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/edu/ - Education

'The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.' - Karl Marx
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File: 1683657153010-1.pdf (15.46 KB, 197x255, GEDpatent.pdf)

 

This utopian garbage by P.F Skinner (Yes, THAT Skinner, for whom the Skinner Box is named after) has no right to be called a socialist novel and anyone who says it is is delusional.

For starters, the book is objectively terrible from a literary standpoint (like most Utopian novels honestly, it's a shit genre). Every chapter is dedicated to some aspect of the Walden Two "Utopia" and consists of Frazier, P.F Skinner's self insert character in the novel, explaining why Walden Two is so epic and based and wonderful in X aspect to bland and unoriginal to a small cast of forgettable characters visiting Walden Two for no reason other than to be ranted at by Frazier apparently.

Walden Two's "Utopia" is ran by a professional caste of Planners (unelected, naturally, not even held in check by a Party of any kind) set apart from the usual workers who run and plan everything and use Radical Behaviorism (essentially mind control through selected use of pleasure and pain) to alter the needs, wants, and desires of its citizens to conform better to society's needs. It's funny how the book is structured to make this seem like a good thing. Many chapters go to great lengths to explain why Walden Two is a haven for art, culture, shorter working hours, better working conditions, etc, in order to justify this behavioral altering. The chapter on education shows hungry children made to sit in front of food for hours at a time without eating it in order to build "patience". One can only imagine the child abuse going on behind the scenes to make this sort of lunacy possible. Walden Two is the sort of book that is in favor of beating your children.

Towards the end of the book it's revealed that Frazier is a complete egomaniac who personally runs and plans much of Walden Two (But um, actualleh that's totally OK b/c Walden Two has a 4 hour work week!!!!). He compares himself to Jesus Christ and his fellow Planners as his disciples.

Walden Two takes the liberal argument "hurr durr, muh human nature means ppl too greedy for socialist utopia" and responds with "You're correct, people are greedy and evil! Let's MIND CONTROL people into being selfless!" instead of refuting the initial argument as liberal bullshit.

All attempts at implementing Walden Two IRL are either hippie communes that have long since abandoned Skinner's philosophy (as they should) or dystopian torture nightmares that take Frazier's egomania in the original novel to the extreme. The most notable modern-day Walden Two inspired project is the Judge Rotenburg Center founded by Matthew Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Israel) which tortures autistic children with their patented Graduated Electronic Decelerator whenever they act out (or scream in pain when being shocked, or fail to reply when greeted, or break some other minor rule). This Matthew Israel guy studied Behaviorism under P.F Skinner, read & loved Walden Two as his favorite novel, and literally has a Disney Villain backstory where he realized he can control people through pain and founds a school to continue doing just that.

The reason that Walden Two utopianism never had a significant conservative backlash during the Cold War is that it specifically appealed to middle-upper class professionals with its Technocratic elements, selling them the idea of being Planners in a new society where they are given the power to torture and alter the minds of Proletarians underneath them to serve their agenda.

Worst book ever 0/10 do not recommend. Read it if you are a Technocrat Fascist who wants to torture proletarians and want a professional caste to be intentionally put above said proletarians.

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>>16633
>"You're correct, people are greedy and evil! Let's MIND CONTROL people into being selfless!"
Lol I recall Žižek said something similar about what communism actually is. I can't find the video ATM but the description was something like, while in liberal or bourgeois society, being good is as seen something public, something of positive cultural value that it was turned into a commodity, in communist society it will be seen as something as natural as drinking water. It will have lost the appeal of profit and turned into something that people just do, like they would, idk, wait for the green light to cross the street? It's a very different take – at the heart of it, Žižek admits that human relations are nothing more than a collection of learned behaviors which are influenced by the relations of production and the mode of production; while fascists turn it around and think that actual, conscious participation of the masses in society can just be more perfected. The masses can literally become reified in their worldview because humans are, to a fascists, just imperfect machines which slow down the production process.

>>16633
why do you care. the point of utopian socialism is that it is not going to happen, it's a catalog of fantasies. you are angry at the political equivalent of a fanfic, just delete the .pdf and it goes away. there is a reason why marx wrote about capitalism, it's tendencies and contradictions - you can, at most, understand your context and change it through political action. it is material class interests that move things, not the opinions of a mentally ill american

>people on leftypol will rather read this garbage than the anti-duhring

grim

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>>16635
Same energy tbh. I fully agree btw

>>16635
>the point of utopian socialism is that it is not going to happen
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/08/matthew-israel-interviewed-jennifer-gonnerman/
Ironically Walden Two is in the category of utopian novels with multiple actual, serious attempts to realize it.

