Beyond Freedom and Dignity - B.F. Skinner
“Twenty-five
hundred years ago it might have been said that man understood himself as well
as any other part of his world. Today he is the thing he understands least.”
(Pg 5)
“The task of
a scientific analysis is to explain how the behavior of a person as a physical
system is related to the conditions under which the human species evolved and
the conditions under which the individual lives.” (Pg 15)
“Freedom is
a matter of contingencies of reinforcement, not of the feelings the
contingencies generate.” (Pg 37-38)
“People have
been admired for submitting to danger, hard labor, and pain, but almost
everyone is willing to forgo the acclaim for doing so.” (Pg 57)
“The problem
is to induce people not to be good but to behave well.” (Pg 67)
“Any move
toward an environment in which men are automatically good threatens
responsibility.” (Pg 73)
“Although
people object when a scientific analysis traces their behavior to external
conditions and thus deprives them of credit and the chance to be admired, they
seldom object when the same analysis absolves them of blame.” (Pg 75)
“Our task is
not to encourage moral struggle or to build or demonstrate inner virtues. It is
to make life less punishing and in doing so to release for more reinforcing
activities the time and energy consumed in the avoidance of punishment.” (Pg
81)
“They cannot
now accept the fact that all control is exerted by the environment and proceed
to the design of better environments rather than of better men.” (Pg 82)
“No one
directly changes a mind. By manipulating environmental contingencies, one makes
changes which are said to indicate a change of mind, but if there is any
effect, it is on behavior.” (Pg 92)
“When we say
that a value judgment is a matter not of fact but of how someone feels about a
fact, we are simply distinguishing between a thing and its reinforcing effect.”
(Pg 104)
“We tend to
associate a culture with a group of people. People are easier to see than their
behavior, and behavior is easier to see than the contingencies which generate
it.” (Pg 131)
“Both the
species and the behavior of the individual develop when they are shaped and
maintained by their effects on the world around them. That is the only role of
the future.” (Pg 142)
“Designing a
culture is like designing an experiment; contingencies are arranged and effects
noted. In an experiment we are interested in what happens, in designing a
culture with whether it will work. This is the difference between science and
technology.” (Pg 153)
“A failure
is not always a mistake; it may simply be the best one can do under the
circumstances. The real mistake is to stop trying.” (Pg 156)
“We have the
physical, biological, and behavioral technologies needed “to save ourselves”;
the problem is how to get people to use them.” (Pg 158)
“It is
science or nothing, and the only solution to simplification is to learn how to
deal with complexities.” (Pg 160)
“We are
closer to human nature in a baby than in an adult, or in a primitive culture
than in an advanced.” (Pg 196)
“His
abolition has long been overdue. Autonomous man is a device used to explain
what we cannot explain in any other way. He has been constructed from our
ignorance, and as our understanding increases, the very stuff of which he is
composed vanishes.” (Pg 200)
“We have not
yet seen what man can make of man.” (Pg 215)
Walden Two - B.F. Skinner
“In spite of
our lip service to freedom, we do very little to further the development of the
individual.” (Pg xii)
“You see, we
want to do something – we want to find out what’s the matter with people, why
they can’t live together without fighting all the time. We want to find out
what people really want, what they need in order to be happy, and how they can
get it without stealing it from somebody else.” (Pg 4)
“The main
thing is, we encourage our people to view every habit and custom with an eye to
possible improvement. A constantly experimental attitude toward everything –
that’s all we need.” (Pg 25)
“Going out
of style isn’t a natural process, but a manipulated change which destroys the
beauty of last year’s dress in order to make it worthless.” (Pg 28)
“The mob
rushes in where individuals fear to tread.” (Pg 37)
“What we ask
is that a man’s work shall not tax his strength or threaten his happiness.” (Pg
69)
“When there
are no signs ten feet high, five feet will do. When there are none five feet
high, one foot serves well enough. It isn’t the color or brightness or size of
a poster which makes it exciting. It’s the experiences which have accompanied
similar posters in the past.” (Pg 77)
“A piece of
music is an experience to be taken by itself.” (Pg 78)
“’Something
doing every minute’ may be a gesture of despair or the height of the battle
against boredom.” (Pg 79)
“You can’t
encourage art with money alone.” (Pg 80)
“How close
have we ever got to making the most of our genes?” (Pg 83)
“What was a
golden age, anyway? What distinguished it from any other? The difference might
be fantastically slight. Some extra shade of personal stimulation. Time to
think. Time to act. Some trivial enlargement of opportunity. Appreciation.
