Source of book: I own this.
This was a present from a literary friend - we have shared book ideas for years, and also bonded over a mutual love of P. G. Wodehouse - so I definitely wanted to read it. But first, I had to read Walden, because, well, I wanted to get the references. It turns out that it was also good that I read The Magic Mountain, because there are a lot of references to that book as well.
My initial difficulty in writing about this book is the problem of genre. Is this book fiction or non-fiction? For that matter, are all books about utopias fiction? Or are they philosophy? And then, having asked that question, are most books of philosophy utopian fiction? As with anything that relates to philosophy, there are more questions than answers. I will proceed with this post without answering that question fully, although I will look at the questions a bit more closely.
In order to understand this book, it helps to know who Skinner was. In short, Skinner was one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th Century. Along with Ivan Pavlov, he is considered one of the founders of modern Behaviorism - the idea that behaviors are caused largely by environmental factors, and can be best changed by changing the inputs, so to speak. In the case of Skinner, he did not believe that free will existed - it is just an illusion that we all share, if a useful one in actually living a life without becoming paralyzed. This book leans heavily on this idea, as well as Skinner’s central goal for human thriving: by disincentivizing bad behavior and incentivizing good behavior, humans can be gently guided toward behaviors that benefit themselves and society.
I might say at the outset that, while I am not convinced Skinner is exactly right about all of this, he isn’t entirely wrong. Indeed, there is substantial evidence in favor of many of his ideas and techniques, and Skinner was all too accurate in his assessment that behaviorist techniques were already being used and abused by demagogues, charlatans, and advertisers.
In fact, a few of the techniques he describes are very much central to how cults and authoritarian religions work. There was one moment, in fact (which I will describe below) that was used to psychologically abuse children and women (and to a lesser degree adult males who were lower in the hierarchy) within Bill Gothard’s cult and others like it.
The question with any utopia, of course, is “does it work”? Skinner’s utopia, like every other fictional version, has never been actually implemented in practice. So in one sense, no utopia has ever worked. But in another sense, that misses the point. Whatever Skinner may have believed about setting up a literal utopian community (and he certainly writes as if he believed entirely in what he wrote), the ultimate success of fictional utopias is in how they expand our ideas of what is possible in human society. Ideas that seemed extravagant and impossible at one time can become first ideas of the possible, and eventually come true in reality. For example, the original Utopia by Sir Thomas More, now seems weirdly retrogressive in certain ways, because society has moved beyond his then-radical ideas. (Just one example: he envisioned a world where thieves were punished, but not executed. Here in the 21st Century, only lawyers and historians remember the old days of minor crimes resulting in hanging.) So, one might say that the ultimate success or failure of Skinner’s book will be in the extent to which his ideas are adopted - and benefit society.
In general, I found some of the features of Walden Two (the name of the utopian community, not just the book) to inspiring, while others seemed either poorly-thought-out or naive. A few (like the one mentioned above) were pretty horrifying, particularly since Skinner doesn’t seem to understand the emotional abuse inherent in the techniques.
First for the good part. Most utopias, from More’s on down, have started with a socialist premise: that property, income, and access to the necessities of life shouldn’t depend on wealth, but should be available to all. Yes, this seems increasingly viewed as radical, but it is actually the foundation of human society. So-called “primitive” societies usually organize themselves along these lines, in part because survival under harsh conditions requires mutuality rather than cutthroat competition and exploitation. Thus, the foundation of anything worth calling a Utopia is a certain leveling. Inequalities of all kinds are greatly reduced, and society is reorganized to benefit everyone, not just those with wealth and power.
