A Pharaoh Who Did Not Know >>

I had an argument a while back about social engineering with a fellow UGA alum. He exhorted to me the virtues of government-run social change, and we never reached a full understanding. As always, I respect your opinions, but I think you were dead wrong.

Ok Mel, maybe I am being a little rigid…

Social engineering does work, but it works best outside of government. Government, laws, and edicts issue forth from the ideas and demands of the current culture of the people. The government can only hope to enforce those attitudes. Despite all of this, minority interest groups ceaselessly extol the virtues of social engineering. From education to the corporate workforce, from income to religion, from illegal immigrants to citizens, and from men to women, all of these sectors of American society fall prey to the lingering assumption that deep-seated social dilemmas can be resolved through legislations and government programs. I put forth that social engineering does occur, but it does not originate from government. Social engineering is ultimately a product of social changes and movements in a society, by a society, and for a society. These movements orbit around, and impel movement in, concerned governments. MLK, for example, started his movement out of the American black church, a non-government and religious institution.

In education, military, and the labor force, all of these measures have a wonderfully good intent, but poor execution and architecture. The flaw is that there is an unclear metric for success. Additionally, an advantage put to one man is a disadvantage put to another man. What sense is there in pursuing equality if you are simply shifting the hurt? Is America not a meritocracy? Lastly and most importantly, these programs impose long-term mechanisms often outliving both congresses and presidential administrations. And thus newer elected officials lack the institutional memory and personal incentives to remove equalizing mechanisms once they complete their intended objectives. That is, of course, assuming that we have a clear idea that we’ve met the objectives.

In the Book of Exodus, social engineering’s Biblical cradle sows the seeds of its eternal failure. After Joseph secures his people to settle in the Land of Goshen, an Egyptian province, the Pharaoh let the Hebrews live in peace based upon a well-intended pact he forged with them; they would guard his province from invaders and he would allow them to live there as his subjects. This is essencially the model that leftwing outfits like “La Raza” (the Race) and other hyphenators use in devising immigration and naturalization policy. This is a policy that does not require full integration into a society and allows “nations within nations.” A few generations pass and, as Exodus put it: “Then a new king, who did not know about Joseph, came to power in Egypt. ‘Look,’ he said to his people, ‘the Israelites have become much too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them or they will become even more numerous and, if war breaks out, will join our enemies, fight against us and leave the country.’”

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My point in all this? However sincere a socially curative mechanism is, there is little to determine if, in fact, that that goal has been reached, and if so, to have the strength of will to then take that mechanism out of play. Clearly, the Pharaoh that Joseph knew wanted to use the Israelites to create a buffer state that would inhibit invaders and pay fealty, but his “country within a country” model of non-assimilation and isolation had no clear long-term metric for assessing the adequate troop strength that would be required of the Hebrews to defend Egypt, and also lacked the foresight to realize how numerous the Hebrews could become. Instead of asking them to leave or taking steps to assimilate them, the newer, more iron-fisted Pharaoh foisted a reversal of the old policy (perhaps feeling his hand was forced by older regimes), and perhaps his society came to depend on it. He even escalated it by turning many to slavery, which is not unlike Plato’s suggestions towards state-created and recognized worker classes. The Hebrews were clearly a sizable force to be reckoned with, and the goal of the first Pharaoh was obviously met, in spite of its threat to Egypt! How wasteful! Now the new boss has to resort to enslaving the Jewish people just to maintain a status quo! The weakness in almost any social engineering program is that it attempts to create a new status quo, and then it becomes an element in the new status quo itself, burrowing in like a tick that refuses to relinquish its prime location. Some will aver there was no slavery in Egypt, but that is another argument for another day. What sticks in my mind is how the Hebrews spoiled Egypt when they finally left.

Social engineering never gives the consequences we expect. And if it indeed makes a breakthrough, there is no iron-clad guarantee that policy makers will remove said mechanism.

As another example of failed social engineering, we can look at the gender gap in college graduation and see a glaring failure of policymakers to remove an equalizing mechanism from generations that no longer require it. At one time in American history, women were domestic and men were the academics. That changed—and wonderfully so—with the feminist revolution’s spur for gender equality in education. Mechanisms such as affirmative action were instituted in order to realize this. Years later, that objective has been not only met, but exceeded at the expense of young men, who engage in college pursuits much less and are ineligible for foundational scholarships because no foundations wish to be called sexist. Same is true for K-12, as most teaching methods have morphed from trying to get women out of the home to simply alienating young boys. Any new political figure deciding to remove these mechanisms and retool America’s educational system for a modern standard would be branded a sexist at worst, and at the very least would gain little traction in a newer generation more concerned with “tomorrow’s issues” instead of yesterday’s unfinished business. There is every incentive to put in a mechanism and cut the ribbon in front of a random ediface, but little rigor in later re-tying it when it outlives its usefulness. Not as photogenic.

Each social engineering program will be instituted by a pharaoh for an intended solution, and then left in place or mismanaged by a newer pharaoh who “does not know Joseph.” Each new congress is baptized of its older duties and neglects to finish a job—bang-up job—that social engineering began. >>