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The Problem Of Far Greater Importance Remains To Be Solved. Rather Than Build A World In Which We Shall All Live Well, We Must Stop Building One In Which It Will Be Impossible To Live At All.

-B. F. Skinner

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The Problem Of Far

B. F. Skinner

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The Problem Of Far Greater Importance Remains To Be Solved. Rather Than Build A World In Which We Shall All Live Well, We Must Stop Building One In Which It Will Be Impossible To Live At All.

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More From B. F. Skinner

We Shouldn't Teach Great Books; We Should Teach A Love Of Reading.

Death Does Not Trouble Me. I Have No Fear Of Supernatural Punishments, Of Course, Nor Could I Enjoy An Eternal Life In Which There Would Be Nothing Left For Me To Do, The Task Of Living Having Been Accomplished.

If Freedom Is A Requisite For Human Happiness, Then All That’s Necessary Is To Provide The Illusion Of Freedom.

Human Happiness

We Have Seen That In Certain Respects Operant Reinforcement Resembles The Natural Selection Of Evolutionary Theory. Just As Genetic Characteristics Which Arise As Mutations Are Selected Or Discarded By Their Consequences, So Novel Forms Of Behavior Are Selected Or Discarded Through Reinforcement.

Give Me A Child And I'll Shape Him Into Anything.

No Theory Changes What It Is A Theory About. Nothing Is Changed Because We Look At It, Talk About It, Or Analyze It In A New Way. Keats Drank Confusion To Newton For Analyzing The Rainbow, But The Rainbow Remained As Beautiful As Ever And Became For Many Even More Beautiful. Man Has Not Changed Because We Look At Him, Talk About Him, And Analyze Him Scientifically. ... What Does Change Is Our Chance Of Doing Something About The Subject Of A Theory. Newton's Analysis Of The Light In A Rainbow Was A Step In The Direction Of The Laser.

When We Say That A Man Controls Himself, We Must Specify Who Is Controlling Whom.

Do Not Intervene Between A Person And The Consequences Of Their Own Behavior.

The Speaker Does Not Feel The Grammatical Rules He Is Said To Apply In Composing Sentences, And Men Spoke Grammatically For Thousands Of Years Before Anyone Knew There Were Rules.

It Is Not A Question Of Starting. The Start Has Been Made. It's A Question Of What's To Be Done From Now On.

In The World At Large We Seldom Vote For A Principle Or A Given State Of Affairs. We Vote For A Man Who Pretends To Believe In That Principle Or Promises To Achieve That State. We Don't Want A Man, We Want A Condition Of Peace And Plenty-- Or, It May Be, War And Want-- But We Must Vote For A Man.

To Say That... Behaviors Have Different 'meanings' Is Only Another Way Of Saying That They Are Controlled By Different Variables.

Your Liberals And Radicals All Want To Govern. They Want To Try It Their Way- To Show That People Will Be Happier If The Power Is Wielded In A Different Way Or For Different Purposes. But How Do They Know? Have They Ever Tried It? No, It's Merely Their Guess.

To Say That A Man Is Sinful Because He Sins Is To Give An Operational Definition Of Sin. To Say That He Sins Because He Is Sinful Is To Trace His Behavior To A Supposed Inner Trait. But Whether Or Not A Person Engages In The Kind Of Behavior Called Sinful Depends Upon Circumstances Which Are Not Mentioned In Either Question. The Sin Assigned As An Inner Possession (the Sin A Person "knows") Is To Be Found In A History Of Reinforcement.

The Consequences Of An Act Affect The Probability Of Its Occurring Again.

The Strengthening Of Behavior Which Results From Reinforcement Is Appropriately Called 'conditioning'. In Operant Conditioning We 'strengthen' An Operant In The Sense Of Making A Response More Probable Or, In Actual Fact, More Frequent.

Society Attacks Early, When The Individual Is Helpless. It Enslaves Him Almost Before He Has Tasted Freedom. The 'ologies' Will Tell You How Its Done Theology Calls It Building A Conscience Or Developing A Spirit Of Selflessness. Psychology Calls It The Growth Of The Superego. Considering How Long Society Has Been At It, You'd Expect A Better Job. But The Campaigns Have Been Badly Planned And The Victory Has Never Been Secured.

At This Very Moment Enormous Numbers Of Intelligent Men And Women Of Goodwill Are Trying To Build A Better World. But Problems Are Born Faster Than They Can Be Solved.

To Require A Citizen To Sign A Loyalty Oath Is To Destroy Some Of The Loyalty He Could Otherwise Claim, Since Any Subsequent Loyal Behavior May Then Be Attributed To The Oath.

