Walden Two Isn't Recession Proof

College is a time to explore---to dream about possibilities---often on a grand scale. An important aspect of the college experience is exploring ideas relating to utopian ideals. "Utopia" is a Greek word coined by Sir Thomas More that translates as "no place," meaning that a society with perfect laws, social conditions, and an ideal government is nowhere to be found (alas--haven't we all felt this lately?). You may remember that the 19th century author Samuel Butler wrote a satirical utopian novel called Erehwon--which is "no where" spelled backwards. Utopian novels (and their dystopian counterparts---remember reading 1984, Animal Farm, or even Aldous Huxley's Brave New World?) are or should be a staple of the undergraduate experience. Philosophy classes are ripe for exploring utopian sentiments. So are some political science courses, especially those that explore political philosophy--think Plato's Republic. On occasion, psychology courses also provide students with the opportunity to imagine better worlds.

Still, beyond potentially applicable theories, psychology's contribution to the utopian ideal has been a bit sparse (a while back, ideas from humanistic psychology may have fit the bill--now we have positive psychology's contributions to consider). The only serious contender as a novel is B. F. Skinner's Walden Two. Skinner wrote this novel of behavioral manners when he was decamping from the Midwest in the late 1940s to take up permanent residence at Harvard.

Walden Two describes a visit of two college professors--one of whom is named Burris--and two recent World War II veterans and their girlfriends to a behaviorally-planned community designed by a psychologist named Frazier (one way to read the novel is to assume that Burris and Frazier are Skinner's interlocutor alter egos who engage in a battle royal of psychological and social arguments against a behaviorist backdrop). Everything seems quite perfect in this fictional community--people work little and have ample time to pursue their individual creative motivations while all their creature comforts, health, and security needs are provided. In fact, everything is so perfect and psychological satisfying that Burris leaves his tenured post, pipe, and tweeds and joins up as fast as you can say "paid sabbatical leave."

When I teach my History and Systems course, I always have my students read Walden Two because it represents a certain form of idealism that Skinner and other psychologists had in the post-war era. They really believed that psychology could make the world a better place. This same sort of enthusiasm was channeled by George Miller in his famous message to "Give Psychology Away" in the late 1960s. I assign the novel late in the course, just as we review American behaviorism and begin to discuss the cognitive revolution and the (as-yet-unlabeled) historical period of psychology where we all now reside. Besides discussing the novel my students watch a dated but still powerful 1978 NOVA film on Skinner's life and theories. In the documentary, Skinner visits Twin Oaks, an intentional community in Central Virginia based loosely on--you guessed it--Walden Two. My students then write a paper wherein they address whether Skinner's utopia is a good idea or if psychology should be used to plan human communities.

As you might imagine, class discussion about utopian visions and Walden Two is quite lively. A few themes stood out this time round. First, the kibbutz-like living situation of the novel's children shocked my students' sensibilities. "How can parents bear to let someone else be with their children so much of the time!" several exorcised students wanted to know. I gingerly asked whether today's daycare settings were really all that different. Skinner also portrays a brief adolescence that involves community encouraged childbearing without that traditional parenting. Aside from being vaguely scandalized by early marriage and community-encouraged procreation, students rebelled more against the abrupt end to childhood they saw as being portrayed (in passing and in no great detail) in the novel. I countered that "childhood" and "adolescence" are very modern constructs-still rather new in the historical timeline (see historian Philip Aries's wonderful Centuries of Childhood).

What struck me as most interesting and somewhat puzzling were their reactions to the availability of free time in Skinner's imagined utopia. "There's no competition," several complained, "How can people be expected to live life to the fullest if they don't compete?" Wait a minute-competition? In a utopia? Whatever for? At that moment, the clouds parted and I understood-perhaps for the first time-what "reader response theory" really means. Quite possibly my students were reacting to the book based on the fears and anxieties the recession has created in them and their families. I listened. Quite a few students viewed competition as the motivation humans need in order to improve the world-that without such a drive nothing of any value would be created. I wondered aloud if politics had colored our perspectives, if somehow middle class values-cum-economic pressures were influencing our interpretation of the novel. I pointed out that students in the 60s and 70s---heck, even the 80s (fortunately, too, I had the presence of mind not to say "children of the 60s" out loud)---would have a very different take on things.

But "What would they do with all that free time?" was also a common refrain, as if freedom from labor (work, career, busy-ness) was an unimaginable state fraught with responsibility. I replied we should take Skinner at his word---to create, to learn, to study---to use the free time for whatever was desired. As you may have guessed, I often got typecast as a straw man "liberal intellectual" pushing against convention and the weight of (recent) history (shocking, I know).

This discussion of Walden Two was one of the oddest I have had since I started teaching the novel. I blame the recession and the free flowing anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty it has created in the lives of so many people---well, let's be honest---so many of us. Students still wonder, but just now they are wary---and perhaps a bit pragmatic and less trusting of idealistic idylls. But, Skinner and his readers in the late 40s and early 50s lived through the war years---many of them knew the depression up close and personal, as well. Their optimism rebounded. I hope my students will come around, too, in order to entertain all kinds of possibilities.

Now, I'm not Oprah---but maybe you should read or revisit Walden Two. Why not?