The most popular introduction to the operant conditioning principles of Burris Fredrich Skinner is found in his novel, Walden Two. The novel is titled after Thoreau’s Walden, a depiction of living the simple life to find out the real meaning of man’s existence. Walden Two is a utopian novel wherein the society depicted, human problems and social ills are solved by scientific technology applied to human conduct, i.e., social behavioral engineering. The concepts in Walden Two are not directed at the psychologist or philosopher, but rather at the layman. Skinner uses a technique that is common among writers to propose his propaganda. He shows us the society and ideology of Walden Two through the eyes of outsiders who show varying degrees of skepticism or enthusiasm for the behaviorally engineered society, much like Swift has Gulliver experience the utopian society of the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver’s Travels. Frazier is the voice of Skinner in Walden Two, and he is the single-name originator of the community of Walden Two, a society he starts with a population of 1,000. Frazier, like Skinner, is provocative in his claims, “What would you do if you found yourself in possession of an effective science of behavior? Suppose you suddenly found it possible to control the behavior of men as you wished?” (Skinner, 1962, p. 255).
Castle is a philosophy professor (obviously a profession held in disdain by Frazier/Skinner) who offers resistance to the ideology of Walden Two. Even more profound resistance is offered by the narrator of the novel, a psychology professor named Burris. Burris also represents some of Skinner’s theories and dialogues between he and Frazier are constructed in a way as to represent internal dialogues perhaps originated by Skinner in his own mind. Two other men and their girlfriend complete the party members in Walden Two, with these folks agreeing with Walden Two’s behavioral engineering except for one...