In Defense of Social Engineering

In a previous post i stressed the need for us to uncover and apply the ‘rules’ for a functional society- rules based not upon tradition or emotion, but grounded in high-quality and correct information.
As an example i mentioned the field of engineering, based as it is upon mathematically rigorous physical laws, as a good model to follow.
Now obviously there is no direct equivalent between the unambiguousness of a discipline like classical physics, which leaves little room for personal opinion, and the much ‘messier’ realm of the social sciences- however, recent research in fields such as biopsychology and cognitive physiology are providing us with new understandings of the complex behaviours and actions of human beings. It is not unresonable to suppose that within the next few years we will achieve a broad consensus regarding what people need to best function in any given environment.
Perhaps it is time we reappropriated a term which has fallen into deserved repute: social engineering.
Traditionally social engineering conjures up images of the state trying to control or influence what people think and how they act, which historically leads to very undesirable outcomes, but we must also remember that the legitimate purpose of a government should be to implement broadly accepted standards for the benefit of the whole society.
How those standards are arrived at is the very ne plus ultra of areas like law, education, and economics.
For instance, the purpose of the standardized western education is to prepare students for their future roles as productive members of society. It is a model built on 19th century notions of conformity and segregated learning. Every subject is concieved of as separate from the others, built on an accepted foundational corpus that must be mastered through rote memorization and problem exercises. It is a very fragmented, rigid approach to knowledge, which while fine for an heavily industrialized society is wholly inadequate for the realities of contemporary existence.
We now know that all things are interrelated, and that the boundaries between one discipline and the next are largely fictional. We also know now that not everyone learns in the same way, and that various styles of knowledge acquicision are needed. Similarily, the greatest contributions to any field are the direct result of pragmatic problem solving- experimentation, exploration, trial and error- rather than the strict application of static facts and theories.
In short, we need a dynamic revolution in basic education if we are to confront the issues facing our future. The point is that there is a correct way of educating the members of a society, one based on proper research and non-ideologically driven information.
This then is the true and proper meaning of social engineering: discerning the most effective and efficient strategies for achieving our goals, and then implementing them. Of course, we must forst have a clear understanding of what those goals are, so we must engage each other in a dialogue about what we value, and find our agreements therein. In our education example then, it might be argued that the ultimate goal we should be pursuing is not the creation simply of a class of 'workers', but the creation of fully functional adults who are emotionally mature, capable of thinking clearly, and able to search for, collect, and efficiently process new information streams.
It may well be that social engineering will turn into one of the most important tasks of the next twenty years.

On somewhat of a tangent, here is an interesting video from MIT on the subject of engineering for the ecological age. Enjoy!