I have been reading some of the work of the late radical behaviorist B.F. Skinner. Skinner, who denied free will, seems to have drawn some of the implications of his position – but it seems to me that he stopped short. Read the following remarks, from his autobiography and to the interviewer Alfie Kohn, and see whether you agree.
Mondays are student letter days.
Query:
My friend defines his entire moral code by the statement, "As long as I am not directly hurting anyone other than me, then nothing that I do is wrong.” What do you think?
Reply:
If any be a devout lover of God, let him partake with gladness from this fair and radiant feast.
If any be a faithful servant, let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord.
If any have wearied himself with fasting, let him now enjoy his reward.
If any have labored from the first hour, let him receive today his rightful due.
Once upon a time I was approached by a grad student who said he had been thinking about God. This worried him, because he had never thought about God before.
He said, "Do you think I'm crazy?"
I answered, "No."
He was relieved.
Why don’t our students learn logical reasoning? Maybe because their teachers don’t either.
Some years ago, an essay of mine was chastised by some readers because I had dragged God into it. The incident wouldn’t be interesting except for the fact that I hadn’t dragged God into it. I hadn’t even mentioned Him.
When we teach men to perfect their masculinity through the discipline of chivalry, two kinds of men result. The most spirited accept the discipline and become knights, but the least spirited refuse the discipline and become cads.
Mondays, as always, are for questions from students.
Question:
Feminism is the ideology that little boys must be like little girls and adult women must be like adult men.