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BF Skinner Looked Beyond Freedom and Dignity. We Can Change Our Environments More Easily Than Ourselves and in so Doing We Can Fight Against Totalitarianism Rule.

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Beyond freedom and dignity is a concept we should pause to study. The works and theories of BF Skinner can be a bit overwhelming if we really stop to study them.

He is the perfect example of a detached scientist. Behavior was his area of study. He is a man who kept his subjects in boxes where they were starved, receiving less than 80% of their nutritional needs in order to make them compliant.

He believed that society could be programmed, using his theories, to create a new variety of utopia. If he had any kind of faith it was in scientific principles.

This can be seen in his work entitled ‘Beyond Freedom and Dignity’ in which he propounds upon the theory that an ideal world would look beyond these two critical elements in order to be ‘happier.’

He insisted that setting aside or thinking beyond freedom and dignity would take society to unknown or unprecedented places.

While Skinner’s theory was actually quite optimistic, it was deeply short-sighted and not far from the theories of many despots and totalitarians.

Sacrificing autonomy and self-expression would be only part of what was required in Skinner’s ideal world. It is undoubtedly true and well documented that human behaviors can be changed, but at what costs?

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What Exists Beyond Freedom and Dignity?

Through his laboratory studies, Skinner determined that the fundamental nature of most living creatures is pliant.

Hold a gun to someone’s head and they are likely to do as told, or starve them and they will perform the necessary tasks to get food.

This led him to believe that his theories around operant conditioning and human behaviors could be applied broadly to program and reshape modern society.

As an inventor he designed tools and environments that could fundamentally program human beings from birth and onward.

Yes, this is an unrealistic concept to most people, but a startling fact is that his proposals have begun to re-emerge over the last decade.

This is a troubling concept because so many areas of human life are already dictated by society, government and the ever-present “others.”

Modern people must conform more than can seem comfortable. We pay heavy taxes, adhere to occasionally unreasonable laws and submit to the authority of our easily corrupted governments.

Clearly we are sacrificing a great deal to the greater good already. The question then is how much farther beyond freedom and dignity must members of society go?

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Forget About Democracy

In his works Skinner actually negates the idea of democracy, insisting that individual voices, votes or thoughts are of no value.

This is the reason he aims to have readers look beyond freedom and dignity and consider scientific principles of behavior or reinforcement instead.

Skinner has been quoted as saying:

“I did not direct my life. I did not design it. I never made decisions. Things always came up and made them for me. That’s what life is.”

– BF Skinner

Believing that one plays no part in the shape of life may be easily proven when one is a pigeon in a small wooden box, but entire nations cannot be so easily reduced to such inactive participants in some chaotic scheme.

Why would some educational institutions, corporations or even governmental organizations want to forward such concepts? Realistically these theories are among some of the basic principles of despotic states.

If you force subjects to forgo freedom and dignity, where does that leave them?

Without freedom they are taught to believe that there are no real choices and without dignity they have no sense of value and would become mechanical members of the state, society, etc.

This translates to a world of conformism and mindless obedience. It is also completely unrealistic, and even Skinner realized this later in his life, though he never expressed it plainly.

Instead he is quoted totally reversing himself, saying that an environment could be changed, people could be changed, and somehow free will existed:

“If you’re old, don’t try to change yourself, change your environment.”

– BF Skinner

Clearly freedom and dignity exist in such an idea as he proposes. Learn more about Debt to Success System Restoring America’s Freedom.

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