B.F Skinner - "We Can't Afford Freedom."

 

The psychologist B.F. Skinner (1904-90), who is associated with the theory of 'Behaviorism', is not a person that I particularly care for. Nevertheless, his theories of human behaviour have been extremely influential in the field of psychology. He believed that 'free will' was an illusion and that all human behaviour was determined by our environment and could be conditioned, controlled, and manipulated, by a system of rewards and punishments. One of his favourite experimental animals, was the pigeon, which he placed in the "Skinner box." He even taught pigeons how to play ping-pong. His utopian novel called 'Walden Two', published in 1948, describes a fictional utopian society in which people are trained to become ideal citizens through the use of 'operant conditioning'. 

The book derives its title from Henry David Thoreau's book also called 'Walden', which espoused the virtues of self reliance at the individual level. Members of Skinner's fictional utopian society, believe that they are exercising free will, but in reality, they are part of a dystopian psychological experiment that is controlling their behaviour. Skinner believed in the rule of the expert - 'technocratic rule'. He wrote: " We must delegate control of the population as a whole to specialists - to police, priests, teacher's, therapists, and so on, with their specialized reinforcers and their codified contingencies." I'm sure many authoritarians would welcome this. Many governments are already using 'Nudge theory', as a means to drive behavioural change in individuals and groups.

In later life, Skinner published books suggesting that society's emphasis on autonomy and individual freedom, were the source of many of its ills. He argued that a more scientific approach to society could eliminate war, crime, punishment, and other forms of social strife. Skinner's critics, argued that his approach dehumanized people by neglecting their personal freedom by seeking to control their actions. In the 1970s, Skinner was hanged in effigy outside the Psychology Department at Indiana University with these words attached to the effigy - "BF SKINNER, WE CAN'T AFFORD FREEDOM."

Radical psychologist, Thomas Szasz, who reviewed Skinner's book 'On Behaviorism' which was published in 1974, wrote: "I believe that those who rob people of the meaning and significance they have given to their lives, kill them, and should be considered murders, at least metaphorically. B.F. Skinner is such a murderer. Like all such murderers he fascinates, especially his victims."