Contemplating Walden Three

A Concise Treatise by Gary Marvin Davison

 

The seminal ideas of B. F. Skinner, presented in such works as the scholarly Behavior of Organisms (1938) and Contingencies of Reinforcement (1969); and the mass market Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971); more than those any other scholar serve as a guide to forging a better future for humankind as we move forward in the twenty-first century. 

 

The scholarly works provide in elaborate, sophisticated detail the highly intricate schedules of reinforcement, undergirded by the fundamental principles of positive reinforcement, punishment and negative reinforcement (the termination of aversive [punishing] conditions) that determine, along with neuro-physiological conditions present in particular human organisms at birth, why people do what they do.

 

I have long contemplated Skinner’s behaviorist principles and conceptualized innovations upon those tenets:

 

In my view, the fundamental truths of Skinnerian principles should be accompanied by a fuller account of how human cognition and decision-making function in the context of those principles;  and by a literary reimagining productive of a beneficially functioning society, Walden Three, might be established on behaviorist principles operating in the year 2025, seventy-seven years after the great psychologist wrote Walden Two. 

 

Cognitive processes clearly play a role in determining human behavior.  Most people imagine that these processes indicate free will options being exercised by people acting upon the power of volition;  in fact, when making decisions at any given temporal juncture, people are reviewing their stored memories for the most similar circumstances they can cognitively locate so as to determine the most positively rewarding action to take at the present moment.  Ultimately, people act not on the basis of choice, but on the basis of a decision-making process that seeks to avoid punishing outcomes, to relieve any prevailing aversive conditions, and to produce the most rewarding physical, emotional, and spiritual results.

  

The ideal community of Walden Three would be located in circumstances of natural beauty and operate according to practices most likely to promote and sustain the most pristine natural environment possible.  People would be highly conscious of how their personal habits affect their own health and that of others, so that abundant aerobic exercise, highly nutritious and fibrous diet, and psycho-emotional outlets are part of their regular routines.  Personal and community libraries would be stocked with great literature and abundant multi-subject information, available in both digital and hard copy formats.   Opportunities and an instilled attitude conducive to the discussion of matters of great political and ethical importance would be pervasive, upon the basis of knowledge-intensive, skill replete public education that is free to all from early childhood to the post-secondary stages.  Those conditions of ill-health that cannot be avoided even after the best preventive health measures have been taken would be countered with supreme health care available without cost to all.  An abiding community ethic would encourage people to select vocational activity most synchronous with their own talents and interests, and most likely to promote the best interests of the community.  The economy would function much as those in the democratic socialist nations of the world, maintaining the individual profit motive with equitable pay and a wide array of social services available to all citizens.

 

The participants in the ideal community of Walden Three should promulgate their precepts and practices to serve as a guide to the larger society, so that the latter becomes the highly developed democratic socialist society of the future.