Social engineering is a concept in political science Political science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the study of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how". Political science has several subfields, including: political theory, public policy, that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behavior In biology, psychology and sociology social behavior is behavior directed towards society, or taking place between, members of the same species. Behavior such as predation which involves members of different species is not social. While many social behaviors are communication communication between members of different species is not social on a large scale, whether by governments A government is the body within an organization that has the authority to make and enforce rules, laws and regulations, control and direct the actions or behavior of the individuals within the organization and deal with everyday administrative issues or private groups. In the political arena the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering.
For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. However, virtually all law and governance Governance relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists either of a separate process or of a specific part of management or leadership processes. Sometimes people set up a government to administer these processes and systems has the effect of changing behavior and can be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Prohibitions on murder Murder, as defined in common law countries, is the unlawful killing of another human being with intent , and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide. All jurisdictions, ancient and modern, consider it a most serious crime and therefore impose severe penalty on its commission. The word murder is, rape, suicide Suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. Many dictionaries also note the metaphorical sense of "willful destruction of one's self-interest" (e.g., "political suicide"). Suicide may occur for a number of reasons, including depression, shame, guilt, desperation, physical pain, emotional pressure, anxiety, financial and littering Litter is waste disposed of in the wrong place by unlawful human action and can vary in size of incident, occurrence or items. It can occur as small items like wrappers, large collections of waste or scatterings of litter dispersed around public places outdoors. Litter can be occasioned by malicious intent, carelessness, or by accident. Litter has are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviors. In British and Canadian jurisprudence Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal philosophers, hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions. As jurisprudence has developed, there are three main aspects with which scholarly writing engages:, changing public attitudes about a behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting it. 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 practice, whether any specific policy is labeled as "social engineering" is often a question of intent. The term is most often used by libertarians, free-market thinkers, and traditionalists as an accusation against anyone who proposes to use law Law is a system of rules, usually enforced through a set of institutions. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a primary social mediator in relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets. Property law defines rights and obligations related, tax To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer (an individual or legal entity) by a state or the functional equivalent of a state policy, or other kinds of state A sovereign state is a political association with effective sovereignty over a geographic area and representing a population. A state usually includes the set of institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that govern the people of the society in that territory, though its status as a state often depends in part on being recognized by influence to change existing power relationships: for instance, between men and women, or between different ethnic groups. Political conservatives Conservatism in the United States is a major American political ideology. In contemporary American politics, it is often associated with the Republican Party. Core conservative principles include a belief in God and country, and many U.S. conservatives support a fiscal policy rooted in small government, laissez faire capitalism, and supply-side in the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the have accused their opponents of social engineering through the promotion of political correctness Political correctness and politically correct (adjective) (PC) are the terms applied to language, ideas, policies, and behaviour meant to enforce ideologic conformity to an orthodox authority. The usages are principally pejorative — ridiculing the “unquestionable authority” of the orthodoxy and the authority figure. The adjectival term, insofar as it may change social attitudes by defining "acceptable" and "unacceptable" language A language is a system for encoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using language. Essential to both meanings is the or acts. The right has itself been accused of social engineering due to its promotion of Abstinence-only sex education, Sodomy laws, and state sponsored school prayer School prayer in its most common usage refers to state-approved prayer by students in state schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, organized prayer may be required, permitted, or proscribed. Countries which prohibit school prayer often differ in their reasons for doing so: the separation of church and state is the United States'.
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History
Before one can engage in social engineering, one must have reliable information about the society that is to be engineered, and one must have effective tools to carry out the engineering. Both of these only became available relatively recently - roughly within the past one hundred years. The development of social science The social sciences comprise academic disciplines concerned with the study of the social life of human groups, animals and individuals including anthropology, archeology, communication studies, cultural studies, demography, economics, human geography, history, linguistics, media studies, political science, psychology, social work, and sociology made it possible to gather and analyze information about social attitudes and trends, which is necessary in order to judge the initial state of society before an engineering attempt and the success or failure of that attempt after it has been implemented. At the same time, the development of modern communications technology Telecommunication is the assisted transmission over a distance for the purpose of communication. In earlier times, this may have involved the use of smoke signals, drums, semaphore, flags or heliograph. In modern times, telecommunication typically involves the use of electronic devices such as the telephone, television, radio or computer. Early and the media Mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. It was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, although mass media were present centuries before the term became common. The provided the tools through which social engineering could be carried out.
While social engineering can be carried out by any organization - whether large or small, public or private - the most comprehensive (and often the most effective) campaigns of social engineering are those initiated by powerful central governments.
