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Living Walden Two
B. F. Skinner's Behaviorist Utopia and Experimental Communities
The secret life of Utopias and Utopians
In Walden Two, behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner describes one of the most controversial fictional utopias of the twentieth century. During the 1960s and 70s, this novel went on to inspire approximately three dozen actual communities, which are entertainingly examined in Hilke Kuhlmann's Living Walden Two.
In the novel, behavioral engineers use positive reinforcement in organizing and "gently guiding" all aspects of society, leaving the rest of the citizens "free" to lead happy and carefree lives. Among the real-world communities, a recurrent problem in moving past the planning stages was the nearly ubiquitous desire among members to be gentle guides, coupled with strong resistance to being guided.
In an insightful and often hilarious narrative, Hilke Kuhlmann explores the dynamics of the communities, with an in-depth examination of the two surviving Skinnerian communities: Comunidad Los Horcones in Mexico, and Twin Oaks in Virginia. Drawing on extensive interviews with the founders and key players in the Walden Two communities, Kuhlmann redefines the criteria for their success by focusing on the tension between utopian blueprints for a new society and communal experiments' actual effects on individual lives.
"Based on impeccable research, Living Walden Two is the best treatment of this subject in print. Kuhlmann's study stands to become the definitive work on the impact of Skinner's behavioral plan for utopia on the founding and development of intentional communities."--Donald E. Pitzer, editor of America's Communal Utopias
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