Behaviorism: Walden Two by BF SkinnerCastle deliberately closed the book and put it aside. He had intentionally waited half a decade to read Walden Two after its initial publication, because, years after parting ways with Frazier and his despotic utopia, he could not shake the disturbance inspired by the community. But, eight years later, he had become even more frustrated with himself over his apparent inability to look at the situation calmly. In a fit of stubbornness, he had taken the unopened volume from the top shelf, and now he hoped it had been a good idea. His daily temper, to put it mildly, had suffered from his continued aggravation. Something had to be done about it. As an experiment, he figured, Walden Two was a success. He himself had seen the happy community and clearly remembered the horrible time he had spent debunking it. It was certainly more difficult to criticize Walden Two than to debunk democracy and external society; Frazier made sure to drive that point home. The residents were clearly at peace, and he was struck by the story Burris told of the woman who sat in a chair, enjoying the rest and being careful not to look at her garden. He didn't know that Burris' doubts were so strong that he had to make his observations. Castle's mostly academic mind heartily approved. He imagined the woman was happy. She was evidently too old to be a second-generation inmate of Walden Two, and therefore had not been cunningly forced to be selfless and contented. She willingly signed up to the Code and accepted the rules that told her not to gossip, to refrain from gratitude, and not to admire her flowers. He led a quiet, comfortable life and he assumed that most older people, having... half a paper... everything were automatically at the same level of constant happiness. Walden Two was memorable as a community, not for its individuals. His people were a mass of subjects, and Frazier did not admit that there were people who could not be forced to conform. Schizophrenia and Alzheimer's were medical problems that could not be ignored and completely threw the idea of ​​“nurture, not nature” on which Frazier's concepts rested completely out of balance. Behaviorism could not control every single aspect of life; it would be like trying to teach someone without a right arm to knit using their hands. And Castle knew that if he could resent being treated as part of a unit rather than as a unique individual, millions of others would too. Feeling a wild rush of perhaps incomplete triumph, Castle practically put the book back on the shelf. He, for example, refused to give in to Frazier.