Social engineering is a top-down effort to influence particular
attitude
Attitude may refer to:
Philosophy and psychology
* Attitude (psychology), an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value
* Metaphysics of presence
* Propositional attitude, a relational mental state connecting a person to a propo ...
s and social behaviors on a large scale—most often undertaken by
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government i ...
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
or private groups—in order to produce desired characteristics in a target population. Social engineering can also be understood philosophically as a deterministic phenomenon where the intentions and goals of the architects of the new
social construct
Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
are realized. Some social engineers use the
scientific method
The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientifi ...
to analyze and understand social systems in order to design the appropriate methods to achieve the desired results in the human subjects.
Overview
Decision-making can affect the safety and survival of billions of people. The scientific theory expressed by German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his 1905 study ''The Present Problems of Social Structure'', proposes that society can no longer operate successfully using outmoded methods of social management. To achieve the best outcomes, all conclusions and decisions must use the most advanced techniques and include reliable statistical data, which can be applied to a social system.
History
The Dutch industrialist J.C. Van Marken ( nl) introduced the term ''sociale ingenieurs'' ("social engineers") in an essay in 1894. The idea was that modern employers needed the assistance of specialists in handling the ''human'' challenges, just as they needed technical expertise (traditional engineers) to deal with non-human challenges (materials, machines, processes). The term came to America in 1899, when the notion of "social engineering" was also launched as the name of the task of the social engineer in this sense. "Social engineering" was the title of a small journal in 1899 (renamed "Social Service" from 1900), and in 1909 it was the title of a book by the journal's former editor,
William H. Tolman
William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Eng ...
(translated into French in 1910). This marked the end of the usage of the terminology in the sense created by Van Marken. With the
Social Gospel
The Social Gospel is a social movement within Protestantism that aims to apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean envir ...
sociologist Edwin L. Earp's ''The Social Engineer'', published during the "efficiency craze" of 1911 in the U.S., a new usage of the term was launched that has since then become standard: "Social engineering" came to refer to an approach of treating social relations as "machineries", to be dealt with in the manner of the technical engineer.
A prerequisite of social engineering is a body of reliable information about the society that is to be engineered and effective tools to carry out the engineering. The availability of such information has dramatically increased within the past one hundred years. Prior to the invention of the printing press, it was difficult for groups outside of the wealthy to gain access to a reliable body of information, as the media for conveying the information was prohibitively expensive. With the rise of the
information age
The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, Silicon Age, or New Media Age) is a historical period that began in the mid-20th century. It is characterized by a rapid shift from traditional industries, as established during ...
, information can be distributed and produced on an unprecedented scale. Similarly digital technology has increased the variety and access of effective tools. However, it has also created questionably reliable bodies of information.
Cases
Radical social-engineering campaigns can occur in countries with
authoritarian
Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political ''status quo'', and reductions in the rule of law, separation of powers, and democratic vot ...
governments, while non-authoritarian regimes tend to rely on more sustained social-engineering campaigns that foster more gradual, but ultimately far-reaching, change. Governments also influence behavior more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for instance, and have done so for centuries.
In the 1920s the government of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter the behavior and ideals of Soviet citizens, to replace the old social frameworks of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War ...
Commissar
Commissar (or sometimes ''Kommissar'') is an English transliteration of the Russian (''komissar''), which means ' commissary'. In English, the transliteration ''commissar'' often refers specifically to the political commissars of Soviet and E ...
s became agents of social engineering.
The Soviets used newspapers, books, film, mass relocations, and even architectural-design tactics to serve as a " social condenser" and to change personal values and private relationships. In a manner of violence, political executions (for example the Night of the Murdered Poets in Moscow in 1952), and the fear of becoming a victim of mass murder, played an influential role in the social engineering frameworks in Soviet Russia. Similar examples include the Chinese "
Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward (Second Five Year Plan) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social campaign led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 1958 to 1962. CCP Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to reconstr ...
" (1958–1961), Mao's "
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
" (1966–1976) programs and the
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge (; ; km, ខ្មែរក្រហម, ; ) is the name that was popularly given to members of the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK) and by extension to the regime through which the CPK ruled Cambodia between 1975 and 1979 ...
's deurbanization of
Cambodia
Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
(1975–1979).
In
Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
, the Ethnic Integration Policy attempts to promote a mix of all races within each subsidized housing district in order to foster social and racial cohesion while providing citizens with affordable housing.