Skinner uses a fairly similar idea to More when it comes to the question of relating work to the community. More required six hours a day of work, in exchange for the necessities being provided. Skinner, calculating modern productivity, figured around four hours would be sufficient. Furthermore, Skinner used a brilliant and modern method of figuring out how to make sure every necessary job got done. By calculating on the fly which jobs were least desired, his community was able to increase the “credits” for menial or unpleasant jobs while decreasing them for desirable jobs. So, cleaning the latrines got you done with your day’s work a lot faster than, say, preparing food. Or, whatever the actual supply and demand for jobs indicated the rates should be. In a computerized age, this might actually be practical - during the pandemic, many hospitals have set shift bonuses based on how many nurses they need to sign up for extra. Once the price gets high enough, enough people will sign up.
So, this seems like a legitimate solution to a problem that has existed in each society. Even each family. We tend to solve it by assigning chores, but if you have an essentially non-coercive government (like that in Walden Two), you have to leverage behavioral “nudges” instead, and I think that Skinner largely does this well.
In fact, many of the solutions that Skinner proposes for society are well thought out. He certainly identifies the problems with our current capitalist system: gross and increasing inequality, increased financial pressure on the young, environmental degradation, unnecessary wars.
I think too that Skinner’s impetus to write the book continues to be relevant. The first was his wife’s frustration with being limited to “housewife” by the various facets of the organization of society. She had limited opportunities, and the housework needed to be done. So, Skinner’s solution (as in most utopias) is to make the work of housekeeping - cooking, cleaning, clothing, childcare - communal. And, naturally, compensated, which is key. The second was the he felt caught between the need to make a living, and the desire to do what he wanted, specifically to make chamber music (hey, I am so down with that) and continue to learn. Thus, the idea of making breadwinning into a part-time occupation by essentially eliminating private profits and overconsumption, two things that continue to drive the “rat race” today.
Where he falls short, in my opinion, is where every utopia runs up against problems: what do you do with the people who, for whatever reason, do not fit the system well? These fall into several categories, I believe.
The arrangement of any utopia that is voluntary is that only those who wish to join - and are approved - become part of the utopia. And therein lies the problem of self-selection. It is the same one that confounds the question of public versus private schools, or indeed any grouping that divides society into the in group and the out group. At least in the case of Skinner’s version, it appears that the society deliberately courts working class people, and even those who have fallen through the cracks in society. This is admirable - and indeed a core Christian value - and I think it could work in practice. We have plenty of examples of impoverished communities joining together for the common good - think about the Hoovervilles of the Great Depression. But nonetheless, Walden Two, like More’s Utopia, seems to assume a carefully selected group of people, not just everyone in society.
So who tends to get excluded? Well, most utopias, including this one, don’t really look at the problem of the seriously and chronically ill. Not that our own society is so great at it, and to be fair to Skinner, his community pays its taxes for the infrastructure it benefits from. But I suspect many of the assumptions about the community only hold true because it aims for at least able bodied people.
Also striking is that Walden Two completely ignores the issue of race. Absolutely and completely. The characters are pretty obviously all white (their names and descriptions strongly indicate white middle class), and no mention of race or racism is ever made. Now, that doesn’t mean that one couldn’t have a multi-racial utopian community. But in practice, these communities have tended to be rather segregated. Involved here is a very similar problem to that of disability. Once those higher in the social hierarchy find themselves on a level, they often do not like it, and find ways of excluding others. It was disappointing that a book written during the Civil Rights Era took a complete hard pass when it came to race. Particularly since it proposed complete gender equality. This is also an oversight in light of the seemingly universal human tendency to seek status - a workable utopia would have to find a way to address that, and I think Skinner’s attempts fall flat in this book.
The final category of potentially excluded individuals is that of the ones that any successful community would have to find a way to deal with: narcissists. This is the nut that I think that no utopian community has cracked. And one that all societies seem to have struggled with. The problem is that narcissism is toxic to the wellbeing of society, yet is highly beneficial to the narcissist, because it appears to be a successful trait in bringing power and attention and wealth and status to the individual narcissist. (See: Trump, Donald; Gothard, Bill; and countless others throughout history.)
