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Sociological Practice: A Journal of Clinical and Applied Sociology, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2001
Social Engineering in Context: Some Observations on Turner Melvyn L. Fein1
The concept of “social engineering” has more negative baggage than Jonathan Turner supposes. It assumes an ability to control events that is normally lacking and which cannot be attained by following “rules of thumb.” A paradigm that better links theory with practice is preferable.
Jonathan Turner’s “Social Engineering: Is This Really as Bad as it Sounds” is not as bad as it sounds. It is a commendable effort, although it falls short in significant ways. A gifted theorist, with respect to sociological practice, Turner is unfortunately an unsophisticated amateur. His heart is certainly in the right place, but by his own admission he is inexperienced in applying sociological ideas to solving real world problems. Nevertheless he has highlighted a variety of issues vital to the development of the field. It is particularly instructive to see how a sociologist sympathetic to the discipline fails to grasp the scope of its difficulties. Let me begin with several areas where Turner is on target. First, theory and practice certainly do need to be better integrated. As I shall shortly indicate, this coupling is one of the major rationales for sociological practice. Second, contemporary sociology has been far too idealistic, and not nearly scientific enough. Third, a great deal of contemporary theory is too “philosophical,” that is, it is not nearly as practical as it ought to be. Largely irrelevant to the concerns of ordinary people, it stands in stark contrast to the cumulative, empirically testable body of concepts it ought to be. As Turner suggests, theory that cannot survive a trial by real-world application is not worthy of respect.
1 Professor
of Sociology, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, Georgia 30144. 121 C 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation 1522-3442/01/0600-0121$19.50/0 °
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Where Turner begins to go wrong is in his adoption of the term “social engineering.” He seems to assume that this is interchangeable with all forms of sociological intervention, that it merely involves “the application of knowledge about properties of the universe to practical problems of building something, or in many cases tearing something down.” Operating from an analogy with other forms of engineering, he neglects the fact that the phrase has a fairly settled usage. In common parlance social engineering refers to large-scale efforts to reshape social structures. Social engineers are typically preoccupied with social policy. Prototypically responsible for programs such as Head Start or “affirmative action,” they seek to reorder society in desirable directions. The smaller-scale interventions Turner cites are rarely what people have in mind when they speak of “engineering.” As I have indicated elsewhere (Fein, 2000), there are a variety of models a social practitioner can employ, of which social engineering is but one. It is possible, for instance, to utilize a normative/moral model in which social change is facilitated primarily by exhortation or social sanction. The objective here is to get people to follow beneficial rules either by internalizing them or by responding to external coercion. Another possible modus operandi is the clinical/educational model. This one attributes social problems to individual defects such as ignorance or personality disorders. A third option, the cultural/structural model, assumes a larger historical perspective in which the practitioner is a player within, not an absolute controller of, events. It postulates social trends that are amenable to influence, but that can neither be constructed nor deconstructed at will. All of these vary from the engineering mentality in that they propose more modest actions than erecting a social edifice from scratch. Unlike it, they do not perceive the practitioner as someone who can move social building blocks around the way one can steel girders. Nor does the sociological practitioner normally employ “rules of thumb” as Turner suggests. The tools used are much more complex. In this they differ substantially from a social discipline that does utilize such rules, namely social work. Among the standard formulae that social workers invoke are the following: (1) don’t be judgmental, (2) don’t attempt to “rescue” your clients, (3) never invite them to your home, (4) back up when confronted with trouble, (5) be a good listener, and (6) encourage multiculturalism (Schram & Mandell, 1994). These are functional within their scope of employment, but fail to do credit to the broader social understandings that applied and clinical sociologists bring to bear. What makes those with sociological training distinctive is precisely the extent to which they consciously apply scientific knowledge. More ambitious than mere rules of thumb, and not nearly as abstract as the examples Turner offers, actual practice models can be quite complicated.
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In this I speak from experience. For almost 20 years I worked as a clinical sociologist assisting individuals in solving their personal problems. Unlike what Turner implies, this required confronting concrete issues, not merely sitting in an armchair and speculating about what I might do “if.” Because potential mistakes were more than theoretical, my attention was wonderfully concentrated. The result was a paradigm of role change that was based on a resocialization model (Fein, 1990). Far more than a “rule of thumb,” it was a perspective on personal problems that took more than two books to flesh out. Indeed, it was nothing less than a sociological theory of psychotherapy. But this was not the end of the road for my forays into social intervention theory. I subsequently wrote a book on anger management entitled I.A.M (Integrated Anger Management): A Common Sense Guide to Coping with Anger (Fein, 1993). When Turner mentions anger in his paper, he discusses it in connection with unrealized expectations. This was not wrong. When I reviewed the same emotion, I concentrated on how it arose from frustrations, but did so in a much wider context that included a nuanced theory about how emotions in general operate. To this was appended a step by step approach to controlling, understanding, and using the emotion in concrete cases. More recently I have published a book on race relations (Fein, 2001). It takes a broader view of history than anything I have done previously, because the underlying problem is broader. I like to think that characterizing these entanglements as “a hand with many fingers” does my observations a terrible injustice. If I may summarize the core of my objections to Turner’s exposition, they are as follows. Social engineers tend to presuppose that three things are true—which often are not. First, they assume that they understand the problems they are addressing. Second, they are confident that they can develop appropriate solutions. And third, they take for granted that they will be able to implement these. Each of these surmises contains pitfalls that can make the cure worse than the disease. Recent attitudes toward homelessness provide a convenient illustration. To begin with, many people believed that the proliferation of ragged persons sleeping on heating grates was caused by a lack of housing. This was in error. Their sudden appearance was initiated by a governmental policy, namely the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill (Rossi, 1989; Jencks, 1994). Second, because this was so, merely increasing the housing stock could make no difference. Those individuals who insisted on going off their psychotropic medications were too disorganized to maintain themselves in any kind of private housing. Lastly, a government that had backed the emptying of the mental hospitals to save money was not about to commit to a massive building project. Why would legislators unwilling to devote funds to community mental health centers favor SROs instead?