That's All Teaching Is; Arranging Contingencies Which Bring Changes In Behavior.

Chaos Breeds Geniuses. It Offers A Man Something To Be A Genius About.

It Is A Mistake To Suppose That The Whole Issue Is How To Free Man. The Issue Is To Improve The Way In Which He Is Controlled.

Must We Wait For Selection To Solve The Problems Of Overpopulation, Exhaustion Of Resources, Pollution Of The Environment And A Nuclear Holocaust, Or Can We Take Explicit Steps To Make Our Future More Secure? In The Latter Case, Must We Not Transcend Selection?

A Piece Of Music Is An Experience To Be Taken By Itself.

An Important Fact About Verbal Behavior Is That Speaker And Listener May Reside Within The Same Skin.

It Has Always Been The Task Of Formal Education To Set Up Behavior Which Would Prove Useful Or Enjoyable Later In A Student's Life.

Does A Poet Create, Originate, Initiate The Thing Called A Poem, Or Is His Behavior Merely The Product Of His Genetic And Environmental Histories?

The Majority Of People Don't Want To Plan. They Want To Be Free Of The Responsibility Of Planning. What They Ask For Is Merely Some Assurance That They Will Be Decently Provided For. The Rest Is A Day-to-day Enjoyment Of Life. That's The Explanation For Your Father Divines; People Naturally Flock To Anyone They Can Trust For The Necessities Of Life... They Are The Backbone Of A Community--solid, Trust-worthy, Essential.

The Extent To Which Human Aggression Exemplifies Innate Tendencies Is Not Clear.

The Only Geniuses Produced By The Chaos Of Society Are Those Who Do Something About It. Chaos Breeds Geniuses. It Offers A Man Something To Be A Genius About.

Punitive Measures Whether Administered By Police, Teachers, Spouses Or Parents Have Well Known Standard Effects: (1) Escape-education Has Its Own Name For That: Truancy, (2) Counterattack-vandalism On Schools And Attacks On Teachers, (3) Apathy-a Sullen Do-nothing Withdrawal. The More Violent The Punishment, The More Serious The By-products.

Overcrowding Can Be Corrected Only By Inducing People Not To Crowd, And The Environment Will Continue To Deteriorate Until Polluting Practices Are Abandoned.

Twenty-five Hundred Years Ago It Might Have Been Said That Man Understood Himself As Well As Any Other Part Of The World. Today He Is The Thing He Understands Least.

A Self Is A Repertoire Of Behavior Appropriate To A Given Set Of Contingencies.

The Juvenile Delinquent Does Not Feel His Disturbed Personality. The Intelligent Man Does Not Feel His Intelligence Or The Introvert His Introversion.

Indeed One Of The Ultimate Advantages Of An Education Is Simply Coming To The End Of It.

A Permissive Government Is A Government That Leaves Control To Other Sources.

A Person's Genetic Endowment, A Product Of The Evolution Of The Species, Is Said To Explain Part Of The Workings Of His Mind And His Personal History The Rest.

Personal History

In A World Of Complete Economic Equality, You Get And Keep The Affections You Deserve. You Can't Buy Love With Gifts Or Favors, You Can't Hold Love By Raising An Inadequate Child, And You Can't Be Secure In Love By Serving As A Good Scrub Woman Or A Good Provider.

In The Traditional View, A Person Is Free. He Is Autonomous In The Sense That His Behavior Is Uncaused. He Can Therefore Be Held Responsible For What He Does And Justly Punished If He Offends. That View, Together With Its Associated Practices, Must Be Re-examined When A Scientific Analysis Reveals Unsuspected Controlling Relations Between Behavior And Environment.

If The World Is To Save Any Part Of Its Resources For The Future, It Must Reduce Not Only Consumption But The Number Of Consumers.

The Evolution Of Cultures Appears To Follow The Pattern Of The Evolution Of Species. The Many Different Forms Of Culture Which Arise Correspond To The "mutations" Of Genetic Theory. Some Forms Prove To Be Effective Under Prevailing Circumstances And Others Not, And The Perpetuation Of The Culture Is Determined Accordingly.

A Child Who Has Been Severely Punished For Sex Play Is Not Necessarily Less Inclined To Continue; And A Man Who Has Been Imprisoned For Violent Assault Is Not Necessarily Less Inclined Toward Violence.

A Culture Must Be Reasonably Stable, But It Must Also Change, And It Will Presumably Be Strongest If It Can Avoid Excessive Respect For Tradition And Fear Of Novelty On The One Hand And Excessively Rapid Change On The Other.

Old Age Is Rather Like Another Country. You Will Enjoy It More If You Have Prepared Yourself Before You Go.