So how do you deal with narcissists? Logic indicates that the best approach would be to deny them money and power and attention - as Skinner would say, they need to experience negative consequences for narcissistic behavior and positive consequences for socially beneficial behavior. But how does one do that? That is truly one of the central questions of our time and of all times. And I don’t have an answer. I would have liked Skinner to address this, because, for all the good things about his proposed system, it seems incredibly vulnerable to narcissists. (In fact, the irony is that the more moral and decent people are, the less able they seem to be to recognize the sociopathy inherent to narcissists - they insist on ascribing the best of motives to the worst of behavior. I know this first hand from my own family.)
Thus, I think this is one of the greatest weaknesses of Skinner’s book, and also of his ideas. Most truly great ideas work well as applied to most people. But they also create vulnerability to the abuse that narcissists and sociopaths will inflict on everyone else, particularly those committed to mutuality, peace, and good will. Thus, great teachings such as non-violence, enemy-love, and other core tenets of the true Christian faith (not to be confused with the Republicanity and Ku Klux Klanity that wyte Evangelicalism is these days) are in a way utopian - a great inspiration and an indication of what is possible and what we should strive for…but are also an open invitation to abuse and destruction by the narcissists of the world. Any utopia that does not have a plan for identifying and dealing appropriately with sociopaths has a potentially fatal flaw.
One final comment on the flaws is this: Skinner very often deflects potential flaws by pointing out that society at large has the same flaws already, so why not try something new. I think Skinner knows this is problematic, so he kind of lets Frazier, the architect of the utopia, come across as a bit of an ass when he does this. There are two sides to this. Yes, society suffers the same problems that might afflict utopia, so criticism is hypocritical at best. And even a marginal improvement, as Skinner notes, is better than nothing. Still, I think Skinner deflects some valid criticism of his ideas this way, which does come across as irritating, at least to me.
Perhaps the best part of the set of ideas that Skinner proposes, however, is the idea of his utopia not as the outworking of ideology, but a work of scientific experiment - an ongoing one where ideas are tried and modified as necessary so that they work better and better, and adapt to changing circumstances. This pragmatism shows the extent to which William James influenced Skinner’s thinking. But it also is something greatly needed in our political - and religious - discussions today. Particularly on the right, it has become ideology the whole way down, rather than an acknowledgement that solving problems is difficult, hard work, and is also never-ending. As circumstances change, solutions change. And the point is to work together toward the common good, not become wedded to ideology. (I castigate the right wing for this, because they are the most ideological right now - but note that the Soviet Union and other Communist regimes also were highly ideological - to the point of religion, as Raymond Aron points out - and this adherence to ideology over pragmatism and flexibility literally starved millions. Ideology of all sorts kills.)
It is also easy to see how the experiment would appeal to so many. Women, being able to work at any profession or job and get compensated, without being accused of neglecting their kids, or alternately being chained to domestic duties, would likely find it very appealing. Those in menial, underpaid jobs would welcome better options, and an egalitarian society. And young couples (like one in the book) would welcome being able economically to marry before they turn 30. There is a lot of appeal in a more just, a more equitable, and a more egalitarian society, at least for those who aren’t at the top of the one we currently have.
Moving on to the meat of the book: Skinner writes the book as a novel, more or less. There is Frazier, kind of the stand-in for himself as he wishes he could be; Burris, perhaps representing the other side of Skinner, the professor who wants out of the rat race; and Castle, the unconvinced skeptic who serves as a foil for Frazier. There are also a handful of Burris’ students or former students who accompany him on his visit to Walden Two. Most of the book concerns their tour and long discussions with Frazier about how the commune is run.
Unfortunately, what this means is that a lot of the book - and I mean a lot - is taken up with discussions of every detail of Skinner’s ideas. The conversations feel more like lectures by a professor (um, anyone surprised?) than the sort of discussions real humans would have. Obviously, this is par for the course when it comes to utopias. It is the genre, so to speak. But it made the book a bit of a slog in places. Let’s just say that this is really non-fiction, written as fiction by someone who is not a fiction writer, and I think that is all that needs to be said about that.
