Walden Two

I have to say that I find it funny how often the user reviews call Walden Two "boring." I get as bored reading a philosophical treatise as the next person, but Walden Two is actually easy and engaging to read. It's even funny in the little ways the narrator mocks the hero Fraser as well as the daft......more

Walden Two contains no plot, clumsy writing, and characters that serve as nothing more than mouthpieces for B.F. Skinner, our author. That being said, if you want an intellectual exploration of a Utopian world ruled by behaviorism, this book may be for you. Skinner proposes many thought-provoking qu......more

'My main problem is that it's just one big argument.' Jim said as we crested the hill. 'The characters just go back and forth debating the merits of Walden Two's behaviorist society. So while there are basic story elements; characters, setting and so forth, it's not much of a novel.' 'Would you rath......more

Great book. Not a great novel. But rather a highly thought provoking Socratic dialogue with an agenda to introduce the reader to evidence based, experimentally derived public policy creation and the behavioral engineering world view. It’s important to remember, the book was first published in 1948.......more

I don't much like B.F. Skinner's radical behaviorism, but I enjoyed his novel, Walden Two, assigned by Professor Alan Jones for his seminar, "Utopia and Society", at Grinnell College. My appreciation may have been exaggerated by having just read More's Utopia and Zamyatin's We, neither of which were......more