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Some might object that a misleading account of homelessness was merely bad theory, but this is exactly the point. Sociology has not advanced so far that it is free of unsound theories. Were they the starting points of social interventions, we would be in deep trouble. In fact, practicing sociologists often begin with a problem and then work backwards to the relevant theory. If that sounds troubling, it is no more so than what physical scientists did in the time of Gallileo and Newton (Jardin, 1999). A more critical problem arises from the value dimension of these issues. What is considered a problem is determined by measuring it against our goals. But what happens when these are in dispute (Wilson, 1995)? The answer is that we get the sorts of ideological contest now roiling the sociological waters. Some people lobby for more freedom and others for greater equality; some applaud the virtues of community (Etzioni, 1993), whereas others praise marketplace entrepreneurship (Hayek, 1944). Turner’s solution to this predicament is not a study of how values operate (Fein, 1997), but rather to abdicate the determination of the objective to the engineer’s client. He bemoans the prospect of having to serve a tyrant, but offers no alternate means of defining values. At the very least this is unhelpful for the sociologist bent on instigating meaningful change. Turner does admit that it is hard to predict or manipulate social forces, but this is not the half of it. Anyone who has actually attempted to engage in modifying social realities is aware of the myriad of unanticipated consequences (Putnam, 1994). Unwelcome side effects have a way of popping up that can be disconcerting when one thinks one has found the answer to a troubling question. Practitioners, as a consequence, learn to be flexible. They know that most of their solutions will to some extent be mistaken and they are prepared to fix what doesn’t work. This, by the way, is one of the major distinctions between liberals and conservatives (Gerson, 1996). Conservatives are the ones who are more wary of hubris in problem solving. For Turner, the difficulty in finding workable solutions is attributed to the implementation stage. He claims that “the problem is not . . . developing engineering principles, but in applying them.” He recognizes that sociological practitioners are only players in a larger pageant and states that they “will typically only have the power of persuasion rather than the power of implementation.” As strong as this is, it too underestimates the dilemma. The mechanical engineer may have to worry about the tensile strength of a metal beam, but the social interventionist must contend with other human beings who may have different goals and who are as clever as he/she in influencing events. Turner indicates that this limits the practitioner to persuasion, but in the real world nothing is off limits, including coercion. What, after all, is affirmative action if not government-sponsored coercion (Connerly, 2000)? It is remarkable how clever and extreme people—including sociologists—can be
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when their fondest hopes come up short. Such are the origins of ideological nightmares like fascism and communism. Sadly, since the social laws may not be what the practitioner imagines, the inducement to rig the game can be substantial.
CONCLUSION Social engineering of the sort Turner recommends is a fantasy. Too arrogant to serve as a paradigm for actual interventions, it is an invitation to petty totalitarianism. Much better to develop a reflexive sociology that utilizes the difficulties encountered in practice to shine a light on its theories, then to revise and retest these in the crucible of practice. This may be difficult to accomplish, but holds out the promise of a cumulative science and many more enlightened applications.
REFERENCES Connerly, W. 2000. Creating Equal: My Fight Against Racial Preferences. San Francisco: Encounter Books. Etzioni, A. 1993. The Spirit of Community. New York: Touchstone. Fein, M. 1990. Role Change: A Resocialization Perspective. New York: Praeger. Fein, M. 1993. I.A.M.: A Common Sense Guide to Coping with Anger. Westport, CT: Praeger. Fein, M. 1997. Hardball Without an Umpire: The Sociology of Morality. Westport, CT: Praeger. Fein, M. 2000. “Race Relations: A Survey of potential Intervention Strategies.” Sociological Prcatice 2(3):147–162. Fein, M. 2001. Race and Morality: How Good Intentions Undermine Social Justice and Perpetuate Inequality. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Gerson, M. (Ed.) 1996. The Essential Neo-Conservative Reader. New York: Addision-Wessley. Hayek, F. A. von 1944. The Road to Serfdom. With Forward by John Chamberlain. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jardin, L. 1999. Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution. New York: Doubleday. Jencks, C. 1994. The Homeless. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Putnam, R. 1994. Making Democracy Work. Princeton: University of Princeton Press. Rossi, P. 1989. Down and Out in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Schram, B. and Mandell, B. R. 1994. An Introduction to Human Services. New York: MacMillan. Wilson, J. Q. 1995. On Character. Washington, DC: AEI Press.