Still, there are some good lines in the book, particularly if you take them as non-fiction, rather than literary. The preface was written 28 years after the original, and in it, Skinner revisits some of his ideas, which made for an interesting read. Here are a few quotes from that. This one could have been written today:
The world was beginning to face problems of an entirely new order of magnitude - the exhaustion of resources, the pollution of the environment, overpopulation, and the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, to mention only four. Physical and biological technologies could, of course, help. We could find new sources of energy and make better use of those we had. The world could feed itself by growing more nutritious grains and eating grain rather than meat. More reliable methods of contraception could keep the population within bounds. Impregnable defenses could make a nuclear war impossible. But that would happen only if human behavior changed, and how it could be changed was still an unanswered question. How were people to be induced to use new forms of energy, to eat grain rather than meat, and to limit the size of their families; and how were atomic stockpiles to be kept out of the hands of desperate leaders?
I also liked his point that our current capitalist system depends on overconsumption of disposable goods - which leads to both environmental issues and a need to work far more than we really need. Skinner’s response to those who claim that a reduction of consumption would “wreck the economy” is this:
By reducing the amount of goods we consume, we can reduce the amount of time we spend in unpleasant labor. The second appears to asset just the opposite: we must all consume as much as possible so that everyone can have a job. I submit that the first is more reasonable, even though the second is defended by many people today. Indeed, it might be argued that if America were to convert to a network of small communities, our economy would be wrecked. But something is wrong when it is the system that must be saved rather than the way of life that the system is supposed to serve.
He goes on:
A way of life in which each person used only a fair share of the resources of the world and yet somehow enjoyed life would be a real step toward world peace.
You don’t say. But Skinner is no Communist. In fact, he points out that Communism is as committed to endless “growth” as capitalism, and thus overconsumption and pollution. The end of the preface is excellent.
It is now widely recognized that great changes must be made in the American way of life. Not only can we not face the rest of the world while consuming and polluting as we do, we cannot for long face ourselves while acknowledging the violence and chaos in which we live. The choice is clear: either we do nothing and allow a miserable and probably catastrophic future to overtake us, or we use our knowledge about human behavior to create a social environment in which we shall live productive and creative lives and do so without jeopardizing the chances that those who follow us will be able to do the same.
So much for the non-fiction preface - it’s good. There are some fun moments in the novel too. Early on, when former student Steve visits Burris, he bemoans the lot of the professor.
What distressed me was the clear evidence that my teaching had missed the mark. I could understand why young and irresponsible spirits might forget much of what I had taught them, but I could never reconcile myself to the uncanny precision with which they recalled unimportant details. My visitors, returning at commencement time, would gape with ignorance when I alluded to a field that we had once explored together - or so I thought - but they would gleefully remind me, word for word, of my smart reply to some question from the class or the impromptu digression with which I had once filled out a miscalculated hour.
This is so true. And about parenting too. Burris also is frustrated that he seems to have no ability to effect change in society.
My new interest in social problems and my good will appeared to have exactly no effect whatsoever upon society. I could not see that they were of the slightest value to anyone.
Once the party has traveled to Walden Two, the real meat of the book begins. Burris finds himself entranced by much of what he sees, but in part by how attractive the women appear. Skinner explains this by way of Mrs. Meyerson, one of the residents.
“A great many women can be quite attractive,” said Mrs. Meyerson quickly. “Each in her own way. Here we are not so much at the mercy of commercial designers, and many of our women manage to appear quite beautiful simply because they are not required to dress within strict limits.”
