Professor Matthew Wisnioski, Virginia Tech STS Program
Presentation in Stanford's Seminar on Science, Technology, and Society (STS)
Engineers, it might be assumed, played no part in the social movements of the 1960s, much less called into question technology's progressive worth. In most theorists' conceptions, engineers were the embodiment of the military-industrial complex: conformist organization men in the system that stood to be torn down. But environmental degradation, the Vietnam War, and a host of socio-technical concerns led reformers to pressure their profession to honor its social responsibilities. At the same time, society officers, college deans, and top management likewise debated the proper uses of the nation's technical labor force, responses to pollution and urban poverty, and professional bonds of service and responsibility. Between 1965 and 1973 an existential rift about the nature of technology and the purposes of engineering opened within the profession, sparked by a combination of changes in the organization, content, and scale of engineering labor, and a vigorous critique of technology from intellectuals, activists, and everyday people. The most significant outcome of this cultural conflict, I will argue, was how, largely in reaction to the alternative futures of reformers and dissidents, engineers adopted a powerful vision of autonomous technological change that continues to influence engineering's visionaries even as they strive to overcome it.