Social Engineering
Thursday, July 26, 2012 - 14:20
in Psychology & Sociology
Prior to World War II and dating back to the 1890s, the phrases “social technology” and “social engineering” carried strong connotations of central planning. This became particularly true in the Soviet Union, where the terms appeared in many tracts. Some tangentially related usages appeared in the West, in treatises of applied psychology and social work.Karl Popper’s The Poverty of Historicism (1957) carefully substituted an opposite meaning to “social technology” (though he credits a correspondent with introducing him to the phrase). read more