13 Reader Responses

1. Rose Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 2:25 pm

   It would need to have a level of mechanization so that the philosophy and resultant system could be perpetuated regardless of who was at the steering wheel and what their own failings were.

   Isn’t that what we call society?

   PS BF Skinner told his wife not to touch their children as he thought such affections were not necessary. Several of his kids attempted suicide later in life.

2. Ktulu Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 3:17 pm

   Here’s an interesting paradox:

   If we are the products of environment/genetics, and have no ability or even potential to be originators of ideas/info/etc., then where is the room for morality or laws?

   How can one be held responsible for any actions, if he/she is not even partly responsible for the origination of the thought or idea that predated the action.

   Even more perplexing is how one goes about rectifying a problem in the “system” of individuals if the individuals are not ultimately responsible for their actions. Do you eliminate them entirely because of defective genes? OR do you reprogram them with entirely new social norms/values?

   Also, how can a technocratic, behavioral/genetics-based society contain the capacity to adapt, change, and improve? IF no one has the capacity for “origination”, how can there be any logical justification for change? For that matter, how can one logically take “control” of anything? The very reason for having leaders is for the purpose of chains of responsibility (aka chains of command). With human responsibility eliminated from the picture, how can a centralized government even be justified?

   It eventually reduces down to the issue of free will, a question of existence that refuses to die, yet seemingly refuses to show its masked face. Free will has to exist for many of the intricate societal structures to function, but we have yet to find it. There may be a solution in quantum computing, though (and the properties of the ’superposition’).

3. Gnomely Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 3:17 pm

   Now, I failed logic at my local community college but I am not so very stupid enough to realize that Skinner’s logic is reductio ad absurdum.
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum
   So in conclusion an absurd philosphy would be absurd to implement. Just ask the intellectual retards known as Neo Conservatives.
   Noam Chomsky a cute critic of Skinner backs up my wild claim.

   We cannot specify, a priori, what postulates and hypotheses are legitimate. Skinner’s a priorism in this regard is no more legitimate than the claim that classical physics is not “science” because it appeals to the “occult force of gravity.” If a concept or principle finds its place in an explanatory theory, it cannot be excluded on methodological grounds, as Skinner continually insists. In general, Skinner’s conception of science is very odd. Not only do his a priori methodological assumptions rule out all but the most trivial scientific theories; he is, furthermore, given to strange pronouncements such as the assertion that “the laws of science are descriptions of contingencies of reinforcement”

4. Tim Boucher Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

   Just ask the intellectual retards known as Neo Conservatives.

   I would have to disagree. They seem quite brilliant and effective at implementing their strategies. Perhaps the disconnect may be that what you perceive as being their strategies are not what they would.

5. Tim Boucher Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 6:07 pm

   Also, how can a technocratic, behavioral/genetics-based society contain the capacity to adapt, change, and improve?

   By allowing “freedom” of dissent and open competition. Going back to that Edward Bernays quote (who I’m not sure was necessarily a behaviorist, but its relevant):

   It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition.

   According to Bernays book, we don’t have one technocracy but many vying for control of public opinion.

   There’s also a good Terence McKenna quote I found a while back from an interview he did with Art Bell. Bell asks why the govt hasn’t assassinated him. McKenna responds:

   I don’t know, I think maybe the government tolerates a certain level of dissent almost as a fall-back position … in other words, you never quite throw away the small pox virus, just in case you might need it … I can imagine the culture crisis getting so crazy that the people at the top will have to turn to their cohorts and say, “Call in McKenna and his friends” …

   http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/05/05/mckenna-pronoia/

6. Tim Boucher Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 6:10 pm

   How can one be held responsible for any actions, if he/she is not even partly responsible for the origination of the thought or idea that predated the action.

   In the case of this theory applied to law, I would imagine that it would go something like: “you” may have not been responsible for it, sure. But “you” as an entity do also not exist in any kind of real sense, so it doesn’t matter whether or not you were responsible. It’s just a cause-effect relatioship. Circumstances “made” you break the law, and the society simply responds automatically by imprisoning you…

7. Tim Boucher Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 6:15 pm

   Now, I failed logic at my local community college but I am not so very stupid enough to realize that Skinner’s logic is reductio ad absurdum.

   Interesting point that I might post on separately. But what is logic, really? Logic is supposed to be a self-consistent methodology of exploring concepts in a rational manner.

   But what it really is is a ritualized tradition, with a specific cultural history and social context. Certainly it is a very useful and adaptable tradition, but viewed in such a light, it doesn’t have the absolutist air of authority.

   Saying that something isn’t logical is merely to say that it doesn’t fit within the context of a particular traditional system of thinking. It doesn’t make an accurate statement about that thing’s ultimate truth.

8. Jeannettee Spaghetti Says:
   July 28th, 2006 at 7:23 pm

   I was just thinking that Burnham’s analysis of the emerging managerial/professional class bears some interesting similarities to Barbara Ehrenreich’s analysis of the same in her Fear of Falling. Not sure if you’ve ever had the chance to take a glance at her book, but she astutely traces the connections between the “liberal” professional/intellectual/managerial class of the 60s and the burgeoning neoconservative movement of the 70s.

