Word: skinnerism
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Skinner begins the book with some extremely basic lessons in psychology. Behavior, he says, is the one result of conditioning, of negative and positive reinforces bringing about a series of responses known colloquially as behavior. Man has come to place great emphasis on two concepts--freedom and dignity--which are actually merely the result of a complex series of reinforcements. Freedom is an illusory concept, because no man is autonomous. The "free" man is at the mercy of his conditioning. Dignity is merely the absence of visible conditioning--we award more credit to a man who performs an act which...
Freedom and dignity are dangerous concepts, Skinner argues. They add nothing to human behavior and are very capable of detracting from it, especially when they conflict. So, for instance, professional soldiers reject new and sophisticated weapons, which free them from endangering their lives, but also take away from them the chance to gain recognition (dignity) by exhibiting bravery (a series of responses to reinforcements). The time has come, now that man is faced with the possibility of extinction through pollution, overpopulation, and war, to create a technology of behavior; this technology will organize the reinforcers to which men respond, attempting...
...what of the inner man? The inner man, says Skinner, the homunculus or spirit is like freedom and dignity, an illusion. It no more exists than angels, devils, and things that go bump in the night, but is simply and device to allow man to adjust his behavior to fit the demands of the culture in which he lives. Skinner's technology of behavior would not destroy the inner man, who never existed in the first place. And what if those who administer the controls in this technology use their power unwisely? Then, says Skinner, those whom they control will...
...Skinner's book seems nebulous, it is because the book is not a clarion call for a new society, only a whispered voice suggesting the possibility. If we may borrow once more from Dostoevsky, Skinner is not the architect of the Crystal Palace, merely a surveyor who says that the ground exists on which to build it. Nowhere in the course of the book does Skinner draw up a blueprint for the technology of behavior, he only states that it can be drawn up. In an unfortunate and telling comparison he likens the state of his technology to the state...
...before we consider the implications of a technology of behavior, we must consider whether one can be created. Skinner has summarized neatly and in very concise terms the extent of our knowledge of human behavior. Most of this knowledge has been gathered in the past hundred years. Can a species which took more than a thousand generations to fly from the ground learn all there is to know about its own nature in less than four? Nowhere in the book does Skinner prove that such a technology is feasible; we have only his word for it. At the moment...