B. F. Skinner (1904–1990)

Easily ranks w/The Fountainhead as one of the worst poxes ever hoisted on humanity. Almost single handedly stole psychology from the hands of Jung, who had succeeded in giving creedence to the introvert and the play of fantasy in the inner life, Skinner reduces humanity to a succession of outward behaviors. And because when you're dealing with academia, you're looking at people who want things that are easily measured, Skinner and his ilk easily won out, leading to the Prozac-zombie state of show more the States and most of the Western world today. To be fair, perhaps Skinner has had a positive effect on education and inner-city renewal, but his dissolution of autonomous man, as he puts it, is vile. The other thing that bothers me about this book is how terribly it's written. Anyone with a good sense of English or logic could work out his methods without thinking. By placing his opinions between obvious facts, he makes his opinions appear as facts, i.e. "The sky is blue. Humans can be trained like guinea pigs. The grass is green." Or long paragraphs of substituting one set of phrases for his behaviorist terminology. Almost as horrible to read as Freud. But at least Freud was on the right track by mapping the subconscious. It wasn't until Jung and von Franz that psychology really came into its own. It's a vicious shame that it's been overrun by this Pavlovian charlatan. show less

Easily ranks w/The Fountainhead as one of the worst poxes ever hoisted on humanity. Almost single handedly stole psychology from the hands of Jung, who had succeeded in giving creedence to the introvert and the play of fantasy in the inner life, Skinner reduces humanity to a succession of outward behaviors. And because when you're dealing with academia, you're looking at people who want things that are easily measured, Skinner and his ilk easily won out, leading to the Prozac-zombie state of show more the States and most of the Western world today. To be fair, perhaps Skinner has had a positive effect on education and inner-city renewal, but his dissolution of autonomous man, as he puts it, is vile. The other thing that bothers me about this book is how terribly it's written. Anyone with a good sense of English or logic could work out his methods without thinking. By placing his opinions between obvious facts, he makes his opinions appear as facts, i.e. "The sky is blue. Humans can be trained like guinea pigs. The grass is green." Or long paragraphs of substituting one set of phrases for his behaviorist terminology. Almost as horrible to read as Freud. But at least Freud was on the right track by mapping the subconscious. It wasn't until Jung and von Franz that psychology really came into its own. It's a vicious shame that it's been overrun by this Pavlovian charlatan. show less

This slim volume is one of the best self-help books I've read. Instead of being filled with cheer-up nostrums, it offers a pragmatic, face-reality view of old age, as a time of diminished capabilities that can be worked around. It is permeated with Skinner's behavioralism, though not labelled as such until an appendix that maps the text's plain-spoken simplicity to technical terms of behaviorism. Its central precept is both devoid of sentimentality yet oddly comforting, for it puts the power show more to mitigate old-age's drawbacks within the individual's power: "In all these examples [of coping with, defeating, or succumbing to, the drags and diminutions of old age], what people feel is the by-product of what they do and of the circumstances under which they do it. Instead of trying to feel differently by some act of will, you do better to change what is felt by changing the circumstances responsible for it." show less

2019: Re-read with my students for my radical behaviorism course. This book is so goddamn good. Skinner's writing is dense and lush and some of the most well-thought-out academic/technical prose I've ever read.

And, like most dense things, it is hard to digest. I can't imagine reading this without a mentor, or at least a reading buddy. (Which makes sense, it was written for use as a graduate textbook.) I'm still finding new things, or getting reminded, as I read.

The heavy theoretical bent show more to the book is probably its biggest stumbling block to wide adoption, however. I think a lot of classes/programs jump right to protocols and procedures and introduce actual radical behaviorism as a historical event rather than a modern philosophy. CHH is a good book, even great, but it doesn't give the concepts behind the procedures. You need texts like this to show how everything is connected.

10/10, will read again next year. show less