Wondering what the sorts of folks who read here think... [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

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So ... "social engineering" ... attempting to cause deliberate changes in society ...

Of course, I'm interested in hearing more details on the other "it depends" answers as well, in comments.

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There are 33 comments on this entry. (Reply.)

One could consider any social rights movements attempts at social engineering. I don't think the feminist movement was evil, nor the civil rights movement, nor the fight for same-sex marriage. And yet, they're all social engineering, and even attempts at social engineering which only benefit a certain segment of society.

Oh, good point!

(Ignoring for a moment the "rising tide lifts all boats" argument that could be made regarding your "only benefit a certain segment" observation, since that'd be a whole 'nuther discussion.)

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I think that particular argument is really only applicable in the sense that those groups who come after tend to have an easier time, and of course the fact that many people do not belong to a single group, but to many.

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If you're trying to change your society, then that's social engineering. If you don't want your society to change, and change is inevitable, then, like the Red Queen, you'll need to keep changing it back to what it was.

The only states that have managed to remain static have been isolated ones. Today, it's very difficult to remain isolated.

I think it's a cycle, to an extent. That while people in power may try to change things, it's the people within society who give them power in most situations. And people believe what they want to and they do what they want to, it's part of free will. For someone to do something or act a certain way, the propensity for it has to already exist inside of them. No one can really control someone else, they can only give suggestions - though sometimes forcefully - and see if they follow through with them. (This does not apply to situations where people have their freedom outright taken away.)

So.. I answered "it depends," because while I think the idea of "Social Engineering" is, in some ways, nonexistent, I think that people still do try to orchestrate events a certain way and change the opinions or others, etc. And the motivation has a big part in it, but moreso, the way it's handled. If someone wants to do something while knowingly hurting others, than they have to answer for that. Also, taking away someone's human rights is wrong. It's one thing to place restrictions in public and make laws, it's another to tell someone what they can or can't do or think when alone or with other likeminded peoples. On the whole, though, it depends on the situation, so it's a very complex issue that can't be explained easily in a few paragraphs.

In the end, a director of events is only as effective in acquiring his desired results as those involved are effective at willingly playing their roles.

That's my current personal opinion, anyways.

I think it is a necessary and unavoidable aspect of society - which doesn't make it not-evil, per se.
Whether it is good or evil depends on motive.

Any attempt at creating public policy can be used as a way to engineer society. The tax on cigarettes, part of which goes to anti-smoking campaigns and cancer prevention, is engineering from one end, but the tobacco subsidies to farmer is engineering from the other end. Both try to creat good things in society and ameliorate the side effects.

The problem with the current neoCon social engineering is that it does not follow Pareto-optimal guidelines. Vilfredo Pareto said that for a policy to be optimal, it must achieve its goal (to improve society) by harming as few people as possible, ideally nobody. Most Republican policies, though, are anti-Pareto; they seek to sideline or punish a group or class of people, not always the same one.

This is why I am conservative... liberals tend to like government power and influance in our lives, the centraliztion of power. (socialism).

I perfer the freedom to think and feel what I want. I like the freedom not to have to like everyone. I like the freedom of raising my child the way I want and to by the orders of the state.

being conservative to means freedom, that is my defination.

Without getting into definitions, the conservative pay a fair amount of lip service to "getting the government off people's backs" but tend to have significantly more instrusive uses for government than liberals do.

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More intrusive then social engineering? How is that possable?

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Let's see...

1. Regulating the bedroom.

2. Requiring scientists and teachers to provide misinformation. And providing it -- selling it -- in government institutions.

3. No-fly lists. Secret rules regulating who, what, and how flight and other transportation is permitted.

4. Prohibition of an increasing amount of speech and expression, on the so-called "public" airwaves (which are in fact leased to the highest bidders, thus prohibiting even more expression (and I understand the need, but it's still intrusive) and particularly with regard to political dissent, by means of increasing restriction of access to public spaces.

Will these do for a starter package?

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So you are saying regulateing actions is more intrusive the regulateing human thoughts?

I would say NOTHING is more intrusive then to tell you "you can think that way... or we will punish you."

I would rather suffer though a death camp then have someone tell me what I can or can not think and many have.

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I'm not sure how we got from "attempting to cause changes to society" (or to use one of the definitions from your dictionary, "applied social science") to mind-control and/or thought-police.

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Couldn't #2 and possibly #4 (and maybe even #1) be considered likely crude attempts at social engineering? (Or parts of larger attempts?)

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I'd call them all means that might be used in the context of social engineering. Upon further review, then, let's just let them lie as examples of horrific things the government is doing, which may in fact be part of an overarching strategy to erode civil liberties and influence or control citizens' thoughts. That latter, of course, being the definition of social engineering.