Liberty. Equality. And yes, of course, fraternity.” (Pg 85)
“Now,
‘everybody else’ we call ‘society.’ It’s a powerful opponent, and it always
wins. Oh, here and there an individual prevails for a while and gets what he
wants. Sometimes he storms the culture of a society and changes it slightly to
his own advantage. But society wins in the long run, for it has the advantage
of numbers and of age. Many prevail against one, and men against a baby.
Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless. It enslaves him almost
before he has tasted freedom.” (Pg 95)
“No one asks
how to motivate a baby. A baby naturally explores everything it can get at,
unless restraining forces have already been at work. And this tendency doesn’t
die out, it’s wiped out.” (Pg 114)
“Chaos
breeds geniuses. It offers a man something to be a genius about.” (Pg 116)
“The world
will never be wholly known, and man can’t help trying to know more and more of
it.” (Pg 116)
“It’s a
handy thing, this experimental attitude, the scientist can be sure of himself
before he knows anything. We philosophers should have thought of that.” (Pg
120)
“If you
insist on making sex into a game or hunt before you let it become serious, how
can you expect a sane attitude later on.” (Pg 122)
“We all know
what’s good, until we stop to think about it.” (Pg 146-147)
“What is the
‘original nature of man’? I mean, what are the basic psychological
characteristics of human behavior – the inherited characteristics, if any, and
the possibilities of modifying them and creating others.” (Pg 162)
“The simple
fact is, our civilization puts no value on rest.” (Pg 165)
“I dare say
we ought to admire David as he goes forth to meet Goliath, but the pathetic
thing is – he wants to be Goliath.” (Pg 181)
“The zealot
always thinks he knows what’s fair, and justifies his aggression accordingly.”
(Pg 216)
“Nothing
confuses our evaluation of the present more than a sense of history.” (Pg 244)
“To some
things we are indifferent. Other things we like – we want them to happen, and
we take steps to make them happen again. Still other things we don’t like – we
don’t want them to happen and we take steps to get rid of them or keep them
from happening again.” (Pg 244)
“I insist
that Jesus, who was apparently the first to discover the power of refusing to
punish, must have hit upon the principle by accidence. He certainly had none of
the experimental evidence which is available to us today, and I can’t conceive
that it was possible, no matter what the man’s genius, to have discovered the
principle from causal observation.” (Pg 245)
“Voting is a
device for blaming conditions on the people. The people aren’t rulers, they’re
scapegoats. And they file to the polls every so often to renew their right to
the title.” (Pg 250)
“But which
comes first, the hen or the egg? Men build society and society builds men.
Where do we start?” (Pg 257)
“A
government in power can’t experiment. It must know the answers or at least
pretend to know them.” (Pg 258)
“When has a
scientific discovery ever made things easy? It may clarify some former
obscurity or simplify a former difficulty, but it always opens up problems
which are more obscure and more difficult – and more interesting!” (Pg 272)
“There is no
virtue in accident.” (Pg 275)
“What is
love, except another name for the use of positive reinforcement.” (Pg 282)
“Nothing
short of an insurmountable fence or frequent punishment will control the
exploited.” (Pg 283)
“He had
found a way to build a world to his taste without trying to change the world of
others.” (Pg 289)
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