineer, or a passable speed-read skim, or for a reader more enamored with the expansive post-modern style of the "non-fiction adventure" that covers every recycled angle of the same concept.

I read the first edition of _Existential_Pleasures_ shortly after embarking on an engineering career and found the book inspiring. A _tour_de_force_ at the defense of the techies in the face of approbation by the fuzzies. Engineering students are required to take non-technical courses to complete a bachelor's degree. (A benefit to me, since it improved my grade-point average. But I still grouse over the lack of technical requirements for fuzzies. I don't expect English Lit majors to solve eigenvectors or design microwave antennas, but are statics and trigonometry too much to ask?) I could accept the judgment that engineers are boring, but I groused at the notion that we lacked morals because some of us worked in the defense industry or that we weren't out "helping" people in personal interaction as do physicians, attorneys, social workers or school-teachers. Fortunately, Samuel Florman writes the prose that articulates what many engineers are unable to express--the nobility of the engineering profession. (This avoids the debate as to whether engineering is a "profession" rather than a vocation, since engineers rarely work for themselves as independent contractors. Although that is becoming less common even in the medical and legal arts.) Thanks to technical innovation and public works projects, more people live at a higher standard of living than ever before--lifespans have lengthened more due to supplies of water and electrical power to cities than from medical advances, and might be even longer but for litigation follies by lawyers.

Florman, despite a rather communitarian attitude (see earlier reviews), takes to task the utopian anti-technologists who demand a less technologically dependent society -- Luddites a colleague once called neo-neolithicans. Florman identifies the reason for elite resistance to innovative change -- namely fear -- the gnawing apprehension that their control as the enlightened (see Thomas Sowell's book _The_Vision_of_the_Anointed_) may be jeopardized by things they do not understand and whose implications cannot be predicted with confidence (if at all). A hint of this concern was expressed by Oswald Spengler in _Decline_of_the_West_predicting engineers to be the "priests" of the future. But that was before Dilbert.

The second edition is the same as the first, but with the addition of four essays taken from subsequent books _Blaming_Technology_ and _The_Civilized_Engineer_. The chapters from _Blaming_ includes a critique on then-fashionable fetish of "small" (as in village-level self-sufficiency, not nano-technology) and on the recognition that engineering, while a risk averse discipline, learns through failure -- often resulting in tragedy, although the tone seems reminiscent of the film "Shape of Things to Come" which I found both inspiring and alarming. One chapter which touches on the politically correct is the volatile topic of women in engineering. Florman points out that women are a small and glacially growing minority in the technical disciplines, and debate rages over the causes. I believe Florman is at least partially correct, that ambitious women recognize engineering as a politically noninfluential field, and perhaps also envision it as beneath their dignity. (Personally I suspect that the narrower intelligence distribution of women compared to men contributes to the paucity of female participation in engineering, irrespective of whether men and women collectively possess different facilities in spatial perception or verbal expression. Unlike me, Florman has the prudence not to antagonize hypersensitivities and makes no suggestion of this.) One interesting observation Florman makes (which appears consistent with personal observations) is that women who embark on an engineering career are typically mavericks compared to men--perhaps out of necessity in a male-dominated field. Whether any of that changes (whether or not it should), only time will tell.

This is a classic study of technology and it's place in our culture. Florman provides a brilliant way of libertarians, anti-technologists and others to looka t the impact of technology in our society. There are at least five of the best techno-essays every writte, in my humble opinion.

In reading this book, I found quite a bit of agreement between myself and Florman. As a practicing engineer, I have fairly well defined ideas of my role in society, how society values my contributions vice those of others, and the needs for technology in our growing world. When I finished the book, I had a feeling that Florman was preaching to the choir. As an engineer, I was bound to think that my profession was important, and he really didn't have to convice me that our work has helped build society to what it is today. The problem is that I don't think a lot of non-engineering types are inclined to pick up this book and read through it, in much the same way that non-Muslims are not very likely to grab a copy of the Koran and read it.

This problem, I think, is symptomatic of what Florman is really writing about. The Catch 22 of the profession is that the vast majority of people aren't interested in understanding the contributions that engineers make to the world, because if they were interested, chances are they would become engineers. The same holds true for history of science/technology classes at universities, where most of the folks that are in there are trying to learn about the history of their discipline.

If you are not an engineer, reading this book will certainly broaden your understanding of the people who bring you everything in life. If you are an engineer, this book will likely add to your convictions as to why you became one in the first place.