Namibia needs more social engineers

Petrus Shipopweni Fudeni Fillipus writes; Social engineering is a discipline in social science that refers to efforts to influence popular attitudes and social behaviours on a large scale, whether by government or private groups. Social engineers use the methods of science to analyse and understand social systems, so as to arrive at appropriate decisions as scientists, and not as politicians. In the political arena, the counterpart of social engineering is political engineering. As expressed by German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies in his study The Present Problems of Social Structure, 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. In other words, social engineering is a data-based scientific system used to develop a sustainable design so as to achieve the intelligent management of Earth's resources with the highest levels of freedom, prosperity, and happiness within a population. For various reasons, the term has been imbued with negative connotations. However, virtually all law and governance has the effect of seeking to change behaviour and could be considered social engineering to some extent. Prohibitions on murder, rape, suicide and littering are all policies aimed at discouraging undesirable behaviours. In British and Canadian jurisprudence, changing public attitudes about behaviour is accepted as one of the key functions of laws prohibiting it. Governments also influence behaviour more subtly through incentives and disincentives built into economic policy and tax policy, for instance, and have done so for centuries Before one can engage in social engineering, one must have reliable information about the society that is to be engineered and effective tools to carry out the engineering. Both of these became available only relatively recently: roughly within the past one hundred years. While social engineering can be carried out by any organisation. 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 governments. In the 1920s, the government of the Soviet Union embarked on a campaign to fundamentally alter the behaviour 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. Similar examples are the Chinese Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution program and the Khmer Rouge's plan of de-urbanisation of Cambodia. Non-authoritarian regimes tend to rely on more sustained social engineering campaigns that create more gradual, but ultimately far-reaching, change. Examples include the War on Drugs in the United States, the increasing reach of intellectual property rights and copyright, and the promotion of elections as a political tool. 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 synchronised, sophisticated and effective tool for creating public opinion. In a similar vein Namibia can fight against poverty, HIV/Aids, the unequal distribution of income, the inadequate economic growth and other challenges by using social engineering. It can be used as a means to achieve a wide variety of different results, as illustrated by the different governments and other organisations 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 the continued discussion of techniques of social engineering, particularly in advertising. According to Karl 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 favourable. And it is also the difference between the only method of improving matters, which has so far been really successful, and a method which, wherever it has been tried, has led only to the use of violence in place of reason. (Fillipus is the acting SPYL Secretary for Information, Publicity and Mobilisation in Khomasdal North District)