Read Online The Call-Girls by Arthur Koestler - Free Book Online Page B

conditioning, accompanied by suitable reinforcements. Positive and negative reinforcements – in common parlance, reward and deprivation – were mighty tools of social engineering, which allowed us to look with some confidence into the future. But just as the electrical engineer learns how to operate complex machines by learning all there is about simple machines first, so the social engineer – the behavioural scientist – studies the mechanisms of behaviour in simple organisms, such as rats, pigeons and geese. Since all behaviour, to quote Professor Skinner of Harvard (here Burch’s voice became reverential, almost lyrical), since all behaviour of the individuals of a given species, and that of all species of mammals, including man, occurs according to the same set of primary, physico-chemical laws, it follows that the differences between the activities of man, rats and geese were merely of a quantitative, not of a qualitativeorder; and it further followed that experimentation with organisms on the lower rungs of the evolutionary ladder provided the scientist with all the necessary elements to attain his purpose – that is, ‘
to describe, predict and control human behaviour’.
The last words Burch uttered with special emphasis, to indicate that he was again quoting revered authority…
    â€˜Professor Burch, may I ask you a question?’ Horace Wyndham piped up with an apologetic titter. ‘When you talk of “predicting and controlling behaviour”, do you include the types of activity which in common parlance are referred to as, well – literature – or playing the harp?’
    â€˜Most certainly. We refer to these activities as verbal behaviour and manipulative behaviour, specifying in the latter case the materials or media of the manipulations involved. Both the verbalizer and the manipulator act in response to stimuli from the environment and are controlled by the contingencies of reinforcement.’
    â€˜Thank you, Professor Burch,’ Wyndham said; and later on it was generally agreed that this had been the moment when the symposium began to divide into two camps. However, the only overt signs of the incipient split were some clearings of throats and shufflings of feet. All took it for granted that Burch – as could be expected – had made a monumental ass of himself. The majority – later on to be referred to as the Nikosians – thought what a clever bastard Solovief was to invite the most extreme, rigid and orthodox representative of a school of thought to which he was known to be passionately opposed; a school of thought which, though in slightly watered-down versions, still dominated the philosophical outlook of the scientific community. The others, however, who basically shared that outlook, but preferred to express it in less provocative and more circuitous terms than Burch, understood just as well that Nikolai had invited him as a kind of fall-guy who would reduce their position to absurdity, and resented this as a cheap trick – ‘positively Machiawellisch’, Halder later remarked.
    The uneasy pause was ended by Harriet, who had listenedto Burch with an air of patient exasperation, occasionally turning her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Mr Chairman,’ she suddenly bellowed, ‘I cannot see what on God’s earth Professor Burch’s excursion into ratology has to do with your introductory remarks about the mess we are in, and the urgency of the situation. I gather from the programme that Professor Burch will read a paper about “recent advances in operant conditioning of lower mammals” in the morning session on Thursday, so I suggest we control our impatience to hear about that subject and discuss now your proposal to form a committee of action.’
    â€˜Hear, hear,’ Tony said half aloud, and blushed.
    â€˜You need not worry,’ Burch said drily. ‘I believe my remarks were relevant to