Mea culpa

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And this is relevant how?

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It is relevant since I see the main pushers of social engineering to be the liberals. As noted by others they have done so in the past. The seem to want to do it again. Saddly for me social engineering can be easly translated to loss of freedom of thought. The most basic right we need to protect.

One of the most basic elements of freedom is the right to choose what you think is right and what you think is wrong. When you take that away and have the government decide this for you then you are no longer a free society. Like it or not you have the right to see conservatives as bad or certain religious groups as wrong, and even to consider certain lifestlyes as wrong, and yes even to dislike a race. What you don't have the right to do is to deny them freedom to live and think what they want and prosper. Social Engineering is just wrong since no one should be trusted with the power of deciding what people should or should think (like or dislike).

That is why I oppose any such actions by the government no matter how "Right" it may feel.

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But your suggestion that we change the name of civil marriage to something else in order to make people less likely to object to changes to it is not an attept to engineer social change?

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The change I suggest get's the government out of social engineering of marriage. One of the arguements about governments involvement in marriage is based on the property and money issues. But in doing this the government has added a line that marriage will mean "this or that". My solution will address the reasons why the goverment is involve (property, health, money) and the remove the value judgements (social Engineering) of the government.

What is being pushed for 2 person marriage or the other sides 1 man 1 woman both to value judgements (social engineering) that in effect says other forms of sexual couples are wrong. This is expanded by the federal government in to the school system by telling students one form of sex is normal and others are not.

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"The change I suggest get's the government out of social engineering of marriage."

Nonetheless, the change you suggest itself constitutes as means of making an intentional change to society and to how our culture thinks about marriage, in order to overcome opposition to proposed changes in law.

In what way is that not attempting to effect a deliberate change in society?

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Any advertising campaign is social engineering. You want people to buy your stuff? You have to make a change in society, even if it is a small one.

It does help to educate people to recognize propaganda when they see it. Critical thinking is an important skill that seems in short supply.

I did not put "it's an unavoidable/necessary aspect of having a society at all" because that does not speak to evil. That is, while I agree with that part of the choice, that doesn't mean it isn't sometimes evil.

I put "it depends". It depends on three things:

1) What techniques are used. The ends can justify some means, I suppose, but only within appropriate limits. We have theories of techniques which make something evil even if there is a good intention, like torture. You draw your own lines here. Is "The Big Lie" automatically evil?

2) What the motives are. Theories of fault, legally, are at least partly based on intentions. If someone dies, it could be irrelevant, self-defense, justifiable homicide, negligent homicide, manslaughter, or murder. I'm sure there are more choices. Evil intentions suggest that consequent actions be considered evil no matter what the outcome.

3) The outcome. This was not one of the available choices, thus requiring this comment. There is nothing like hindsight to see effects which may not have been anticipated. It may not be even nearly 20/20, though.

People do very evil things sometimes from what they tell themselves are the best of motives. This must be applied carefully since the ideas of blame and evil are separate. You might decide someone is blameless but the result is nevertheless evil.

If evil consequences are in fact predicted, but the perpetrators refused to listen, this seems to me to increase the weight of a charge of evil. Who to blame? The people who didn't do a good enough job of forestalling the evil, or the ones who actually did the evil if they were deluded that they were doing good?

Also, you have to consider the alternatives. The least evil of several alternatives may not be properly considered evil at all, but a mitigation of evil, and therefore good. The word 'evil' is being used in several different ways here.

The recent tsunami was not evil, by my definition; it was an incredibly unfortunate natural disaster. Trying to prevent notification of the coming wave would have been evil; that would be an action by humans that would have been intended to make (and might well have made) the outcome even worse than otherwise.

I don't like the choices, it depends on who does it or whether I agree with them. As a society, we are supposed to have moved beyond this, having discredited Guilt by Association and requiring a jury of our peers to evaluate whether a wrong was committed.

Certain organizations are proscribed in some circles, like Hamas, but since some of the work they do is seen as good, this proscription doesn't help the credibility of the proscribers. Better to denounce specific doctrines and actions as evil. The devil is a construct, an abstraction, not someone you are likely to meet.

I have to disagree with you concept on Social Engineering.

First lets look at the defination of Social Engineering:

Main Entry: social engineering
Function: noun
: management of human beings in accordance with their place and function in society : applied social science - social engineer noun

http://www.britannica.com/search?query=social+engineering&submit=Find&source=MWTEXT

Now there are ways that changes in society happen. One way is time and speech and people interact and talk the society changes.. this is a natural process that involves all people. Another means is for a select group to decided that everyone else should embrace a change. That is social domination by a minority. Press aids are only free speech. The government making rules that require teaching certain value judgements is domination by a minority unless the general population agrees in which case in is a oppression of a minority. In either case it is just wrong.

