Society attacks early, when the individual is helpless.

The line reflects Skinner’s behaviorist conviction that what we call “the individual” is largely shaped by environmental contingencies—especially those imposed in childhood, before a person can choose, resist, or redesign them. Read this way, “society attacks” is not necessarily a claim of conscious malice; it can mean that social institutions (family practices, schooling, religion, law, custom) begin conditioning behavior very early through reinforcement and punishment. The quote underscores a tension central to Skinner’s work: the formative power of social control versus the ideal of autonomous self-determination. It also implies an ethical demand—if society inevitably shapes the helpless young, it should do so deliberately and humanely rather than haphazardly or coercively.