Today I am more than ever frightened. I wish it would dawn upon engineers that, in order to be an engineer, it is not enough to be an engineer. While they are minding their own business history may be pulling away the ground under their feet.
Alertness is what we require. We are not allowed to confine ourselves within our professions, but must live in full view of the entire scene of life, which is always total. The supreme are of living is consummation gained by no single calling an no single science, and many things besides. It is an all-heeding circumspection.
excerpted from “Toward a Philosophy of History” by Jose Ortega y Gasset, 1941