This hits on two societal truths. First is that our system - based on overconsumption - requires a constant change in fashion to keep the money rolling in. Often this does result in people wearing what is only attractive on certain shapes. And yes, properly fitted clothing can increase attractiveness for both genders. But also, don’t forget that part of the social point of clothing is signal status. Making others look unattractive is part of the point. In the most extreme cases, of course, such as the Fundie cults my wife and I grew up in, is to make even young and nubile women look unattractive as possible, so that the undisciplined males don’t get boners. This is perhaps beyond the scope of Skinner’s book. He focuses on generally making status less of a goal of society, by providing positive feedback that isn’t based on looks or other status markers. For Skinner, this also means getting rid of advertising.
“It’s true, we enjoy a high standard of living,” said Frazier. “But our personal wealth is actually very small. The goods we consume don’t come to much in dollars and cents. We practice the Thoreauvian principle of avoiding unnecessary possessions. Thoreau pointed out that the average Concord laborer worked ten or fifteen years of his life just to have a roof over his head. We could say ten weeks and be on the safe side. Our food is plentiful and healthful but not expensive. There’s little or no spoilage or waste in distribution or storage, and none due to miscalculated needs. The same is true of other staples. We don’t feel the pressure of promotional devices which stimulate unnecessary consumption.”
So far, so good. The first point at which I found myself seriously disagreeing with Skinner came in a totally unexpected place. I mentioned that Skinner wanted to play chamber music. He actually writes this into the book later, where he as Frazier plays a (mediocre) piano as part of a quintet of far better players. So it was a surprise to read that at Walden Two most concerts are 50 minutes. And then, he goes on to defend this with the idea that nobody would ever attend two or three hour concerts if they hadn’t paid for them. Say what? And he also argues against concerts with more than one era represented, as the composer would never have intended that. Dude. Methinks you are a philistine. And also: concerts used to be even longer. Sure, I’m a musician, so I might be biased. But I also think that concert lengths represent what audiences want more than economic distortion. Should I insert a mediocre pianist joke here, maybe?
Moving on to something I can agree with again, here is Skinner’s thought about competition.
“But let’s be realistic. Each of us has interests which conflict with the interests of everybody else. That’s our original sin, and it can’t be helped.”
Skinner’s solution is to use social techniques to align the good of the individual with the good of society - or at least help people to perceive that they are in truth aligned.
It is later in the chapter that I started to get some really bad vibes, though. In describing the communal childrearing, things went from good - most children aren’t “wicked” but instead are tired and hungry and haven’t developed control of their emotions yet - to bad really quickly. The training techniques started to sound very much like the authoritarian fundamentalist control mechanisms that I experienced, and that are openly sold to evangelical parents. For example, the use of arbitrary rules that sounded kind of like “blanket training” but without the beating. Or the focus on eliminating all “negative” emotions. I wonder if Bill Gothard and the others stole this idea from Skinner and other behaviorists, perhaps? While I applaud Skinner’s realization that children don’t so much need to have their spirits broken (definitely the Fundie goal) as to have care that helps them learn and develop, I think he fails to understand how necessary “negative” emotions are to mental health. He also seems to have never considered that toxic positivity pervades our culture already, and forms a significant weapon in the arsenal of abusive people. (And narcissists in particular.) It is particularly problematic to suppress negative emotions in those who are lower in the social hierarchy - particularly children. In such cases, the objection to negative emotions is more for the comfort and convenience of those in authority. This is one reason why white conservatives get all terrified by protesting minorities - that is, minorities expressing “negative” emotions. Better to have those “happy negroes” right? And so it is in Fundie families. Certain “negative” emotions, particularly when expressed by certain people, are seen as a threat, and suppressed and punished and viewed as signs of evil, when in reality, they are a warning sign of unhealthy relationships and circumstances.
