I don’t know where to start with this. I’ve started this post about 5 times now and wound up in the weeds every time. Let’s try again:

This novel is kind of a manifesto by (in)famous psychologist B.F. Skinner, describing a utopia based on his theory that free will is an illusion and we’re simply a product of our inputs. It’s told largely as a conversation between Dr. Frazier, the chief thinker behind Walden Two, and some visitors, as they spend a few days learning about the community.

The community itself is diligently managed, and children are raised to be productive, peaceful and compliant adults – who consume only what they need and live very simple lives (hence the Thoreau reference).

I loved this as a kind of historical document – it’s a picture of society at a very specific moment. It was written in 1945, before the prosperous Pleasantville era of the 1950’s, the war barely in the rear-view mirror, and psychology was having a moment thanks to Freud and his contemporaries.

The utopia he invents is hilariously bad – his assumption that somehow as humans we could remove competitiveness, envy, and spite (and therefore crime) from our wiring by carefully controlling all outside influences starting at birth. He thinks that removing worries from life will make people reject alcohol and other substances. If we don’t have sports, we won’t have hero worship. It’s unclear how they’ll deal with resentful short guys, or unattractive people, or someone who’s just a natually ungifted (or any number of genetic-lottery-related difference that diminishes someone’s superficial desirability).

The visitors raise objections and ask extremely softball questions, like plants in a friendly press conference, and objections are overcome without any follow-up.

It all boils down to something that feels like the origin story for any number of dystopias, from The Hunger Games to Parable of the Sower. Skinner (humble as he was) added it to a Psych 101 class he taught at Harvard, along with Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Somewhere in there he knew it was too good to last.

It also seems to be the plan for all kinds of real-life horror, from Jamestown, The Ivy Ridge Schools, Scientology to any number of cults. I imagine it’s as much a part of the Peter Thiel playbook as Atlas Shrugged. It wouldn’t have surprised me if this inspired the ridiculous Seasteading idea. Numerous real-world communities have been tried over the years (with an almost 100% failure rate, imagine that).

The last surprising thing for me was Skinner’s commitment to the bit – my copy has a foreword written in 1973, where Skinner doubles down on these ideas, though with the hedge that it’s all about ‘experimenting’. While Skinner may have been an influential thinker in his chosen field, in the foreword he shows that he had zero understanding of how other things work – his theories about economics, politics, and the value and purpose of cities is laughable.

It’s a short book and one I will read again, but the idea that it has anything to offer in 2024 is bonkers.

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