Rating: 
Summary: you stick to the rules and get your own utopia
Review: "social engineering." it sounds preposterous. but it works. in a totalitarian society. history teaches such a society eventually fails. but if you'd look into it, at the root of its failure is just a managerial issue. a country is too big to be controllable. there exist subsocieties that try to overturn the government. but what if the size's small enough? meet skinner's walden two.it's where flowers bloom, children play and learn things on their own, and people draw beau--tiful pictures everyday. but wait, beauty is subjective. who judged their beauty? that's our narrator, professor burris. what's wrong with hard rock, acid rock, and punk rock? let those be and let us choose what's to our taste. frasier might say that he gives enough exposure of those to their children. who knows what aesthetic preferences those little ones might have? but in the novel, children never leave walden two. :-P
Rating: 
Summary: The Dark Ages of psychology
Review: ...Skinner, in his biography, admitted, "I am not happy," unlike the characters in this novel, who wander around blissfully. Goodness, why didn't Skinner condition himself behavioristically to be happy? Skinner's Utopia could never exist; it goes completely against human nature. This novel is today more of a curiosity than anything else, but it does clearly show the almost deliberate cruelty, the philosophical naivete, and the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of behavorism. Fortunately, it's lost much of its pre-eminence at many universities. Skinner wasn't much of a novelist, either.
Rating: 
Summary: Behavioral Control Without Family Values
Review: A noted behavioral psychologist, B. F. Skinner has written many texts. In "Walden Two" (a fictional work) B. F. Skinner describes his utopian community vision. "Walden Two" concentrates on behavioral psychology but neglects questions concerning family values and community finances. Walden Two's lifestyle maximizes leisure time, but it does not build strong families. Family members live separately: spouses in adjoining rooms; older children in dormitories; and babies in shared infant-care facilities. Members eat in shared dining rooms with young children in different dining rooms. Teenagers are encouraged to marry in their late teens -- these young marrieds are encouraged to move to Walden Two's sister communities. Walden Two has a stated policy of supporting its senior citizens, but few members have reached senior citizen age. Walden Two is governed by its religion: "The Code". The Code is a set of behavioral rules that encourages pleasantry. When members have difficulty following The Code they are encouraged to consult Walden Two's "psychologist-priests". Other members (including members' own spouses and children) pressure uncooperative Walden Two members to conform. A member facing an unresolved dilemma has potential family problems and has little external recourse. Senior citizens face their special problems with few family members to assist them. B. F. Skinner's discussion of Walden Two's finances is weak. The author does not discuss who supplies the large amounts of money required to purchase the land, the capital equipment, and to feed and house people during the construction of Walden Two and its sister communities. The author also does not dwell on the *impact* of leaving Walden Two. Members leave Walden Two with the possessions they brought to Walden Two -- little to show for their many years' work. Children leave Walden Two with the clothing on their backs -- their families have few resources to help them. And Walden Two has not yet faced the financial and labor cost of supporting a significant number of senior citizen members. I believe that "Walden Two" is *not* a humanistic utopian community design. The forced comformance with The Code, the disassociation of family members from birth through middle age, the financial penalties for leaving, and senior citizens' potential separation from family makes "Walden Two" resemble a pleasant version of George Orwell's "1984". I would *not* want to live in Walden Two. Finally, I found the author's writing style pedantic. I do *not* recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent institution of modern behavioral engineering
Review: An experminetal community that is on the border of morality and immorality. It questions whether or not behavioral engineering limits or adds to the freedom of the inhabitants of Walden Two. The many theories and problems (and the solutions) of the nature and behavior of humans are used to shape the community.
Rating:
Summary: Highly recommended to those who think
Review: An interesting combination of new and old ideas on the possibility of an existing Utopia. Yet the beauty of this book lies within the fact that biased as the ideas are, the reader is given the freedom to make an objective decision on all of the issues. Plotless, another reader said because the book lacks any events, but boring because of this ? Far from the truth. That the book is not pretending to be "entertainment" but just fuelforthebrain is one of its many attractions.
Rating:
Summary: Constructive Living
Review: Experiment. Vary conditions. Collect and share results. Raise concerns. Avoid arguments over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. These are the ways of a scientist and ways that Skinner suggested we all consider using. Somehow this guy who worked with rats had other interests and other ways of sharing his concerns. "Walden Two" is one of them. It's not "The Sheltering Sky" but, compared to what I could do, it's awfully well written. It's not the final answer on how folks should live together or even that much of a start - but it is a start and an invitation to all of us to consider how we can improve our conditions. Even in "Beyond Freedomn And Dignity", Skinner didn't have many answers as to how culture could be designed for the better. But he did have the realization that we ought have to start somewhere. He also had worked on a technology that he expected others would improve on that might help us live more sensibly. "Walden Two" provides an intimate glimpse into Skinner's world. I may not want to live there, at least for long, but I respect Skinner's efforts to make me think about what I can do to improve my living conditions. Behaviorism may be limited but it can be effective, more than arguing over angels on pins. Small visible steps may be the best steps; small acquisitions of tested knowledge may lead farther than pompous rants or deep meditations. Reading "Walden Two" is a good small step. A good step after that would be to learn about Los Horcones, a remarkable community in Mexico that, like Walden Two, applies behavioral science to design its culture. Los Horcones calls itself a Walden Two community, not because it imitates what's in the novel but because it also applies Radical Behaviorism. Skinner never intended that Walden Two remain just a book.