>>16633
>it's a shit genre
I recall liking Thomas More's book

>>16633
so basically it's just plato but a psychologist

>>16635
>it is material class interests that move things, not the opinions of a mentally ill american
Is the educational center in the OP an opinion, or is it material enough? It makes no sense to say "it's not going to happen" when the post explicitly describes something that has happened related to the utopian plans in the book.
>grim
Anti-Dühring was what nearly convinced me to give up on Marxism. Not for the sake of Dühring, who deserved the attacks, but because I expected more after reading Kant and Hegel.

>>16640
>Anti-Dühring was what nearly convinced me to give up on Marxism. Not for the sake of Dühring, who deserved the attacks, but because I expected more after reading Kant and Hegel.
What did you think was wrong with it?

Why would you read Walden Two and not Beyond Freedom which is actually interesting?

Walden 1 was better

>>16640
What convinced you not to give up on Marixsm ? Capital ?

>>16640
noooo don't give up on marxism, you know so much about german idealism nooooooo
lol, lmao

>>16641
the fact that he is dumb as fuck, probably. he begins by complaining that, because a guy went and commodified child abuse, these utopian fantasies are the inevitable future of society. class struggle? material interests and conditions? politics? forget about all of that, what changes reality are our hecking ideas! the world would be so different if everyone read <utopian fantasy #162>!

>The most notable modern-day Walden Two inspired project is the Judge Rotenburg Center founded by Matthew Israel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Israel) which tortures autistic children with their patented Graduated Electronic Decelerator whenever they act out (or scream in pain when being shocked, or fail to reply when greeted, or break some other minor rule). This Matthew Israel guy studied Behaviorism under P.F Skinner, read & loved Walden Two as his favorite novel, and literally has a Disney Villain backstory where he realized he can control people through pain and founds a school to continue doing just that.
This guy is complete fucking scum. Being sent to a place like that is one of my biggest nightmares. Institutions are honestly worse than prison because at least most prison sentences end. I want to force him to play a piano with the threat of being electroshocked the second he stops.

>>16633

>"He compares himself to Jesus Christ and his fellow Planners as his disciples. "


Indeed; All Behaviorists are like that.

>Watson

He literally didn't believe that language existed and advocated for parents to neglect their children and to not be too affectionate.

>Skinner

An egomanic who craves nothing less than for society to be exactly how he wants and for him to 100% be in control. He's just like what you said he was, but to add, his theories have been debunked by Chomsky ( https://chomsky.info/1967____/ ), and he even made a follow up to W2 where Skinner writes in George Orwell to praise Fraizer for making a society "in line with 19th century anarchism" (Skinner, B.F. (1985). "News From Nowhere, 1984". The Behavior Analyst, 8(1), p. 6.)

>Lovaas

Very much like Watson, except applying his theory to autistic children specifically, literally beating them up for not doing something trivial like dancing to music, on top of him calling them sub-human; co-founder of Autism Society and an early pioneer in what we now call "autism awareness"

"After you've hit a child, you can't just get up and leave him; you are hooked to him" by Paul Chance, 1974, Psychology magazine

>M. Israel

He killed children, not to different from the state of israel

>Bonus

Benard Rimland is not a behaviorist, but he is behaviorist-adjacent by being close to Lovaas and believing that autistic children were incapable of language and empathy, and innately so; He founded Autism Society and was an early proponent of autism awareness in that he believed that autistic people could not function without the constant correction of " MUH PROBLEM BEHAVIORS" by the state, which is very important as the belief that autistic people are deficient in empathy and language is fundamental to contemporary behaviorism.
While psychoanalysts had their own problems (IE Bettelheim) his response to Refridgerator Mother Theory was to create the alternative theory that autistic children literally weren't capable of love, and that it was thus natural that they didn't recieve motherly affection.

Infantile autism: The invisable wall" by Rimland 1964 (edited by Steven M Edelson) pg 108-109

Thank you, anon, for bring attention to this

This sounds like a lot of evangelical literature

>>23453
These men share a lot in common with evangelicals


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