Another unexpected parallel to my former subculture is that of what we call “unschooling.” In Walden Two, kids essentially learn what they want to learn, without a rigid curriculum. This has been one of the experiments of certain approaches to homeschooling. As I have stated elsewhere on this blog, I was homeschooled from second grade on, initially because of my poor health, but also because I did pretty well with it. However, I was homeschooled in an academically rigorous manner. In theory, “unschooling” is giving kids the freedom to learn what they want, follow their passions, and so on. Most homeschoolers have some degree of this - that is, after all, the point for many of us. Less busy work, more time to learn cool stuff. In practice, though, this can easily turn into “mom and dad don’t remember algebra or biology, so we just skip that.” And hence you have far too many kids who get to college age and are grossly deficient in math and science. Not that this doesn’t happen in public schools too, of course. But it is a particular risk of the “unschooling” approach. Our kids have had a hybrid of homeschool and other programs, but we have (like my parents) always insisted on mastery of core subjects, particularly math, before the fun exploration. It is a balance.
Also related is the idea of “teaching only the techniques of learning and thinking.” This is a bit of a trigger for me, because this is a great example of “newspeak” in Fundie circles. They claim to want to teach their kids critical thinking - how to learn and think for themselves. Sometimes, this is what happens - and then, because they have naively assumed that critical thinking will only apply to those other ideas, and never to Fundie dogma - they lose their shit when the kids actually do think for themselves, and reject obviously false and evil beliefs. What Fundies generally mean by “think critically” is “reject any ideas that conflict with our dogma” - so “teaching how to learn and think” in Fundiespeak is really “teach our kids to hate and fear anyone who believes differently than us.” Honestly, I take a good deal of satisfaction in the fact that it was ultimately graduates from my alma mater that took Bill Gothard down.
I don’t want to create the impression that I disagree with Skinner entirely here. I certainly have aimed with my own kids to teach them how to learn and think - and they indeed can. But I also believe that one of the requirements for kids - or anyone - to learn how to think critically and become a life-long learner is a solid background in the basics - math and science particularly - but also the arts, literature, history, social studies.
Also fascinating is Skinner’s approach to sex. He believed there was nothing unwholesome about it, and that it didn’t need rigid controls. Rather, he believed that artificial delays to sex and marriage were unhealthy - particularly those imposed by economic necessity. (Although he doesn’t say it, it wasn’t until his lifetime that more young males had their first sexual experience with a peer, rather than in a brothel….) He also considered the “competition for mates” thing to be an unhealthy cultural trait.
“Promiscuous aggression is no more natural than quarrelsomeness, or an inclination to tease, or jovial backslapping. But if you insist on making sex into a game or hunt before you let it become serious, how can you expect a sane attitude later on?”
Skinner also raises the question of how much of the failure of earlier marriages is due to immaturity, versus how much is due to the economic stress placed on young people. I have no great answer to this one - I’m not a big fan of early marriage (for personal and professional reasons), but I also got married at 24, to a 21 year old, and we both were decidedly mature enough for marriage. We also had a stable financial situation fairly early, though, which not all young parents have.
I think Skinner was more right than anyone realized at the time when it came to sex too. Remember, this was written before Roe v. Wade, a decade commonly available oral contraception, and generally before the sexual revolution. (1948) The evidence is now strong that teen pregnancy is reduced dramatically by three things: (1) Easily available and affordable contraception (2) Scientifically accurate sex education, and (3) Consent-based sex education. And guess what? These three things also significantly delay the age of first intercourse. So, with Skinner’s plan for early sex education, gender equality, and an insistence on consent, there actually would be a lot fewer cases of intercourse too early.
I have to say, the chapter on gender relations is really good. Skinner makes a powerful argument in favor of gender equality, including absolute freedom for both to choose their work. Castle, ever the retrogressive, starts making arguments that sound so very, very familiar to me from my former subculture. Frazier points out that even in the United States - back then one of the more progressive countries - very few women had the “economic independence and cultural freedom of American men.” And how about this?
“What does the ordinary middle-class marriage amount to? Well, it’s agreed that the husband will provide shelter, clothing, food, and perhaps some amusement, while the wife will work as a cook and cleaning woman and bear and raise children. The man is reasonably free to select or change his work; the woman has no choice, except between accepting and neglecting her lot. She has a legal claim for support, he has a claim for a certain type of labor.
