ABSTRACT
Social engineering as an ideology is the pursuit of an idea to its logical end: the idea is Utopia on earth. The American intellectual, from the beginning, was of the conviction that the material as well as spiritual preconditions for a harmonious society was given, and that success or failure would ensue depending on the correct application of the blueprint, of the formula. C. Wright Mills's attack being the exception, the normal attitude is that the American intellectual admires and adopts the techniques of the dominant mentality, because he too wants to achieve the success he sees firmly established in other camps. The adoption of business slogans and attitudes creates among American intellectuals a basic service mentality. The obsession with "social motivation," with the need to justify individual action, thought, and originality by a preferably close-at-hand communal benefit is the major characteristic of the American intellectual.
