a novel theory

Home ยป Walden Two

Patrick Merlevede @ 2002-03-18

Walden Two

$9.40
In this book Skinner presents his blueprint for a utopia based on behavioral sciences. While someone who is just looking for a entertaining story may be disappointed or even call this book boring, I'm pretty sure that you'll like it if you have some serious interest in Behaviorism or behavioral engineering. Even if I have a master in cognitive sciences, I didn't find Skinner's ideas *really* "incompatible" with what I know, even if much of it probably remains to be proven, but the only way to prove it would be to set up such a community. Some other reviews call it a communist model, but the book actually includes chapters pointing out the differences between fascist and communist models, and Skinner's analysis shows, some 40 years before the Berlin wall collapses why the Soviet Union wouldn't survive.

I wouldn't call this book "unscientific" or "outdated" as some other reviewers did. True, I would enjoy some footnotes to connect Skinner's ideas from this book to the rest of his writing and I'm wondering what would happen if we "upgraded" this book to take place in the modern internet society and taking into account all new things cognitive sciences and emotional intelligence have brought us over the 50+ years since this book has been written. This book will give you enough "food for thought".

...