Rating:
Summary: creating a fictional utopia is not very impressive
Review: First of all, I agree with those readers who pointed out that this is not a great work of literature. There is no story and almost no character development, and it is much too long for its content. It is basically 300 pages of rambling monologues and debates about the virtues of behavioral engineering. Second, it is also not satisfying as a work of science or philosophy. There are a number of interesting ideas and some thoughtful debate, but little in the way of convincing arguments. For example, everyone at Walden II seems to be constantly in a state of blissful content. Please! Ultimately, creating a fictional utopia is not very impressive.
Rating:
Summary: Not an instruction manual, just a fun exploration.
Review: I am amazed that people are criticizing this book because of behaviorism's obsolescence. Maybe Walden Two was presented differently to other people, but I initially read this book as class assignment for Psych 101 at Harvard. Professor Fernald described Skinner's WT as an interesting attempt to apply the principles of behaviorism to a society/community. I doubt even Skinner thought his novel accurately outlined the exact methods by which civilization should operate. It's not an instruction manual for humanity; it's an exploration of certain models present in most communities. Many of these models still exist in our 21st-century culture. For example, children are still raised to compete with everyone else, through sports and the ubiquitous honor societies. We laud the winners and humiliate the losers. This undoubtedly enhances the inherent duality of the human mind; it exacerbates the (harmful IMO) mode of looking at the world with the "us - them" or "me - everyone else" perspective. In WT, Skinner presents another way of raising children to allay this competitive, often merciless instinct. Is Skinner's answer the correct solution? One can only assume it isn't, but his solution does make the reader think about these societal patterns that are so often just accepted with no forethought or even conscious choice. I know people who have/make time in their lives to question the very foundations of our civilization. I let my own life be too hectic; I often just fall into patterns of behavior. However, I do often spend nights reading, and when I randomly pick up Walden Two once every few years, Skinner reminds me that all of the flaws in our society are not absolute rules of human behavior. There other ways to live, and Skinner presents some of his opinions on what those other ways might be. My own opinion is the Frazier's community in WT is not scalable, not even slightly, but I still greatly enjoy Skinner's exploration of civilization.
Rating:
Summary: interseting ideas, but smacks of pre-Stalin communist ideals
Review: I decided to reread this book not too long ago because I could remember little from my initial reading. I discovered many new nuances in the text that I picked up on immediately and had much fun with myself debating its many philosophical points. I would recommend this book to anyone, from the intellectual to the beginning reader, to the communist, to the libertarian. For a book with no discernable plot, it comes across very well as a fun read. The book is merely the story of the narrator (Burris) writing a book about Walden Two. Unlike 1984 with its dramatic, albeit melodramatic, story line, Walden Two is simply a first-person narrative of a party's foray into Walden Two. However, Skinner rarely allows one to see this by assailing the reader with a barrage of his thoughts, opinions and findings. There are, however, some shortcomings of this work, which warrant a one-star deduction. Skinner paints a wonderful Utopia and accounts for more of the minor details than most Utopia-oriented authors, but he makes a few glaring assumptions. Three come to mind as being the most detrimental to his argument. One) He assumes that Walden Two will magically produce enough goods to sustain itself with ample to spare for trade. Two) He assumes that a science of Behavioral Engineering is possible and implementable. And three) He assumes that this Behavioral Engineering will magically keep the Planners and Managers, the government of the community, from lusting after power, and that in this non-competitive-by-admission environment, people will still manage to excell past the norm. He attempts to support them, but he failed to convince me, no matter how I looked at the problem. Also, he is blatantly sympathetic to Russian Communism, although it was 1948 when he published the book, and Burris is so obviously a straw man concocted for Frazier to fight and convert that the last few chapters are almost laughable, if very poetic and well-written. All in all, I give the book and Skinner's tactics of argument four stars, but Walden Two as a community, one. Although it seems tempting with four hour work days and no competition, Walden Two seems, at least on paper, as believable as Lilliput or Fantasia, or any other fanciful land. Maybe Skinner should have made Walden Two a floating island and Frazier a green skinned dwarf, or something.......
Rating:
Summary: Extremely challenging ideas, but no strong foundation
Review: I read Walden Two as part of a class assignment, studying the effects of secular humanism and other worldviews on this world. The book itself is full of extremely challenging in its ideas. It raises many points that can have a person strong in their faith even take these ideas and ponder them. What if it really could work? Skinner does a good job presenting his ideas, but he has no basis or foundation for which to rest them on. The inconsistancies of his thoughts stand out more than the characters themselves. If Skinner is hailed as an exceptional psychologist, why then can ten high school juniors take every one of his ideas and prove why they can't work? Also, these juniors can take his ideas, match them up with the worldview that applies (Naturalism), and predict where, why, and how his plans will fail.
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