University of Virginia Library

Crucial Element

For Skinner believes that
viability, not quality, is the crucial
element in assessing the worth of a
society. "Survival is the only value
according to which a culture is
eventually to be judged..." is one of
his more amazing statements, to
which one reviewer retorted:
"From which one must conclude
that if the Third Reich (an early
outpost of behavioral technology)
had survived its advertised thousand
years, one would have to call it a
good culture."

As for how his new society will
be organized, he gives no concrete
solutions for the problems of who
will control the population or
which ideologies will guide it. In his
chapter called "The Design of a
Culture" he talks all around the
problem, his only tangible offering
for the culture's proposed design
being the safeguard that the
controller(s) must live under the
rules they devise for the rest of the
society.