“To make matters worse, we educate our women as if they were equal, and promise them equality. Is it any wonder they are soon disillusioned? The current remedy is to revive the slogans and sentiments which have made the system work in the past. The good wife is told to consider it an honor and a privilege to work in the kitchen, to make the beds every day, to watch the children. She is made to believe that she is necessary, that she has the care of her husband’s happiness and health and also her children’s. That’s the stock treatment of the neurotic housewife: reconcile her to her lot! But the intelligent woman sees through it at once, no matter how hard she wants to believe. She knows very well that someone else could make the beds and get the meals and wash the clothes, and her family wouldn’t know the difference. The role of mother she wants to play herself, but that has no more connection with her daily work than the role of father with his work in the office or factory or field.”
Mic drop. Yes, that is exactly how intelligent women tend to feel - my wife as well as Skinner’s. And the Fundie approach is this absurd glorification of the role-playing, and the complaint that “secular society” somehow “devalues women” by not worshiping at the altar of the Stay-At-Home-Mom™. As a legal colleague of mine put it, fathers are permitted - indeed expected - to neglect their children if working three jobs is the way to keep the bills paid. But heaven forbid a woman work one. And Skinner is right - what this is really about is who cooks and cleans, not about some magical mystical “motherhood.” It is about a social expectation that women are to do unpaid drudge work. I won’t say our family is perfect, but we do have the expectation that ALL of us contribute to the cooking and cleaning in some way.
Also outstanding was Skinner’s statement on the reason many resist a system based on mutuality. In this case, it is Rodger’s epiphany about the meaning of inequality and unrestrained capitalism.
“They don’t seem to realize how almost any other kind of life means unhappiness for somebody somewhere. Just so long as they’re happy, they don’t care. They don’t seem to see the trouble coming.”
That, in a nutshell, is why I can’t really discuss politics with right wingers right now. They don’t care who else is hurt, as long as they get theirs. Hence the constant fearmongering that universal health care is “evil socialism” and would lead to the gulags for sure…..despite the fact that the rest of the first world has it, and….no gulags. (Meanwhile, the US has concentration camps for immigrants…) Skinner really nails it with this, even if I don’t see an easy behaviorist solution for this problem.
That kind of leads into another fascinating conversation. As time goes on, Castle becomes increasingly frustrated, and starts pushing back at Frazier more belligerently. He asks if the safest way of continuing the community wouldn’t be to indoctrinate the kids, rather than leave their educations to their own explorations. I love Frazier’s response, and really wish I could convince my former tribe of its truth.
“It would be the safest way of assuring failure. It would be a fatal mistake. Nothing but the truth, that’s our rule. No one can doubt the possibility of raising loyal members of almost any sort of community. The techniques have long since proved their worth. Look at the religious cultures which have perpetuated themselves for centuries by rearing children to ways of life which seem to us to violate every human instinct….Can’t you see what is wrong with the indoctrinated communities you’ve just mentioned? What’s their most conspicuous characteristic? Isn’t it simply that they don’t change? They’ve been the way they are now for centuries?...If these communities have survived, it’s only because the competition hasn’t been keen. It’s obvious to everyone that civilization has left them behind. They haven’t kept up with human progress, and they will eventually fail in fact as they have already failed in principle. Their weakness is proved by their inability to expand in competition with other forms of society. They have fatal defects, and I submit that the defects have not been seen because of overpropagandizing.”
Yeah, sure, the Amish (to use one example) have survived. But they have shrunk. And they also require that most of the young people leave, because the lifestyle is not sustainable unless the land remains unsubdivided - they can’t exactly afford to buy more of it. Ultimately, failure to adapt and grow will mean failure. The decades of propaganda have covered over the internal rot, but the competition is winning.
