February 25 , 2016

February 25 , 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader, 

In the final pages of Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971, p. 213) Skinner writes “We have seen how the literatures of freedom and dignity, with their concern for autonomous man, have perpetuated the use of punishment and condoned the use of only weak punitive techniques, and it is not difficult to demonstrate a connection between the right of the unlimited individual to pursue happiness and the catastrophes threatened by unchecked breeding, the unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment, and the immanence of nuclear war.” Although this is certainly true, our way of talking plays a much bigger causal role than what has been written; “the literatures of freedom and dignity.” 

If Skinner had attempted to address the great importance of how we influence each other by our way of talking, he would have had to account for the positive and negative emotions, which are the collateral effects of how we talk. Obviously, as long as autonomous man was reinforced for how we spoke with one another, we felt positive emotions and we weren’t the least concerned with him, but since this non-existent autonomous man was in fact punished so many times that we were practically unable to feel real to the point that we were almost constantly involved in asserting counter control. 

Counter control became our way of defining ourselves due to our Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB).  In Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), there is no counter control as no one elicits it. The fact that speakers and listeners together maintain SVB puts the speaker’s attention on the listener. In SVB, the speaker-as-his-own-listener fine-tunes and connects his or her speaking and listening behavior.  Also, in SVB, the listener who is not the speaker, hears a sound that bridges speaking and listening behavior. Consequently, there is no separation between the speaker and the listener in SVB. Our so-called “unlimited pursuit of happiness” could never lead to the merging of our speaking and listening behavior.  To the contrary, it constantly set apart the speaker and the listener as separate entities, presumably caused by this autonomous inner man. We may have been in pursuit of happiness, but we were never able to achieve it with our NVB. Our pursuit of happiness has remained limited by hostile environments. 

Unlimited pursuit of happiness involves reinforcement of our ability to create and maintain safe, supportive and stable environments. Our freedom of speech is only meaningful to the extent that we are able to listen ourselves and that listeners will hear speakers who listen to themselves, that is, to the extent that we together engage in SVB.  As long as our NVB didn’t and couldn’t transform into SVB, we weren’t happy and we couldn’t be happy. For a long time we have been able to avoid the issue of how we interact with each other. 

The literature of freedom and dignity is negatively reinforced as it takes our attention temporarily away from the ubiquity of NVB. NOT because of the literature of freedom and dignity, but because of NVB are we heading toward “the catastrophes threatened by unchecked breeding, the unrestrained affluence which exhausts resources and pollutes the environment, and the immanence of nuclear war.” The only way to change things around is by creating environments in which SVB can happen, where our so-called identity is no longer an issue because we are not threatened. 

Although we may continue to believe otherwise, our books and our written words play no causal role in the perpetuation of our punitive behavioral control.  It is our way of talking which drives many of our other behaviors. In NVB punishment is executed by what we say and by how we speak. It is therefore useless to write about extinguishing the common belief in autonomous man. Unless we talk about it, that is, unless we engage in SVB nothing can or will change.  In SVB it is evident that there can be no inner self. During SVB we realize that we have continued an inaccurate way of describing ourselves and each other. In SVB we come to terms with the fact that NVB was an unconscious, mechanical, unscientific and negative way of talking.