   It is interesting to note, as Ehrenreich points out, that the neoconservative movement (as we know it today) was essentially founded upon a deep, dark “conspiracy” which neocon strategists alleged to exist among the nation’s so-called “liberal elite,” a trite term with which we are now more than familiar. (This is particularly worth noting, considering the scathing disdain neocons now express for those ugly “conspiracy theorists.”) Neocons asserted that “pointy-headed” liberal intellectuals didn’t actually care about consumer rights, alleviating poverty, helping the working class or any of the other social changes they were known to support; they simply wanted to guarantee themselves key “managerial” positions in government bureaucracies, universities, and the media, all the while penalizing the businesses that provide jobs to lower classes.

   This proved to be an amazingly successful strategy, which ended up convincing lower and lower-middle class men and women that preserving corporate interest was actually in their own interest. Amazing! By convincing so-called “Middle Americans” that a dirty “liberal elite,” consisting mostly of members of the managerial/ professional class, were out to rob them of their jobs and steal their money for socialist programs, they were then able to seal a crucial populist element into conservatism, which had previously been pigeonholed as self- and corporate-serving. This rhetoric is now a political fixture.

   There is certainly nothing “retarded” about the neoconservative movement. Their strategies have proven to be incredibly successful in manipulating public consciousness in their favor and dramatically altering the overall political landscape, even when it goes in the opposite direction of common sense.

9. Ktulu Says:
   July 29th, 2006 at 4:16 am

   Circumstances “made” you break the law, and the society simply responds automatically by imprisoning you…

   Well if that’s the case, then it’s a very shallow and maladaptive approach to correctional remedies. It’s logically sound within itself (maybe), but it fails to solve the problem. It’s very similar to many medical approaches that seek to treat the symptoms of the problem, yet fail to seek out or impliment a suitable cure.

   “Automically imprisoning” someone is just a treatment, a band-aid. It does not fix any problems in the runnings of society. The same problems will still arise because the system is broken (or intentionally faulty); excluding individuals from the group can have no real effect on the social machine’s structure - it just reduces the amount of available pieces to fit in the puzzle.

10. Jacob Says:
    July 30th, 2006 at 10:59 am

    it seems like ‘empowering’ the individual would be the easiest way to manipulate them.

11. Jacob Says:
    July 30th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

    I was surprised to see this, as I had been happening on to the same line of thinking, myself, but my feeling of it wasn’t as some sort of sterile tool of mind control. Man is a manifestation of nature, and the organism is the reflection or condensed form of the environment, and, itself, part of the environment. Nothing is separate, and no one is independent, or alone, or individual. We’re all the universe fused together. There are things, principles, trends, intents, archetypes, that are so much bigger — the world is really big. Any body who tried to use this idea as a means of control must be stopping short of the real message.

    Skinner’s environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book …

    I think it’s a beautiful sentiment.

    This doesn’t make individuals interchangeable, it makes them invaluable; no one has the same genes, memes, or scenes compelling their thought and behavior. Everybody wants to be god, but they don’t want to accept any threat to their ego — decrying it as an assault on personal liberty, etc. but the only way you can think and see like God is to yield to the source.

    The truth is, you are a beautiful and unique snowflake, but “you” are still — like a snowflake — ephemeral, even irrelavent, compared to the greater glory of God the highest, which, really, can only make your personal life that much more poignant and mythic in scope — I don’t get the sense that this engenders any kind of low self-esteem; who has time for that?

    Salvation comes in knowing that fundamentally you are a part of that, even if your ego isn’t.

    I think the authorities really got it right by inflating the individual with illusory “rights” (which purely by definition, can’t be given, but through force can and are taken away, thus making them an illusion), and simultaneously robbing him/her of their self-esteem in subtle, but profound ways. So we’re all burdened with a tremendous ego, and with so much to lose. We’re easy enough to control. Endangering our sense of entitlement would only make us more practical.

12. Tim Boucher Says:
    July 31st, 2006 at 4:09 pm

    “Automically imprisoning” someone is just a treatment, a band-aid. It does not fix any problems in the runnings of society. The same problems will still arise because the system is broken

    Well I think the point may be simply that there IS no fixing the problems of society, because human beings inherently behave a certain way. And its not a matter of the system being broken or humans being flawed. I think there is no such value judgement inherent in behavioralist approaches. Things just are what they are. You simply observe and act.

13. Tim Boucher Says:
    July 31st, 2006 at 4:13 pm

    but my feeling of it wasn’t as some sort of sterile tool of mind control.

    Jacob, that hasn’t been my impression either. I guess I was just sort of using that thinking as a jumping off point in the hopes of inverting a lot of conspiracy-type thinking.

    This doesn’t make individuals interchangeable, it makes them invaluable

    That’s a really awesome way of looking at it. Thanks!

    I think the authorities really got it right by inflating the individual with illusory “rights” (which purely by definition, can’t be given, but through force can and are taken away, thus making them an illusion), and simultaneously robbing him/her of their self-esteem in subtle, but profound ways.

    I’m also tending to agree with you here as well, even though so much of it goes deeply against what I was ingrained to believe. I’m still processing a lot of this, but if you’d like to look at that from another angle, also check out the BBC documentary, Century of the Self, which extends that thought into consumerism, and shows how by satisfying people’s every desire, they make them slaves to those desires…