Walden Two

The book I chose to read for this review was the famous book by B.F.Skinner called Walden Two, which is based off of the Utopian societal ideals of a book by the philosopher Henry David Thoreau called "Walden". The dictionary definition of a Utopian society is literally any place that seems to be perfect in every way, a dream land. Walden Two, which has 306 pages, was published in 1948 by Collier Macmillan Limited. This book begins by introducing the main character and narrator, Professor Burris. Burris meets with his friends whom have returned from World War Two in search of a better life. Along with another professor named Augustine Castle, They all decide to take a trip to a Utopian society named "Walden Two", which they had all heard about from a student of Burris named T.E. Frazier, whom was the founder of this Utopian society. Upon their arrival they all are greeted by Frazier and showed how Walden Two functions. They all discover that the people living there, roughly a few thousand people, are all very highly organized with very little sense of organized leadership. All of the people have perfected and equal healthcare, self-sustained food cultivation and preparation, education and very little work by organizing every single member to work four hours a day in order to meet a number of hours by the end of a year. In order to create this society, Frazier made use of various psychological behavioral control techniques in order to change the way people felt about the world they live in. By raising children from birth with specific psychological guidlines, The children grew up with a natural sense of oneness with everyone around them. "Since our children remain happy, energetic, and curious, we dont need to teach 'subjects at all. We teach only the techniques of learning and thinking....Our children aren't neglected, but they're seldom, if ever, taught anything". This quote demonstrates one of the psychological techniques imposed on the children which made them actually want to learn, so they are not forced to learn things they do not want to in school, whereas they eventually learn all they need to know as they grow. Another point I enjoyed was that in this society, personal gratitude towards someone is highly discouraged, because it is believed that every single person in the society is important, and that one person should never be held higher than another person. The idea of saying "Thank You" to a person for doing something nice for them is a completely alien idea. It is expressed, " It's as if you had handed her a certain amount of money which belonged to the whole community". I found this to be a VERY powerful statement. In time, Frazier helped eliminated jealousy, aggression, contempt, greed and other negative, separating feelings in his society which in turn enabled all of the citizens to work together to understand their communal need for peace. Throughout the book, Castle is the most skeptical about the validity of this Utopian society because he had taught classes on Utopian societies so he had developed a firm, opposing opinion on them because of their underlying motives. Burris, the narrator, keeps a slight sense of skepticism up until the middle of the book, where eventually in the end of the book, he joins the society after running away from the city which he had returned to. I felt that this book gave a very in depth look into the way that a society can live, with very exact details as to how it would be planned out and organized over time, including plans for dealing with future problems and indoctrinating new citizens. Though there were a few spots towards the end of the book that bored me a bit, overall this book helped me to change some of the ways I view the means to attain happiness, and the ways I look at gratitude, flattery, heroism, and ingratiation and the ways that it affects the individual negatively. Though this book had some EXTREMELY important lessons to learn from, it was SUPER heavily wieghed with philosophical and psychological talk, which could get quite boring for someone that is looking for a leisurely read with lots of "grabbing" scenes such as fight scenes, drama, suspense, or any kind of action. If you are willing to devote the time to learning some very important philosophical and psychological lessons about life (some of which completely enveloped me with pure amazement and beauty), then this is would be a very beneficial book to read. In my honest opinion, I would give this book a thumb up and three quarters of another thumb! The slight boredom bits chops off a quarter of the other thumb...