Blood Relationship

“In the waiting room Castle resumed an intermittent harangue. In a way he was more completely absorbed in Walden Two than I, for the most trivial details suggested comparisons. His audible remarks were frequently incoherent, and I could make sense of them only by guessing at the energetic silent discourse which was taking place behind them. He was not yet free of Frazier’s magic, but he had reached and was holding to a decision. From every point of view—logical, psychological, factual—Walden Two appeared to him obviously impossible. The discrepancies would vanish in time.

““For one thing,” he said, “you can be sure someone will ‘get’ Frazier before things have gone much farther. It may be the government, it may be rival religious or economic forces, or perhaps just some envious individual inside or outside the community. But someone will get him, you may be sure of that. Joseph Smith was murdered by an angry mob, Eric Janson was shot by a jealous {289} rival, John Humphrey Noyes fled to Canada. Look at history, man!”

“I knew what Frazier would say to that. These early communities had almost nothing in common with Walden Two, in fact or in theory. How could one draw any inferences? Frazier had seen the danger of aggression against Walden Two, and had provided for it well enough.

“The possibility of working out a satisfying life of one’s own, making the least possible contact with the government, was the brightest spot in Frazier’s argument. I thought of the millions of young people who were at that moment choosing places in a social and economic structure in which they had no faith. What a discrepancy between ideal and actuality—between their good will toward men and the competitive struggle in which they must somehow find a place! Why should they not work out a world of their own? That was the Thoreauvian side of Frazier, and I liked it. Why fight the government? Why try to change it? Why not let it alone? Unlike Thoreau, Frazier would pay his taxes and compromise wherever necessary. But he had found a way to build a world to his taste without trying to change the world of others, and I was sure he could carry on in peace unless the government took some monstrously despotic turn.

“Nor was I ready to laugh off Frazier’s plans for expansion. On several points he was dead right. The important lasting conquests in the history of mankind—Frazier himself had made this appeal to history—had come about, not through force, but through education, persuasion, example. Frazier’s program was essentially a religious movement freed of any dallying with the supernatural and inspired by a determination to build heaven on earth. What could stop him?

“Castle’s voice broke into my meditations. “… behavioral engineering,” he was saying. “If you really had a technology which could manipulate human {290} behavior, you could raise some puzzling questions. But isn’t that wishful thinking?"

“The evidence, I thought, seemed clear enough. Frazier had claimed some innovations in behavioral techniques which I wanted to know more about, but I could imagine a potent technology composed of the principles already used by politicians, educators, priests, advertisers, and psychologists. The techniques of controlling human behavior were obvious enough. The trouble was, they were in the hands of the wrong people—or of feeble repairmen. Frazier had not only correctly evaluated this situation but had done something about it. I was not ready to accept his educational practices as unquestionably the best. Frazier himself still regarded them as experimental. But they were at least well along toward a crucial test, which was more than could be said for their counterparts in the world at large. Their potency had already been too clearly demonstrated elsewhere in their misuse. Frazier had all the technology he could possibly need.

“… regimentation,” Castle was saying. “Pretty cleverly concealed, but regimentation just the same. A curious sort of voluntary goose-step. Why should all those people subscribe to a code or submit to the subtle coercions of a Behavioral Manager? ‘Don’t gossip!’ ‘Carry your dishes to the kitchen!’ It reminds me of a well-organized girls’ camp. I’ll grant you it’s efficient. But I want to be free. No codes, no psychological suasions. I’m not taking any, thank you.”

“The enormity of Castle’s intellectual sin! Could he really believe that he was free of codes and psychological suasions? Could he look upon his life as a succession of deliberate acts? Why, he parted his very hair by a code!

“The man’s unread,” Castle was saying. “You would think he was the first social thinker in history. These things take on a different light when one has read Plato, Rousseau, John Stuart Mill. Frazier needs a good course in the humanities.” Was Castle by any chance baiting me? A good course {291} in the humanities! He must have known my reaction to that! Nothing aroused me quicker than the suggestion that we abandon science in dealing with the problems of society. I could not comfortably defend nine-tenths of what passed for social science—but it was better to see that a thing was clearly nonsense than to wander around in the all-embracing fog of social philosophy. I could understand the satisfaction which men like Castle might find in turning from current problems to ancient treatises. An old book is a welcome relief from the uncertainty and disappointment which are inevitable in the scientific study of a new field. Historical research can take the place of scientific inquiry and give one time out for an honorable snooze, while pretending to carry on. Fortunately, my sense of personal failure had not yet forced me to such extremes.

“Aside from the role of physical resemblance, I could not see that hereditary connections could have any real bearing upon relations between men. The “sense of family” was clearly dependent upon culture, for it varied in all degrees among cultures. The important thing was not that two people were related, but that they had been told they were related.

“… in the face of nature,” Castle was saying. “Blood is thicker than water. And blood will tell. Can you deny that? Where does your behavioral engineering come in there? The family has a biological basis.”

“I suppose it had. And so had “race.”

“I thought of all the violence that had been committed in the name of “blood relationship.” Yet aside from the role of physical resemblance, I could not see that hereditary connections could have any real bearing upon relations between men.

“A “sense of family” was clearly dependent upon culture, for it varied in all degrees among cultures. The important thing was not that two people were related, but that they had been told they were related.

“Better not to bring the matter up at all. The family was only a little race, and it had better go. It was no longer an efficient economic or social unit or transmitter of culture—its current failure was increasingly evident. A unit of another magnitude would have to dispense with “blood ties,” as Frazier clearly saw.”

Skinner, B. F.. Walden Two (Hackett Classics) (pp. 288-291)). Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.. Kindle Edition.