Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people's behavior did not yet exist. Such methods are now known as applied behavior analysis.
Walden Two is controversial because its characters speak of a rejection of free will, including a rejection of the proposition that human behavior is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a spirit or a soul. Walden Two embraces the proposition that the behavior of organisms, including humans, is determined by environmental variables, and that systematically altering environmental variables can generate a sociocultural system that very closely approximates utopia.
Synopsis
The first-person narrator and protagonist, Professor Burris, is a university instructor of psychology, who is approached by two young men (one a former student) sometime in the late 1940s. The young men are recent veterans of World War II and, intrigued by utopianism, express interest in an old acquaintance of Burris, named T. E. Frazier, who in the 1930s started an intentional community that still thrives. Burris contacts Frazier, who invites them all to stay for several days to experience life in the supposedly utopian community. Venturing to the community, named Walden Two, the young men bring their girlfriends, and Professor Burris brings along his colleague Professor Castle, who teaches philosophy and ethics.
The rest of the book proceeds largely as a novel of ideas, mostly involving Frazier, a smug, talkative, and colorful character, guiding his new visitors around Walden Two and proudly explaining its socio-politico-economic structures and collectivist achievements. A wide range of intellectual topics—behavioral modification, political ethics, educational philosophy, sexual equality (specifically, advocacy for women in the workforce), the common good, historiography, freedom and free will, fascism, American democracy, and Soviet communism—is discussed and often debated among the self-satisfied Frazier, the skeptical and doubting Castle, and the quietly intrigued Burris.
Walden Two operates using a flexible design, by continually experimenting with the most successful, evidence-based strategies to organize the community. Praising Walden Two's decision-making system for not being authoritarian, anarchic, or even democratic, Frazier argues that Walden Two thus avoids the way that most societies collapse or grow dysfunctional: by remaining dogmatically rigid in their politics and social structure. Except for a small fluctuating group of community Planners (temporarily including Frazier), Walden Two has no real governing body or power to exercise violent force over its citizens. Each member is apparently self-motivated, with an amazingly relaxed work schedule of only four average hours of work a day. Any labor performed supports the common good and is accompanied by the freedom to select a fresh new place to work each day. Members then use their remaining free time to engage in creative, intellectual, or recreational activities of their own choosing, while automatically receiving ample food and sleep. The only currency is a simple system of points that buys greater leisure periods in exchange for less desirable forms of work. Certain radically unusual customs of Walden Two include: children raised communally, families being non-nuclear, free love, and personal expressions of thanks regarded as taboo. Such behavior is mandated by the community's individually self-enforced "Walden Code", a guideline that encourages members to credit all individual and other achievements to the larger community. Community counselors are also available to assist with better understanding and following the Code. A rigorous program of "behavioral engineering" is begun at birth and completed during childhood, yet the adults of Walden Two indeed appear to be legitimately peaceful, productive, happy, well-rounded, and self-directed people.