In British and Canadian
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning ...
, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting the behaviour.
Social theorists of the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), dur ...
mass culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in ...
and commented on its new manipulative power in the 1920s. These theorists left Germany around 1930 due to the rise of the
Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that created and supported t ...
, and many of them became connected with the
Institute for Social Research
The Institute for Social Research (german: Institut für Sozialforschung, IfS) is a research organization for sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School and critical theory. Currently a pa ...
in the United States. After the consolidation of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...
was a synchronized, sophisticated and effective tool for shaping public opinion.
In Greece, the
Greek military junta of 1967–1974
The Greek junta or Regime of the Colonels, . Also known within Greece as just the Junta ( el, η Χούντα, i Choúnta, links=no, ), the Dictatorship ( el, η Δικτατορία, i Diktatoría, links=no, ) or the Seven Years ( el, η Ε ...
attempted to steer Greek public opinion not only by propaganda but also by inventing new words and slogans such as ''palaiokommatismos'' (old-partyism), ''Ellas Ellinon Christianon'' (Greece of Christian Greeks), and ''Ethnosotirios Epanastasis'' (nation-saving revolution, meaning ''
coup d'état
A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...
'').
In
Tanzania
Tanzania (; ), officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( sw, Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north; Kenya to the northeast; Comoro Islands ...
in the 1970s, the government pursued a policy of enforced villagisation under
Operation Vijiji Operation Vijiji (''Operation Villagisation'') was an exercise in social engineering carried out in post-colonial Tanzania in 1973. The operation involved the relocation, sometimes forced, of many thousands of rural Tanzanians to ''Ujamaa
Ujama ...
Romanian rural systematization program
The Romanian rural systematization program was a social engineering program undertaken by Nicolae Ceaușescu's Romania primarily at the end of the 1980s. The legal framework for this program was established as early as 1974, but it only began in ...
(especially in the 1980s) promoted "agro-industrial centres" at the expense of traditional village social structures.
In
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...
, social engineering is being practiced by the current authoritarian regime and by the media controlled by the Egyptian Intelligence, Military since 2013 coup d'état to overthrow the first democratically elected president,
Mohamed Morsi
Mohamed Mohamed Morsi Eissa al-AyyatThe spellings of his first and last names vary. survey of 14 news organizations plus Wikipedia in July 2012 Sisi (President from 2014 onwards) has been using social engineering by controlling the media and Internet providers.
In
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...
, social engineering was effectively done in the state of Bihar, on a grand scale, to unify different castes after 2005. The coherency of voting allegiances based on social extremes among upper castes and Dalits was challenged by this vote (Poll in Indian reference).
Karl Popper
In his classic political science book, ''
The Open Society and Its Enemies
''The Open Society and Its Enemies'' is a work on political philosophy by the philosopher Karl Popper, in which the author presents a "defence of the open society against its enemies", and offers a critique of theories of teleological historicism ...
'', volume I, ''The Spell of Plato'' (1945),
Karl Popper
Sir Karl Raimund Popper (28 July 1902 – 17 September 1994) was an Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator. One of the 20th century's most influential philosophers of science, Popper is known for his rejection of the ...
examined the application of the critical and rational methods of science to the problems of the open society. In this respect, he made a crucial distinction between the principles of ''democratic'' social engineering (what he called "piecemeal social engineering") and ''Utopian'' social engineering.
Popper wrote:
According to Popper, the difference between "piecemeal social engineering" and "Utopian social engineering" is:
Engineers of the human soul
"Engineers of the human soul" was a term applied to writers and other cultural workers by Joseph Stalin.
In the Soviet Union
The phrase was apparently coined by Yury Olesha. Viktor Shklovsky said that Olesha used it in a meeting with Stalin ...
*
Eugenics
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior o ...
*
Media manipulation
Media manipulation is a series of related techniques in which partisans create an image or argument that favors their particular interests. Such tactics may include the use of logical fallacies, manipulation, outright deception (disinformation ...
Political engineering In political science, political engineering is the designing of political institutions in a society and often involves the use of paper decrees, in the form of laws, referendums, ordinances, or otherwise, to try to achieve some desired effect.
The ...
Charles Arthur Willard
Charles Arthur Willard (born 1945) is an American argumentation and rhetorical theorist. He is a retired Professor and University Scholar at the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, USA.
Education
He received his undergraduate degr ...
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...