Social engineering is a concept in political science that refers to efforts to systematically manage popular attitudes and social behavior on a large scale, whether by governments or private groups. Political science is a social science discipline that deals with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. ... See: Aircraft attitude Attitude (magazine) Attitude (album) Attitude (psychology) Propositional attitude This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... In biology, psychology and sociology social behavior is behavior directed towards, or taking place between, members of the same species. ...

The term has a negative connotation, and is sometimes used as an accusation against any who propose to use law, tax policy, or other kinds of state influence to accomplish social goals. For instance, political conservatives in the United States have accused their opponents of "social engineering" through their promotion of political correctness, on the basis that political correctness is an attempt to change social attitudes by defining "acceptable" and "unacceptable" language. Law (from the late Old English lagu of probable North Germanic origin) in politics and jurisprudence, is a set of rules or norms of conduct which mandate, proscribe or permit specified relationships among people and organizations, intended to provide methods for ensuring the impartial treatment of such people, and provide... A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e. ... A state is an organized political community, occupying a territory, and possessing internal and external sovereignty, which successfully claims the monopoly of the use of force. ... Conservatism or political conservatism is any of several historically related political philosophies or political ideologies. ... Political correctness is the alteration of language to redress real or alleged injustices and discrimination or to avoid offense. ...

However, virtually all law and governance has the effect of changing behavior and can be considered "social engineering" to some extent. Thus, whether any specific policy is labeled as "social engineering" is often a question of degree and intent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging perceived undesirable behaviors, and have positive social consequences. 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. Therefore the exact boundaries of social engineering are hard to pinpoint. Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life. ... Litter in the habitat of a lizard. ...

Social engineering through 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 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 and the media provided the tools through which social engineering could be carried out. Terms like SOSE (Studies of Society & the Environment) not only refer to social sciences but also studies of the environment. ... BlackBerry 7100t Telecommunication refers to the communication of information at a distance. ...

While social engineering can be carried out by any organization - whether large or small, public or private - the most intensive (and often the most effective) campaigns of social engineering are those initiated by powerful central governments. As such, it should come as no surprise that the most comprehensive large-scale examples of social engineering occurred in countries with authoritarian governments. This article applies to political ideologies. ...

In the 1920s, the revolutionary government of the Soviet Union embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter the behavior and ideals of Soviet citizens, to replace the old social frameworks of Tsarist Russia 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. It has been suggested that Roaring Twenties be merged into this article or section. ... Росси́йская Импе́рия, (also Imperial Russia) covers the period of Russian history from the expansion of Russia under Peter the Great into the Russian Empire stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean, to the deposition of Nicholas II of Russia, the last tsar, at the start of the Russian Revolution... In the Communist-Party-sponsored culture of the Soviet Union, the model new Soviet man was described, in several periods, as a person with the qualities that were said to be emerging as dominant among all that countrys citizens, irrespective of its long-standing cultural, ethnic, and linguistic diversity... From constructivist theory, the social condenser is a spatial idea practiced in architecture. ...

Social theorists of the Frankfurt School in Weimar Germany like Theodor Adorno had also observed the new phenomenon of mass culture and commented on its new manipulative power, when the rise of the Nazis drove them out of the country around 1930 (many of them became connected with the Institute for Social Research 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 machine under Joseph Goebbels was a synchronized, sophisticated and effective tool for creating public opinion. Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist social theory (which is more akin to anarchism than communism), social research, and philosophy. ... The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (in German Weimarer Republik). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German monarchy was abolished following the nations defeat in World... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer. ... Popular culture, or pop culture, is the vernacular (peoples) culture that prevails in a modern society. ... The term National Socialism has been used in self-description by a number of different political groups and ideologies, some of which have no connection with the Nazis; see National socialism (disambiguation). ... 1930 (MCMXXX) is a common year starting on Wednesday. ... The Institute for Social Research (German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as sociology and continental philosophy, best known as the institutional home of the Frankfurt School. ... U.S. propaganda poster, depicting a Nazi stabbing a Bible. ... Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels or Göbbels (October 29, 1897 – May 1, 1945) was Adolf Hitlers Propaganda Minister (see Propagandaministerium) in Nazi Germany. ...

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, with the advent of television, and continuing discussion of techniques of social engineering - particularly in advertising - is still quite pertinent in the western model of consumer capitalism. Combatants Allies: • Poland, • UK & Commonwealth, • France/Free France, • Soviet Union, • USA, • China, ...and others Axis: • Germany, • Italy, • Japan, ...and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total: 50 million Full list Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total: 12 million Full list World War II... Generally speaking, advertising is the promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually by an identified sponsor. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Capitalism Capitalism has been defined in various ways. ...

Karl Popper

In his classic political science book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, volume I, The Spell of Plato, Karl Popper 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' ^[1] Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS (July 28, 1902 – September 17, 1994), was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. ...

Popper wrote that "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." For him, 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 continualy 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" ^[2]

See also

• Edward Bernays

The front cover of Bernays 1928 book Propaganda Edward Bernays (November 22, 1891 - March 9, 1995) is regarded by many as the father of public relations, although some people believe that title properly belongs to some other early PR practitioner, such as Ivy Lee. ...

References

1. ^  Popper, K. 1971 The Open Society and Its Enemies Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press

Sir Karl Raimund Popper, CH, FRS (July 28, 1902 – September 17, 1994), was an Austrian and British philosopher and a professor at the London School of Economics. ...

External links

• Book review of "Seeing Like a State" by James C. Scott
• Book review of "Social Engineering" by Adam Podgórecki

http://www.books.mystic-world.net/bookDetails.aspx?BooksID=399 Gregory Fogel "Fifty percent job time - Fifty percent free time lifestyle. FGT-FFT lifestyle".