Skinner’s behaviorism prefigured Pentland’s dismissal of the autonomous individual

Evidence

Here again the behaviorist from Harvard had already sounded the first and most eloquent iteration of this message, elevating the Other-One and denouncing the autonomous self. In Beyond Freedom & Dignity, Skinner freely displayed his contempt for this most transcendent ideal of the Sartrean age: the will to will oneself into first-person voice and action. Skinner argued that the differences between humans and other species are greatly exaggerated, and he would have found Pentland entirely justified in his rejection of the individual in favor of the distant, computer-mediated gaze. Beavers or people, the variance hardly matters once we shed the destructive fiction of individual autonomy. The surrender of the individual to manipulation by the planners clears the way for a safe and prosperous future built on the forfeit of freedom for knowledge. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1399

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to chapter material on the ‘Other-One’ — the epistemic move toward Third Person analysis that Zuboff traces throughout the book as foundational to surveillance capitalism. — connects to: Skinner envisioned a population-scale technology of behavioral control that rejected freedom — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1012; American public rejected behaviorism’s claims over individual freedom — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1022; Skinner’s behaviorist utopia requires sacrificing liberal ideals for the good life — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1186 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Skinner saw Enlightenment freedom values as impediments to behavioral science #corroborates (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1207
• Skinner held that gaining knowledge destroys the illusion of free will #corroborates (0.82) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1153
• Skinner showed animal behavior is conditioned by variable rewards and punishments #expands (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 652
• The individual has lost the autonomy to realize the species #corroborates (0.75)