As the book comes to its climax, Castle accuses Frazier of being a fascist (pretty ironic, honestly), even as it becomes clearer that Frazier may have set up the community, but really doesn’t have any desire for power at all. His arrogance consists in the fact that he thinks he has been more benevolent than God in the situations he has (so to speak) “played god.” And he isn’t wrong. (The discussion takes place over a few chapters, so it is really too long to quote.) There are some fascinating ideas near the end of the book, which I decided to quote.
“In a sense, Walden Two is predetermined, but not as the behavior of a beehive is predetermined. Intelligence, no matter how much it may be shaped and extended by our educational system, will still function as intelligence. It will be used to puzzle out solutions to problems to which a beehive would quickly succumb. What the plan does is to keep intelligence on the right track, for the good of society rather than of the intelligent individual - or for the eventual rather than of the immediate good of the individual. It does this by making sure that the individual will not forget his personal stake in the welfare of society.”
Frazier also defends the use of behaviorist techniques, in part because they (like nuclear weapons) won’t simply go away if good people ignore them - they just fall into unscrupulous hands. As we have ample evidence of today.
“I think I would dump your science of behavior in the ocean.”
“And deny men all the help you could otherwise give them?”
“And give them the freedom they would otherwise lose forever!”
“How could you give them freedom?”
“By refusing to control them!”
“But you would only be leaving the control in other hands.”
“Whose?”
“The charlatan, the demagogue, the salesman, the ward heeler, the bully, the cheat, the educator, the priest - all who are now in possession of the techniques of behavioral engineering.”
This is the unfortunate reality. With the exception of the educator - and the Right Wing is trying to control them too - all of those have been used over the last few decades to turn a significant portion of our society against the very idea of the common good, to stoke a sense of grievance (racial, religious, gender) among the most privileged classes, and the result is that charlatan, demagogue, salesman, bully, and fraud rising to the highest office despite gross incompetence and no actual ideas beyond the culture wars. The techniques have been effective indeed, at least among those susceptible to them.
I’ll mention another rather damning comment from Frazier here:
“The history of the Christian Church doesn’t reveal many cases of doing good to one’s enemies. To inoffensive heathens, perhaps, but not enemies. One must look outside the field of organized religion to find the principle in practice at all. Church governments are devotees of power, both temporal and bogus.”
Yep. That is exactly what church governments are all about. Which is why we are so beyond done with organized religion. There is no morality left there at all - just a lust for power and a desire to harm and destroy those who are different.
Near the very end, an incident with a flock of sheep triggers a claim by Castle that the behaviorist approach doesn’t even work with sheep. Frazier counters with both an explanation - and eventually a demonstration that even for sheep, guidance is more effective than punishment.
“Society isn’t likely to convert to positive reinforcement in the control of its sheep,” I said impatiently.
“It couldn’t,” he replied seriously. “It couldn’t convert because it’s not raising sheep for the good of the sheep. It has no net positive reinforcement to offer. Nothing short of an insurmountable fence or frequent punishment will control the exploited.”
And, regarding the use of a sheep dog:
“The cooperation of man and dog is very different from the slavery of man and beast. When will the society of man and man be classed with the former instead of the latter?”
That’s a good question, isn’t it? I agree with Skinner in this: you cannot reconcile the use of positive reinforcement with exploitation. There is no net positive for the exploited, so all that is left is brutality. Keep that in mind when you think of the use of police violence against the poor. Or really any case where constant negative reinforcement is being used. Is the relationship one of equals? Or is it exploitation - some form of slavery?
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the book. I think it has its flaws - Skinner is not a storyteller, but a utopian dreamer, although more practical than most. I think he overestimates the effectiveness of his techniques, particularly when it comes to narcissists and others with sociopathic tendencies. But he diagnoses many of our societal ills well, and offers some actual ideas for how to address them. Like all good utopias, the point is not a literal re-creation, but the adaptation of the best ideas to our own challenges, and an expansion of what we see as possible.
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