I've Had Only One Idea In My Life - A True Idee Fixe. To Put It As Bluntly As Possible - The Idea Of Having My Own Way. 'control!' Expresses It. The Control Of Human Behavior. In My Early Experimental Days It Was A Frenzied, Selfish Desire To Dominate. I Remember The Rage I Used To Feel When A Prediction Went Awry. I Could Have Shouted At The Subjects Of My Experiments, 'behave, Damn You! Behave As You Ought!

Each Of Us Has Interests Which Conflict The Interests Of Everybody Else... '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 To His Own Advantage. But Society Wins In The Long Run, For It Has The Advantage Of Numbers And Of Age.

Education Is What Survives When What Has Been Learned Has Been Forgotten.

I Will Be Dead In A Few Months. But It Hasn't Given Me The Slightest Anxiety Or Worry. I Always Knew I Was Going To Die.

Society Already Possesses The Psychological Techniques Needed To Obtain Universal Observance Of A Code - A Code Which Would Guarantee The Success Of A Community Or State. The Difficulty Is That These Techniques Are In The Hands Of The Wrong People-or, Rather, There Aren't Any Right People.

The One Fact That I Would Cry Form Every Housetop Is This: The Good Life Is Waiting For Us - Here And Now.

Something Doing Every Minute' May Be A Gesture Of Despair-or The Height Of A Battle Against Boredom.

If You're Old, Don't Try To Change Yourself, Change Your Environment.

But Restraint Is The Only One Sort Of Control, And Absence Of Restraint Isn't Freedom. It's Not Control That's Lacking When One Feels 'free', But The Objectionable Control Of Force.

Unable To Understand How Or Why The Person We See Behaves As He Does, We Attribute His Behavior To A Person We Cannot See, Whose Behavior We Cannot Explain Either But About Whom We Are Not Inclined To Ask Questions.

Except When Physically Restrained, A Person Is Least Free Or Dignified When He Is Under Threat Of Punishment, And Unfortunately Most People Often Are.

The Human Species Took A Crucial Step Forward When Its Vocal Musculature Came Under Operant Control In The Production Of Speech Sounds. Indeed, It Is Possible That All The Distinctive Achievements Of The Species Can Be Traced To That One Genetic Change.

Somehow People Get The Idea I Think We Should Be Given Gumdrops Whenever We Do Anything Of Value.

The Simulated Approval And Affection With Which Parents And Teachers Are Often Urged To Solve Behavior Problems Are Counterfeit. So Are Flattery, Backslap-ping, And Many Other Ways Of "winning Friends.

The Major Difference Between Rats And People Is That Rats Learn From Experience.

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.

Those Who Have Had Anything Useful To Say Have Said It Far Too Often, And Those Who Have Had Nothing To Say Have Been No More Reticent.

A First Principle Not Formally Recognized By Scientific Methodologists: When You Run Into Something Interesting, Drop Everything Else And Study It.

Problem-solving Typically Involves The Construction Of Discriminative Stimuli

Problem Solving

I May Say That The Only Differences I Expect To See Revealed Between The Behavior Of The Rat And Man (aside From Enormous Differences Of Complexity) Lie In The Field Of Verbal Behavior.

Men Build Society And Society Builds Men.

It Is A Surprising Fact That Those Who Object Most Violently To The Manipulation Of Behaviour Nevertheless Make The Most Vigorous Effort To Manipulate Minds.

We Admire People To The Extent That We Cannot Explain What They Do, And The Word 'admire' Then Means 'marvel At.'

A Person Who Has Been Punished Is Not Thereby Simply Less Inclined To Behave In A Given Way; At Best, He Learns How To Avoid Punishment.

Was Putting A Man On The Moon Actually Easier Than Improving Education In Our Public Schools?

Better Contraceptives Will Control Population Only If People Will Use Them. A Nuclear Holocaust Can Be Prevented Only If The Conditions Under Which Nations Make War Can Be Changed. The Environment Will Continue To Deteriorate Until Pollution Practices Are Abandoned. We Need To Make Vast Changes In Human Behavior.

The Real Problem Is Not Whether Machines Think But Whether Men Do.

A Vast Technology Has Been Developed To Prevent, Reduce, Or Terminate Exhausting Labor And Physical Damage. It Is Now Dedicated To The Production Of The Most Trivial Conveniences And Comfort.

Let Men Be Happy, Informed, Skillful, Well Behaved, And Productive.

We Do Not Choose Survival As A Value, It Chooses Us.

