An interesting - but often underappreciated - aspect of B.F. Skinner's work was its idealistic undertones. He saw psychology as a "technology of behavior" that could re-engineer society in service of social justice & well-being. A 🧵...
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While having dinner in 1945 with a friend whose son-in-law was stationed in the South Pacific, Skinner lamented that young people would likely fail to experiment with new ways of structuring society when they returned home from WWII.
(excerpt from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/BF03392195.pdf)
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Having long aspired to be a novelist, in 1948 he published "Walden Two", about a fictional utopian community where every experience was carefully designed, controlled, and informed by behavioral engineering principles.
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Depending on your perspective, you may see it more as dystopian. Nevertheless, it captured the imagination of many young people eager to build a better society. (excerpts from Walden Two below)
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As a young psychology major, my mom wrote to B.F. Skinner, curious if he planned to follow through on turning the ideas of "Walden Two" into a reality. Here's his letter back. (And to think that many of us today think we're too busy to reply to e-mails!)
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During the 1960s & 70s, Walden Two inspired the establishment of about three dozen experimental communities. The most famous is Twin Oaks, which still exists today. https://www.twinoaks.org/about-twinoaks-community/welcome
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Although Walden Two was the inspiration for Twin Oaks, it is now just one of several influences. This 1973 account of a visit there may have clues for how the ideals of Walden Two mesh & don't mesh with human nature. What do you think? https://bit.ly/3xhDJme 
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