On Sat, 11 Nov 2006 12:03:32 -0500 "Nick C. Woomer-Deters" <nwoomer at gmail.com> writes:
.
>
> My guess is that this impulsiveness is the product of "tough love"
> social
> programs that employ what are basically Skinnerian tactics intended
> to
> encourage reactive thinking and a reactive relationship with the
> world
> rather than a more deliberative approach. Here's an anecdote
> Jonathan Kozol
> used (
>
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/American-Apartheid-Education1sep05.h
tm)
> to illustrate the teaching style at a South Bronx school he's been
> visiting:
The one thing that I can't stand is when someone writes an otherwise insightful piece, manages to drag the good name of B.F. Skinner through the mud once again. Anybody who has made the effort at reading Skinner's works such as his *Science and Human Behavior*, *Beyond Freedom & Dignity*, *About Behaviorism*, or his utopian novel, *Walden Two*, would realize that Skinner would have been very much opposed to the sorts of "tough love" programs described by Nick because of his opposition to reliance upon punitive controls. It may well be the case that the proponents of these social programs pitch them as being based on Skinner work, but such claims are either made in ignorance of Skinner's works, or are simply disingenuous. Having said that, I would agree with Nick that it is likely that the sorts of behavioral controls experienced by poor people in such insitutions as the public schools, juvenile detention centers, the military, jails etc. have much to do with shaping the behavioral orientations of the poor, including the development of predilections towards impulsivity and reactive thinking. In fact, I doubt that Skinner, who devoted much of his research to exploring the side effects of punishment, would have been surprised if this turned out to be the case.
>
>
> "The teacher gave the "zero noise" salute again when someone
> whispered to
> another child at his table. "In two minutes you will have a chance
> to talk
> and share this with your partner." Communication between children in
> the
> class was not prohibited but was afforded time slots and, remarkably
> enough,
> was formalized in an expression that I found included in a memo that
> was
> posted on the wall beside the door: "An opportunity . . . to engage
> in
> Accountable Talk."
>
> Of course, you can see Skinnerian tactics being used throughout many
> other
> institutions poor people are forced to deal with on a regular basis.
> My
> hypothesis is that these institutions are very good at fostering
> impulsivity
> and reactive thinking but they have mixed success in terms of
> creating nice,
> productive members of the underclass -- when they fail, they create
> the
> lumpenproletariat.
>
> Anyway, this is a subject I'm pretty interested in; I wrote about it
> at
> length here:
>
http://woomer.blogspot.com/2005/09/moral-accountability-and-katrina_15.ht
ml
>
>
> -N