Extremely intensive social engineering campaigns occurred in countries with authoritarian Authoritarian political systems may be weakened through "inadequate performance to demands of the people." Vestal writes that the tendency to respond to challenges to authoritarianism through tighter control instead of adaptation is a significant weakness, and that this overly rigid approach fails to "adapt to changes or to governments. In the 1920s, the government of the Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , occasionally called the United Soviet Socialist Republic, was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. The name is a translation of the Russian: Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (help·info), tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter the behavior and ideals of Soviet citizens, to replace the old social frameworks of Tsarist Russia The Tsardom of Russia was the official name for the Russian state between Ivan IV's assumption of the title of Tsar (Emperor) in 1547 and Peter the Great's foundation of the Russian Empire in 1721 with a new Soviet culture, to create the New Soviet man. The Soviets used newspapers, books, film, mass relocations, and even architectural design tactics to serve as "social condenser" and change personal values and private relationships. Similar examples are the Chinese "Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China (PRC) was an economic and social plan used from 1958 to 1961 which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform China from a primarily agrarian economy by peasant farmers into a modern communist society through the process of agriculturalization and industrialization. Mao Zedong" and "Cultural Revolution The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a period of widespread social and political upheaval in the People’s Republic of China between 1966 and 1976, resulting in nation-wide chaos and economic disarray" program and the Khmer Rouge The Khmer Rouge was the communist ruling political party of Cambodia — which it renamed Democratic Kampuchea — from 1975 to 1979's plan of deurbanization of Cambodia The Kingdom of Cambodia , formerly known as Kampuchea (/kæmpuːˈtʃiːə/, ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា Preăh Réachéa Anachâk Kâmpŭchea, derived from Sanskrit Kambujadesa), is a country in South East Asia with a population of over 14 million people. The kingdom's capital and largest city is Phnom Penh. In Singapore, the government's housing policies attempt to promote a mix of all races within each subsidized housing district in order to foster social cohesion and national loyalty while providing the citizens with affordable housing.[citation needed]
Non-authoritarian regimes tend to rely on more sustained social engineering campaigns that create more gradual, but ultimately as far-reaching, change. Examples include the "War on Drugs The War on Drugs is a prohibition campaign undertaken by the United States government with the assistance of participating countries, intended to reduce the illegal drug trade – to curb supply and diminish demand for specific psychoactive substances deemed immoral, harmful, dangerous, or undesirable. This initiative includes a set of laws and" in the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the, the increasing reach of intellectual property Intellectual property are legal property rights over creations of the mind, both artistic and commercial, and the corresponding fields of law. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; ideas, discoveries and inventions; and words, rights and copyright Copyright was invented after the advent of the printing press and subsequent widening of public literacy. As a legal concept, its origins in Britain were from a reaction to printers' monopolies at the beginning of the eighteenth century. In Britain the King of England and Scotland was concerned by the unregulated copying of books and used the, and the promotion of elections An election is a decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold formal office. This is the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy fills offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and as a political tool. The campaign for promoting elections, which is by far the most successful of the three examples, has been in place for over two centuries. Social theorists of the Frankfurt School The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist critical theory, social research, and philosophy. The grouping emerged at the Institute for Social Research of the University of Frankfurt am Main in Germany when Max Horkheimer became the Institute's director in 1930. The term "Frankfurt School" is an informal term used to designate the in Weimar Germany The Weimar Republic ( Weimarer Republik , IPA: [ˈvaɪmarɐ repuˈbliːk]) is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich (German Empire), like Theodor Adorno Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno was a German-born international sociologist, philosopher, musicologist, and composer. He was a member of the Frankfurt School along with Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and others. He was also the Music Director of the Radio Project from 1937 to 1941, in the U.S had also observed the new phenomenon of mass culture Popular culture is the totality of distinct memes, ideas, perspectives, and attitudes that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture. Heavily influenced by mass media (at least from the early 20th century onward) and perpetuated by that culture's vernacular language, this collection of ideas permeates and commented on its new manipulative power, when the rise of the Nazis Nazism is often considered by scholars to be a form of fascism. While it incorporated elements from both left and right-wing politics, the Nazis formed most of their alliances on the right. The Nazis were one of several historical groups that used the term National Socialism to describe themselves, and in the 1920s they became the largest such drove them out of the country around 1930 (many of them became connected with the Institute for Social Research The Institute for Social Research is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School in the United States). The Nazis themselves were no strangers to the idea of influencing political attitudes and re-defining personal relationships. The Nazi propaganda Propaganda is communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, often presents information primarily in order to influence its audience. Propaganda often presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives machine under Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He was one of German dictator Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, eventually succeeding him as Chancellor of Germany, an office he held for only one day, carrying out one official act: sending a delegation to was a synchronized, sophisticated and effective tool for creating public opinion.