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Well the definition I supplied to introduce this poll, "attempting to cause deliberate changes in society", fits the second of those: "applied social science". The first is a bit restrictive in this context.

You've described free speech and government mandated speech as examples of good and bad routes of social change. (BTW, are you including anti-drug PSAs on television and radio in "require teaching certain value judgements"? My guess is that you are, but I wouldn't mind a clarification in case you were narrowing the focus to schools.) What about (as

twistedchick pointed out) taxes and subsidies? What about (as others have pointed out) housing and employment antidiscrimination laws (which do not regulate what you may think; only some of the actions you're allowed to take based on your thoughts)? What about NDSL? CAFE? None of those mandate speech.

What about non-governmental action? The promulgation of lawn-and-garden clubs in suburbia ? The TruthOut ad campaign -- it's free speech, but isn't it also social engineering? Earth Day? The entire hippie movement? Turning Christmas into a capitalist greedfest and encouraging people to go into debt? The civil rights movement when the government was still pretty much opposed to it? MADD? Mothers Day, Fathers Day, and Secretaries Day? Changing "used" to "pre-owned"? Any "visibility" campaign? "Take back the streets" nights? The marketing of Utilikilts and Amerikilts? Campaigns opposing cartoon violence? Are any of these good? Are any of these bad?

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Society changes as people interact, this is natural. As you talk to another person with the hopes of altering their views you (by your defination) are doing social engineering. There is a very real differance between private groups argueing with each other with press and debate and the government telling you what you are or are not to think.

There are seperate issues that we are discussing here. One is providing for a open field in which all can prosper. The other is the making people like, accept, include, or voice their thoughts. Now the anti-discrimination laws (which I think are poorly written and should read "you can not deny a job to someone for a reason unrelated to the work") are mostly of the open field arguement and partly of the preventing you the right to not associate. While bussing it create diversity is mostly about changeing peoples thoughts and very little about creating a open field.

I think drugs are fine as long as you don't drive, work, push in schools, or other effecting the lives of others happens. For which we already have laws. Remember the old saying that your rights end at my rights? That is what I am talking about.

Private campiagns are fine. Government campaigns are not. I have no problem with the government saying no drugs allowed in school since it is a public forum. But I am not keen on the school system saying "just say no" since that is a value judgement.

and so on.

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"There is a very real differance between
private groups argueing with each other with press
and debate and the government telling you what you
are or are not to think."

Does this mean you're changing your poll answer
to "it depends who is doing it" and/or "it depends
on what methods are used", Or have I
misunderstood? So far what I get from your
arguments is "the government instituting thought
police is bad", which is not a very controversial
statement, but also doesn't really say much about
the larger question of social engineering.

It seems that you are opposed to other forms of
social engineering as well, but so far your
supporting arguments for that position seem to be
just "government thought-police are bad" and a
couple of bits that sound as though you're talking
about mind-control. So I am confused.

"Now the anti-discrimination laws (which I
think are poorly written and should read 'you can
not deny a job to someone for a reason unrelated
to the work') [...]"

Since that aspect, whether well or poorly
implemented, was a shift from previous
cultural attitudes that failed to censure (note:
"censure", not "censor") statements such as, "I'm
not going to hire a Jew," even the way you think
antidiscrimination laws should have been
written constitute intentional change to society.
So I remain puzzled by your inconsistency and am
still hoping to have the pattern made clear to
me.

"I think drugs are fine as long as you don't
drive, work, push in schools, or other effecting
the lives of others happens."

Which wasn't what I asked. What I asked was
"What about government-funded anti-drug public
service announcements?"

And, taking a later snippet
out-of-order:

"Private campiagns are fine. Government
campaigns are not. I have no problem with the
government saying no drugs allowed in school since
it is a public forum. But I am not keen on the
school system saying "just say no" since that is a value judgement."

This appears to both answer and not-answer what
I'm asking, since you narrowed it to "the school
system" at the end. Am I to construe this as
meaning that any government-paid PSAs on
television and radio are bad because they're
government interference (even if they're
encouraging, perhaps for funny reasons, compliance
with the government's laws), or that they're okay
as long as they're not for a captive audience such
as students in school?

I suppose another way of getting at what I'm
trying to understand would be: is it okay for the
government to sponsor PSAs that discourage
speeding and drunk driving, or must the government
limit itself to passing and enforcing laws and not
talking about them? And if the latter is okay,
how can the existence of some types of laws
(designed to discourage certain behaviours, be
they safety matters or patterns of homebuying or
attracting doctors to rural areas) not constitute
social engineering itself?