Many Social Practices Essential To The Welfare Of The Species Involve The Control Of One Person By Another, And No One Can Suppress Them Who Has Any Concern For Human Achievements

A Fourth-grade Reader May Be A Sixth-grade Mathematician. The Grade Is An Administrative Device Which Does Violence To The Nature Of The Developmental Process.

Science Is A Willingness To Accept Facts Even When They Are Opposed To Wishes.

I've Often Said That My Rats Have Taught Me Much More Than I've Taught Them.

Science, Not Religion, Has Taught Me My Most Useful Values, Among Them Intellectual Honesty. It Is Better To Go Without Answers Than To Accept Those That Merely Resolve Puzzlement.

Behavior Is Shaped And Maintained By Its Consequences

Some Of Us Learn Control, More Or Less By Accident. The Rest Of Us Go All Our Lives Not Even Understanding How It Is Possible, And Blaming Our Failure On Being Born The Wrong Way.

A Scientist May Not Be Sure Of The Answer, But He's Often Sure He Can Find One. And That's A Condition Which Is Clearly Not Enjoyed By Philosophy.

Behavior Is Determined By Its Consequences.

The Real Question Is Not Whether Machines Think But Whether Men Do. The Mystery Which Surrounds A Thinking Machine Already Surrounds A Thinking Man.

I Did Not Direct My Life. I Didn't Design It. I Never Made Decisions. Things Always Came Up And Made Them For Me. That's What Life Is.

The World's A Poor Standard. Any Society Which Is Free Of Hunger And Violence Looks Bright Against That Background.

The Severest Trial Of Oppression Is The Constant Outrage Which One Suffers At The Thought Of The Oppressor. What Jesus Discovered Was How To Avoid The Inner Devastations. His Technique Was To Practice The Opposite Emotion... A Man May Not Get His Freedom Or Possessions Back, But He's Less Miserable. It's A Difficult Lesson.

Many Instructional Arrangements Seem "contrived," But There Is Nothing Wrong With That. It Is The Teacher's Function To Contrive Conditions Under Which Students Learn. It Has Always Been The Task Of Formal Education To Set Up Behavior Which Would Prove Useful Or Enjoyable Later In A Student's Life.

The Simplest And Most Satisfactory View Is That Thought Is Simply Behavior - Verbal Or Nonverbal, Covert Or Overt. It Is Not Some Mysterious Process Responsible For Behavior But The Very Behavior Itself In All The Complexity Of Its Controlling Relations.

The Way Positive Reinforcement Is Carried Out Is More Important Than The Amount.

...not Everyone Is Willing To Defend A Position Of 'not Knowing.' There Is No Virtue In Ignorance For Its Own Sake.

Any Single Historical Event Is Too Complex To Be Adequately Known By Anyone. It Transcends All The Intellectual Capacities Of Men. Our Practice Is To Wait Until A Sufficient Number Of Details Have Been Forgotten. Of Course Things Seem Simpler Then! Our Memories Work That Way; We Retain The Facts Which Are Easiest To Think About.

Fame Is Also Won At The Expense Of Others. Even The Well-deserved Honors Of The Scientist Or Man Of Learning Are Unfair To Many Persons Of Equal Achievements Who Get None. When One Man Gets A Place In The Sun, The Others Are Put In A Denser Shade. From The Point Of View Of The Whole Group There's No Gain Whatsoever, And Perhaps A Loss.

What Is Love Except Another Name For The Use Of Positive Reinforcement? Or Vice Versa.

We Have Not Yet Seen What Man Can Make Of Man.

I Don't Believe In God, So I'm Not Afraid Of Dying.

Teachers Must Learn How To Teach ... They Need Only To Be Taught More Effective Ways Of Teaching.

We Are Only Just Beginning To Understand The Power Of Love Because We Are Just Beginning To Understand The Weakness Of Force And Aggression.

A Disappointment Is Not Generally An Oversight. It Might Just Be The Best One Can Do The Situation Being What It Is. The Genuine Error Is To Quit Attempting.

The Mob Rushes In Where Individuals Fear To Tread.

Society Attacks Early, When The Individual Is Helpless.

Positive Reinforcement

The Alphabet Was A Great Invention, Which Enabled Men To Store And To Learn With Little Effort What Others Had Learned The Hard Way-that Is, To Learn From Books Rather Than From Direct, Possibly Painful, Contact With The Real World.

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.

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.

The Problem Of Far Greater Importance Remains To Be Solved. Rather Than Build A World In Which We Shall All Live Well, We Must Stop Building One In Which It Will Be Impossible To Live At All.

We Shouldn't Teach Great Books; We Should Teach A Love Of Reading. Knowing The Contents Of A Few Works Of Literature Is A Trivial Achievement. Being Inclined To Go On Reading Is A Great Achievement.

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