In a similar vein the Greek military junta of 1967-1974 The Greek military junta of 1967–1974, alternatively "The Regime of the Colonels" , or in Greece "The Junta", (English pronunciation: /ˈdʒʌntə/ or /ˈhʊntə/; Greek Χούντα, IPA: [ˈxunda]) and "The Seven Years" (Greek: Η Επταετία, I Eptaetia) are terms used to refer to a series of right-wing attempted to steer Greek public opinion not only by propaganda but also by inventing new words and slogans such as: palaiokommatismos (translated as old-partyism), Ellas Ellinon Christianon translated as: Greece of Christian Greeks, Ethnosotirios Epanastasis translated as Nation-saving Revolution meaning coup d'état etc.
Social engineering can be used as a means to achieve a wide variety of different results, as illustrated by the different governments and other organizations that have employed it. The discussion of the possibilities for such manipulation became especially active following World War II World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. The war involved the mobilization of over 100 million military personnel, making it the most widespread war in history, with the advent of television Commercially available since the late 1930s, the television set has become a common communications receiver in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and now Blu-ray discs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used, and continuing discussion of techniques of social engineering - particularly in advertising Advertising is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume more of a particular brand of product or service. Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries - is still quite pertinent in the western model of consumer capitalism The central axiom of capitalism is that the best allocation of resources is achieved through consumers having free choice, and producers responding accordingly to meet consumer demand. This contrasts with centrally planned economies, in which the state directs what shall be produced. Capitalists believe that privatization of state-provided.
Literature
George Orwell
A popular novel taught in most high schools is the George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author. His work is marked by a profound consciousness of social injustice, an intense opposition to totalitarianism, a passion for clarity in language and a belief in democratic socialism novel Nineteen Eighty-Four Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of perpetuating the regime's propaganda by falsifying, in which the known world is controlled by three perpetually warring superpowers. The story takes place in a brutal dystopia The first known use of dystopian, as recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary , is a speech given before the British House of Commons by John Stuart Mill in 1868, in which, Mill stated: "It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dys-topians, or caco-topians. What is commonly called Utopian is that bombards its population with propaganda, constantly monitoring every citizen with ubiquitous TV cameras and police patrols.
Karl Popper
In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS, FBA was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. He is considered one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century, and also wrote extensively on social and political philosophy. Popper is known for repudiating the classical observationalist/ 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 reconstruction (called 'piecemeal social engineering') and 'Utopian social engineering'
Popper wrote:[1]
"the piecemeal engineer will adopt the method of searching for, and fighting against, the greatest and most urgent evil of society, rather than searching for, and fighting for, its greatest ultimate good."
According to Popper, the difference between 'piecemeal social engineering' and 'Utopian social engineering' is
"the difference between a reasonable method of improving the lot of man, and a method which, if really tried, may easily lead to an intolerable increase in human suffering. It is the difference between a method which can be applied at any moment, and a method whose advocacy may easily become a means of continually postponing action until a later date, when conditions are more favorable. And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters which has so far been really successful, at any time, and in any place, and a method which, wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason, and if not to its own abandonment, at any rate to that of its original blueprint."
Slang usage
The term social engineering is commonly used as a slang term to refer to an individual act of manipulation (or possibly fraud In the broadest sense, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and is also a civil law violation. Many hoaxes are fraudulent, although those not made for personal gain are not technically frauds. Defrauding people of) rather than large-scale societal planning.
See also
- Edward Bernays Edward Louis Bernays was an American-based pioneer in the field of public relations along with Ivy Lee. Combining the ideas of Gustave Le Bon and Wilfred Trotter on crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical ideas of his uncle, Sigmund Freud, Bernays was one of the first to attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious
- Propaganda / Public relations
- Psychological warfare
- Social constructionism
- Social control
- Total institution
- Framing (social sciences)
- Business Process Reengineering
References
- ^ Popper, K. 1971 The Open Society and Its Enemies Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press
| This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (August 2008) |
- Charles Arthur Willard Liberalism and the Social Grounds of Knowledge Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Further reading
- Seeing Like a State, James C. Scott
- Social Engineering, Adam Podgórecki
Categories: Anticipatory thinking | Social philosophy | Political science terms | Naval Postgraduate School
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