On Social Engineering

This year I am enrolled as a Graduate Diploma of Arts student at Victoria University, majoring in philosophy and also taking two religious studies papers. I am currently in the process of formulating an essay for my philosophy paper for Semester 1, Theories of Existence. Our lecturer, the enthusiastic Jay Shaw, has left essay topic choices wide open, so I have decided to try to focus on a topic most relevant to my own ambitions in philosophy.

The following is not my essay, but simply a reflection on why I am studying philosophy, and why I think that choice is important. The essay will probably focus on the way Plato relates ideas of existence, knowledge and "the good".


On Social Engineering

“It is a book about human life and the human soul or human nature, and the real question in it is, as Plato says, how to live best. What then is implied in calling it The Republic? To Plato one of the leading facts about human life is that it can only be lived well in some form of organised community, of which the Greeks considered the civic community to be the best form. Therefore the question, what is the best life? Is to him inseparable from the question, What is the best order or organisation of human society?” – Nettleship (1897), p3, 4


The metaphor of social engineering could be said to go at least back to Plato. Today such an image has connotations of socially liberal, left-wing ideology. But, of course, any political movement can be said to have social engineering as its aim.

When Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaimed in his famous Washington speech “I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be…And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be,” he spoke of a “single garment of destiny,” “an inescapable network of mutuality,” a “society” that was broken and torn, and in dire need of repair. His nation was trapped in a social psyche of embedded racism, and King helped lead that nation into a more human way of being. Just as engineers improve the faculty of an engine, King helped engineer a freer, more integrated, more coherent and more efficient society.


I grew up in a family with a strong affinity for the DIY, number 8 wire, can-do, fix-it, pioneering values of the old Kiwidom. My grandfather, W. A. "Sandy" Chesswas, was celebrated as an inventor, and he was always in his shed coming up with gadgets and schemes to make his farming enterprises more efficient, always looking to cut costs and save time. His most successful invention was the tumblewheel, used in breakfeeding throughout New Zealand and the European lowlands. Even when he retired he turned his mind to contraptions like the porridge stirrer for his microwave, and early models of the fold-out washing line.

But despite being born into such a practical family, as I progressed through secondary schooling it was very clear my own my skills were not so practical. I was not in any way inclined to DIY, or to working in construction or with machinery. By the end of my final year my high grades in English, Geography and History showed just how much more I was attuned more to the realm of the humanities, rather than agriculture, science or technology.

Yet while my grandfather was renowned as an inventor, he was also well-respected by family and by neighbours as a community man. He had worked hard to ensure the success of a cooperating church parish venture, Taranaki East Cooperating Parish, which involved people from a number of quite different Christian traditions. He was a loyal member of the local Rotary organisation, and my grandmother was a vital part of the Womens’ Division of Federated Farmers. Both did much in the way of visiting neighbours and parishioners, hosting nationals from other countries, and sustaining community life with a generous and warm-hearted hospitality. My grandfather also served on the Stratford County Council for three terms over a period of nine years. He showed that his aptitude for hard work and creativity was not confined to the farm and the shed, but that he could put it into practice equally for the good of the community.


As I was leaving childhood behind and entering my adult years I couldn’t help but notice the value of my grandfather’s social and political legacy moreso than his legacy as an “inventor”. This was certainly something I had in mind as I enrolled at Massey University and chose to apply my English, Geography and History skills to the field of Environmental Planning. I saw the planning programme at Massey and the work opportunities it would give me as a great window into local government and politics in general, which I held as a good ideal and aspiration for my future.

But I knew that knowledge of planning and politics would not be enough. When I enrolled at Massey I also signed up for a philosophy paper, as we were able to incorporate electives into our study. The subject of Philosophy had long appealed to me, because of the way it seemed to promise answers to those deeper questions of existence, identity, humanity and religion.

Enrolling in that paper was one of the best decisions I ever made, together with joining a church in Palmerston North and becoming a Christian. Over the course of that first semester, with the help of philosophy, I learnt to comprehend the essence of the Christian faith and thereby experienced a radical transformation of character and understanding. Philosophy taught me critical thinking skills by which I felt I could accurately analyse the validity of popular philosophical and social trends, and in doing so I understood the persuading nature and relevance of classical Christian truth claims. I found that the liberating power of God’s love and grace freed me from much of the fear, anxiety and impulsion that seriously impeded my ability to judge philosophical, social and political truth claims in a more objective manner. This was in stark contrast to what I had often heard about the impact of Christian thinking on intellectual life.

The practical implication of these changes I went through was that I discovered in myself a similar capacity for ingenuity and innovation that my grandfather possessed. In listening to a philosophical, theological or political idea or problem I could very quickly and succinctly sum up something of its essential nature, strengths and flaws. And more than that, I could actually offer solutions or alternatives that could clearly deliver more efficient, logical and integrating answers to the ideas or problems being addressed.