"Remember the old saying that your rights
end at my rights? That is what I am talking
about."

*nod* The classic libertarian phrasing being,
"your right to swing your fist ends at my nose".
So far, antidiscrimination law and busing can be
portrayed as "conflict of rights" issues, but
unless we diverge into a tangent on taxes being
slavery (I'd rather not right now), what about the NDSL
program? Or market-altering subsidies in general?
(I'm assuming you'll argue that CAFE is
interference in free enterprise, which would be
consistent with your reasoning regarding
antidiscrimination laws. Feel free to correct me
if I'm wrong about that.)

Is it safe for me to assume that all my
third-paragraph examples (lawn-and-garden
clubs, TruthOut, Earth Day, hippies, Christmas as
a commercial event, the civil rights movement,
MADD, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Secretaries Day,
"pre-owned", visibility campaigns, "take back the
streets", creating an American kilt market, anti-
cartoon-violence) are all acceptable forms
of social engineering because they're not
government-originated?

Can you at least see why I'm confused by what
you've said so far?

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"Any advertising campaign is social engineering. You want people to buy your stuff? You have to make a change in society, even if it is a small one."

I have a quibble with that. I would agree that most modern advertising involves some degree of social engineering, but it is not an absolutely required aspect of advertising.

Simply advertising, "I have this for sale," is not social engineering; nor, I think, is, "I have this more cheaply than so-and-so," and maybe not even, "Mine's better made."

OTOH, any advertising that attempts to create a market where there wasn't one, or expand demand for something (such as television commercials designed to make people way more self-conscious about body odor in order to sell more deodorant) is clearly social engineering. Likewise attempts to attach "coolness" to a product or brand. And I'll give you "most" on those grounds.

"I did not put 'it's an unavoidable/necessary aspect of having a society at all' because that does not speak to evil. That is, while I agree with that part of the choice, that doesn't mean it isn't sometimes evil."

Perhaps I should have either added another answer or found a better way to phrase that one. "Necessary" implies -- or at least suggests -- that the tool is not inherently evil, though yes, it leaves open the possibility that it can be misused, as most tools can. I myself personally feel that it is inevitable, necessary, and is sometimes used for evil as well as for good. A couple of days after posting the poll, I'm wishing I'd written it slightly differently to make that a clearer option.

" It depends on three [...] The outcome. This was not one of the available choices, thus requiring this comment."

Okay, that one I probably would not have come up with to add on my own, and thank you for pointing it out. (In the unlikely event that I ever try a poll like this again for a different audience, I'll add that option.)

"The word 'evil' is being used in several different ways here."

A valid complaint of ambiguity on my part. (In my defense, I wanted gut reactions more than a quiz at the end of a long essay... But yeah, "evil" is ambiguous.)

"I don't like the choices, it depends on who does it or whether I agree with them."

I didn't expect anyone who didn't pick those to like them. ;-) Actually, the reason for the "depends on who does it" option was to see whether anyone would list "the government" as either an acceptable or unacceptable group.

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A few decades ago, Dr. Leary offered the commandment "Thou shalt not alter thy neighbor's consciousness without his consent." In the limited context he was using that term--basically, don't put LSD in the party fruit punch without being sure everyone knows it's there--that's a good rule. Taken literally, it's an impossible one. Teaching someone to read alters their consciousness, profoundly. Offering to tell them about any number of ideas and possibilities is already an alteration of consciousness even if the offer is declined.

Into the quotes-queue with you...

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What you call it is "education," in most of the cases.

As such, maybe I should have said "it's only evil when you don't agree with the group that's doing it." Because I would very much like to do social engineering about some things; the most basic one is instilling some awareness of science and the scientific method in everyone to reduce the gullibility coefficient of the society in general.

"What you call it is 'education,' in most of the cases."

I like that answer! It leaves out taxes, subsidies, regulations, etc., but for a snappy answer I like it a lot.

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Social engineering is a scary word, and is usually used in a pejorative sense (and often in conjunction with a German of some note). I do have to agree with other posters, that any intentional social change, feminism, the civil rights movement etc. are socila engineering.

I think that movements that make society more inclusive are good, a step forward, in a way. I worry about attempts to make society less inclusive, and those who try to limit people chioces or options.

Too vague, too simplistic? I dunno. I shall have to think more.

My concern is on who determines if the change is good? should anyone be trusted to make those rulings for you? If so who would you trust to make the order of social engineering and more to the point why should a small group decide what people should or shouldn't think?

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I see "social engineering" as a neutral term; one of the things I was wondering was to what extent it is viewed as pejorative. It looks as though I should either stop referring to things I agree with (and want others to agree with) as social engineering, or indulge in some social engineering of my own to "reclaim" the term.

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