In Balnibarbi, Swift discredits the kind of intelligence that is interested in the way things work without considering the ends to be attained. Here (and later) he stigmatizes the amoral engineer. All the projects that Gulliver describes are parodies of undertakings seriously advanced by English scientists. To illustrate the sterility of the engineering mentality, Swift has each experimenter reversing a natural process. Swift then illustrates the relationship between the engineering intellect (that reverses natural processes) and politics. Munodi, for instance, was a good civil servant who did his job well. He incurred national disgrace, however, when he failed to beat time well during a concert. His crime: He offended an abstraction — music.
Of all the Balnibarbians, Munodi alone is obedient to natural processes. In caring for his estate, he respects and follows the precepts of his ancestors; as a result, his estate flourishes. Those who listen to the "projectors" and the scientific experimentalists cause their land to become barren and desolate.
