Applied Sociology, Social Engineering, and Human Rationality

At this time social planning has come to be synonymous with technical forecasting. Because of this trend, the methods used by social planners are those of positive science. These methods, however, are not self-reflective, and are therefore naive about the epistemological assumptions which they inadvertantly advance. As a result of this epistemological naivete, many times the social planner is guided by methodological assumptions that are totally incongruent with the social world to which they are to be applied. This type of social forecasting is referred to as irresponsible social planning, in that it is not sensitive to the needs and values of the individuals to be surveyed. The result of this type of technical forecasting is the development of abstract plans that have little social relevance. In order to avoid this type of irresponsible planning, the social planner must be self-reflexive, so that social planning comes to be viewed as the self-motivated projection and monitoring of social desires. This type of selfmotivated planning is non-repressive and indicative of legitimate social management, and is the hallmark of the rational society. Only can social planning facilitate the growth of human rationality when it is guided by self-motivated goals. At this time the idea of "applied sociology" is receiving more and more attention by sociologists. This concept of "applied sociology" has assumed many variegated meanings. For example, to some sociologists the label "applied" is attached to those sociologists who earn their living in non-academic settings, while to others a sociologist is of the applied variety when he/ she employs the methods and knowledge accumulated by the discipline of sociology to solve or remedy a particular social problem. What both of these particular examples embody, however, is a differentiation that is either implicitly or explicitly present when the issue of applied sociology is discussed. That is, most all discussions of applied sociology make the distinction between pure theory and applied research, in that the applied sociologist is thought to no longer deal with pure theory, but instead is believed to be oriented toward more practical or real issues. This conclusion, however, leads to many serious misunderstandings, particularly when the idea of applied sociology is thought to be similar inintention to what is meant by the idea of social engineering. Social Engineering and Human Freedom The process of social engineering usually carries connotations of serious finality. The social engineer, because of his/her belief in absolute rationality, is thought to suppress social spontaneity. This is particularly the case when the social engineer uses the scientific method to determine social policy through the implementation of rigorous research strategies. This more "objective" procedure for regulating social activities is thought to deprive the social individual of his/her volitional capacity, thus resulting in the sterile unfolding of an artificially developed collective destiny. Modern technological development is usually viewed as the paragon of this type of social planning. Understood in this context, the intentions of the applied sociologist are many times thought to be highly suspect. Why, however, is it the case that systematic planning has come to be associated with repressive activities? Why has the idea of planning itself come to be viewed as an anti-humanistic activity? Or even more to the point, does the process of social planning have to be thought to compromise the freedom that is assumed to be indigenous to social life (Ballard, 1978; Ellul, 1964, Gorz, 1967; Habermas, 1979). My immediate answer to this latter query is obviously no, as should be noted from the rhetorical manner in which it is posed. Yet this answer must be elucidated further if the source of my conclusion is to be sufficiently clarified. Theory and Objectivity The origin of this confusion is the bifurcation that is thought to exist between pure theory and applied research. According to this typology, theory is thought to exist in some ethereal realm that is totally divorced from the exigencies of everyday life. Because of this it is always accorded a neutral status. Theories, therefore, are not thought to affect the social world in any way, but instead are understood to merely mimic what is presented as worldly or real. The obverse of this arrangement is that what is assumed to be worldly or real is viewed to be an inherent property of the world. The goal of scientific inquiry then is to somehow align a worldly fact to the theory which adequately explains it. Throughout this alignment.activity it is never believed that theory orients any search for facts, in that the presuppositions of any particular theory might actually define what eventually comes to be viewed as factual. Of course, the aforementioned portrayal of the bifurcation that is thought to exist between theory and practice is somewhat exaggerated, yet my point should be clear. That is, when it is not thought that theory shapes the world-view held by the planner, the so-called scientific view of the social planner may in fact labor to outline a planning option that is of no relevance to a particular community. This is simply due to the fact that the social planner might be inadvertantly advancing assumptions about what is thought to be relevant social action that are not at all similar to those held by the individuals to which all subsequent planning policies