Word: skinnerism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...conditioning, would be gentle, peaceful and loving? Perhaps the most notable advocate of the "instinctivist" theory is Konrad Lorenz (On Aggression), co-winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Lorenz found instinctive aggression in animals and suggested that man is similarly programmed by evolution. Behaviorist B.F. Skinner, conversely, has long argued that man can be conditioned to forsake his violent ways. Now Erich Fromm, 73, social philosopher, psychoanalyst and bestselling author (The Sane Society, The Art of Loving), has written a new book, The Anatomy of Human Destruction (Holt, Rinehart & Winston; $10.95), that challenges both schools...
...Fromm does not agree with B.F. Skinner's plans for altering man through altering society. "Skinner," he writes, "recommends the hell of the isolated, manipulated man of the cybernetic age as the heaven of progress." According to Fromm, reinforcing peaceful behavior is not enough unless the reinforcers take into account Freud's discovery that the forces driving man are often unconscious. In spite of the emphasis he puts on man's passions and unconscious drives, Fromm believes that the most important determinant of a man's character is society. Echoing arguments he has sprinkled throughout...
...spite of the distinctions Fromm tries to make between his approach and Skinner's, he falls victim to his own criticisms of the behaviorists. As with Skinner, his recommendations that society change its "system of production, ownership and consumption" depend on faith in man's manipulability and desire to change...
Jenkins missed the free throw and two consecutive jumpshots, but set the stage for Skinner's second explosion. The All-Yankee-Conference forward went wild, hitting on a jumper, stealing the in-bounds pass, and scoring again on a twisting lay-up through three Crimson defenders...
...Skinner's second blow proved to be the death knell, putting the Minutemen out of Harvard's reach...