(10 of 10)
Skinner rises at 5 a.m., writes for three hours, then walks to his Harvard office, sometimes memorizing poetry (Shakespeare or Baudelaire) on the way. There he charts the sales of Walden Two on a graph over his desk; the total should reach the million mark sometime in 1972. In the course of the day, he gives an occasional lecture and records his ideas in notebooks that he has always at hand. "He thinks of himself as an event in the history of man, and he wants to be damned sure the record is straight," a colleague observes.
Skinner nonetheless allows himself some relaxation. He drinks vodka and tonic in the late afternoon, sees an occasional movie, reads Georges Simenon detective novels once in a while, and enjoys the company of friends, his two children and his grandchildren. It sounds fulfilling, but a poignant passage from a personal journal several years ago suggests an underlying sadness: "Sun streams into our living room. My hi-fi is midway through the first act of Tristan and Isolde. A very pleasant environment. A man would be a fool not to enjoy himself in it. In a moment I will work on a manuscript which may help mankind. So my life is not only pleasant, it is earned or deserved. Yet, yet, I am unhappy."
That sort of unhappiness wells from deep personal sources. Yet it is also related to his more universal concerns. Skinner worries about the fact that, as Walden Two's Frazier put it, "our civilization is running away like a frightened horse. As she runs, her speed and her panic increase together. As for your politicians, your professors, your writers—let them wave their arms and shout as wildly as they will."
That may be an accurate description of society's dilemma, but Skinner's solution seems equally frightening. To Theologian Rubenstein, Beyond Freedom and Dignity is an important but "terrifying" book. Skinner's "utopian projection," he says, "is less likely to be a blueprint for the Golden Age than for the theory and practice of hell."