Any government is 'engineering society'. Every time you craft a law, pass legislation, create a body to mandate and control things (FDA/FCC/FBI/EPA/whatever), you're engineering a change to society.

I think what is in your mind is some ruling body telling you what to think.

This isn't that. This is using an elected body, to effectively patch society to fix issues that exist therein. The Government is you. If it isn't, get a new Governmental system, or fix it, because something is very wrong.