I very quickly observed that postmodernism, rather than being a dangerously fragmenting philosophy that stood to threaten all that western philosophy sand religion stood for, was instead providing a more human and democratic epistemology in the search for ontological truth. Such a framework could only serve to advance those traditions that are most truly historical and most deeply bonded to the human affections. Further, with its emphasis on the relational nature of truth and the importance of emotion, affection and creativity, such a framework would surely also give rise to those less “objective” but equally important dimensions of social and political thought – particularly ideas of love and worship with their vitally theological underpinnings. Such a philosophical climate would surely see the return of philosophy, spirituality and religion to the public square, and the death of a sterile and oppressive “secularism”.

These understandings seemed to simply come naturally, by ingenuity and innovation, rather than from reading them in a book. I do recall hearing Andrew Lim somewhere – maybe at MUCF on campus, or at CCC in town. As a philosopher-pastor (Grace Church) he was very good at demonstrating the relevance of Christianity in a postmodern world. Perhaps at this early stage I had already heard Nigel Dixon, another pastor (CCC) renowned for his lectures on postmodernism, who I later learnt much from when I joined his church.

But I feel no compulsion to explain these early revelations by exposure to other local Christian thinkers. I would sit up late at night for hours on end chatting to other philosophically-inclined types at university, none of whom were committed philosophically to the Christian faith. Yet in these conversations time and again I would further formulate my own thinking on Christian philosophy, in much the same way an inventor tampers away with parts and engines in his workshop.

All of this happened after I grasped what it meant to “lose my life that I might find it,” and to be “crucified with Christ” that I might “live in him.” This is the language Christians have used for two millennia to describe what happens when God’s grace touches a life so much that all which is self-centred and prejudiced against he who holds the world in himself is stripped away, and the very spirit that sustains the entirety of existence is allowed to rule one’s mind. It is little surprise that clarity of thought, and creative ingenuity and innovation, is the result, whether one’s field of engineering is mechanical or social.

My grandfather died in November at the end of that first academic year at university. Around the same time I had to choose a specialisation within my planning degree. I was so engrossed with philosophy and religion that I chose Sociology as my specialisation because it was as close as I could get to philosophy within a planning degree. As my grandfather passed from this world, leaving his inventive legacy, I concluded I would too be known for my inventiveness, but within the social realm, as a religious and political leader, rather than in the shed.


I’m not sure what it is that has always motivated my interest in leadership. Even as a toddler I was captivated by the story of Solomon, the Hebrew prince who asked for wisdom rather than long life or wealth, and was subsequently renowned for his wise judgments such as that of the quarrelling mothers. I, too, prayed that God would endow me with wisdom. And though most would recall the antics of Will Smith and little else from the television programme The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, what stood out for me was the wisdom and air of “Uncle Phil”, a court judge. As I watched that show regularly in the early 1990s, I couldn’t help but think that I should not be the only beneficiary of my ability to make good judgments, like Uncle Phil.

Why exactly I think my judgments could be any better than anyone else’s, and why they should have an influence on the public affairs of a community, still remains something of a mystery me. Perhaps I have always been conscious of my keen memory when it comes to people, my genuine interest in the welfare of others, and the joy I find in helping discover and sustain those things that draw us closer together, those things that inspire joy and love, empathy and compassion. Perhaps I have always backed the purity of my own motivations moreso than those of others – motivations grounded in a love for justice and generosity, for human expression and creativity, for freedom, for love, for the joy found in true community. Perhaps it’s not so much an air of superiority about my convictions and abilities, but merely a confidence my thoughts and ideas have value, and a willingness to offer them publicly. Just as an inventor applies his talents to create something new and offer it for public consumption – take it or leave it.

In an age where many are anxious to be free of anyone else’s idea of the good, of ethics, or of government, one cannot help but feel obliged to apologise for any ambition to be a social engineer. A 21st century philosopher’s moral sensibilities try in earnest to prevent him from concluding he has ideas about the good life that could be better than anyone else’s.


“The [Republic] may be regarded not only as a philosophical work, but as a treatise on social and political reform. It is written in the spirit of a man not merely reflecting on human life, but intensely anxious to reform and revolutionise it.” – Nettleship (1897), p6

Thankfully when I read Plato, the father of philosophy, I find that same spirit of social engineering, of social entrepreneurship. The remarkable intellect and consciousness of Socrates and Plato was provoked by the injustices and inefficiencies of Athens. Those injustices were apology enough for their confidence and willingness to present what they and centuries of leaders and scholars thereafter considered to be supreme ideas of the good. And as long as injustice and inefficiency remains in society, so too does an apology for conviction and leadership in matters philosophical and political. And as long as social engineering actually reflects the true nature of humanity, and increases levels of moral freedom, justice and love in human society, it need not be thought of in totalitarian or left-wing terms.