Los Horcones:

an experimental culture.

---a social laboratory---

If you mention what you have read on this page, please cite Los Horcones. You help disseminate information about this Walden Two.

"Perhaps the greatest contribution which a science of behavior may make to the evaluation of cultural practices is an insistence upon experimentation."

(Skinner, 1953, Science and Human Behavior, p. 436)

Walden Two is mainly an experimental culture.

In order to survive, a culture should be experimental in the sense that it needs to change according to the results or effects of its practices on the behavior of its members and the rest of the environment.

(Behavior means any human action, including thinking and feeling. For radical behaviorism, thinking and feeling are behaviors).

An experimental culture is not a dogmatic culture which maintains its practices (macrocontingencies, cultural patterns) without observing, analyzing and changing them. When a culture is not experimental its inappropriate practices continue operating without considering the negative effects they have, on the people as well as on the rest of the environment.Western Culture has many inappropriate practices and we are all suffering its negative effects (personal and social problems). These practices continue being implemented because there are people -intitutiones- who obtain advantages from them.We call these practices "Preferential Macrocontingencies" (cultural practices which benefit -reinforce- only one group of members of the culture).

Los Horcones is an experimental culture. It functions as a social laboratory * where cultural practices or macrocontingencies (family,economy, government,education, etc.) are scientifically studied from a behavioral analytic perspective.

*Please do not misunderstand the term "laboratory". Please do not imagine Los Horcones as a traditional lab where scientists in white robes use sophisticated equipment. By cultural laboratory we mean a place where people peacefully interact in cooperation, sharing, helping each other(in all aspects) while they carefully observe and analyze what they do (their behavior, actions) and their environment (more precisely the interaction between behavior and environment) . By cultural laboratory we mean a small society designed in such a way that facilitates behavioral observation (self-observation),analysis and change. A small experimental society where its members arrange the environment to live a more meaningful, creative and productive life.A culture where people try to do everything they do better.

At Los Horcones, we design and implement practices based on cooperative, equality, sharing, non-violence and ecological sustainabbility. The implementation of each cultural practice includes a careful analysis and observation of its impact on the environment (physical,chemical, biological and behavioral -individual and social). Data is collected(formally and informally) and kept as records or graphs.

Reports of findings about what variables help or interfere with communitarian cultural practices are presented either in conferences or in articles and books. See Publications.However most of the data we have gathered throughout the existence of the community has not been yet published. In fact, since October 1996, our priority has been to prepare for publication what we have written in all these years about the results we have obtained in this cultural experiment. We hope to be able to share them with you soon.

The fact that Los Horcones is an experimental culture does not mean that the members live as experimental subjects in a laboratory.

Our approach to culture is not dogmatic. We do not maintain a cultural practice because someone (a philosopher, politician or religious)considered it important. A culture must always change those practices which are damaging people and their environment. Changes must be made fast enough in order not to cause more damage to people and the rest of the environment.

We need a culture to the service of human beings.

Institutions to the service of people,

not people to the service of institutions.

We need to design macrocontingencies which operate

for the survival of our species and our environment.

It is sad to observe that Western culture is not functioning for the benefit of its members. Personal and social problems are the best indicators of its failure.

We are all subjects, all experimenters.

In Los Horcones we are all subjects and experimenters,because all of us know what we are doing, we participate in doing it and observe how everything we do affect our behavior and the rest of our environment.

The members of the community have in this cultural experiment the dual function of being subjects and experimenters at the same time.In Los Horcones, there is not an experimenter who is not part of the experiment as a subject.*

*Please do not think that there is someone who experiments with others.As we have said it, Los Horcones is an experiment in the sense that all its members analyze what we do and the ways we do it, trying to find better ways of doing it. What the members of Los Horcones do to live better. is to observe and analyze our own behavior and design programs to change it.

*One of the requisites to live in Los Horcones is to always try to be a better person (behave and think of others, cooperate for the common good).Remember that in order to build a better society we need to become better individuals.

Our experimental orientation is directed towards all aspects of society (human relations, education, agriculture, nutrition, health care,architecture, etc.). However due to the human resources, so far, research on behavioral issues outnumbers research conducted in other areas. For example:research has been conducted on natural reinforcement (intrinsic reinforcement), cooperative behavior, self-control, political behavior,on the teaching of behavior analysis and behaviorism, on teaching practices, etc. See Research

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Last up-date: May 2003

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