Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of
Growing Up AbsurdGrowing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society is a non-fiction book written by Paul Goodman and published in 1960. This book analyses the causes and effects of: "the disgrace of the Organised System, of semimonopolies, government, advertisers, etc., and the disaffection of the...
(1960) and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement. He is less remembered as a co-founder of
Gestalt TherapyGestalt therapy is an existential/experiential form of psychotherapy that emphasizes personal responsibility, and that focuses upon the individual's experience in the present moment, the therapist-client relationship, the environmental and social contexts of a person's life, and the self-regulating...
in the 1940s and '50s.
Early life
Goodman was born in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to Barnett and Augusta Goodman, both immigrants. He had a Hebrew school education, and graduated first in his class at
Townsend Harris High SchoolTownsend Harris High School is a public magnet high school for the humanities in the borough of Queens in New York City. Students and alumni often refer to themselves as "Harrisites." Townsend Harris consistently ranks as among the top 100 High Schools in the United States. It currently operates as...
. His brother
Percival GoodmanPercival Goodman was an American urban theorist and architect who designed more than 50 synagogues between 1948 and 1983. He has been called the "leading theorist" of modern synagogue design, and "the most prolific architect in Jewish history."-Biography:Percival Goodman was born in New York City...
, with whom Paul frequently worked, was an architect especially noted for his many synagogue designs.
As a child, Goodman freely roamed the streets and public libraries of his native New York City, experiences which later inspired his radical concept of "the educative city". He graduated from The City College of New York in 1932 and completed his Ph.D. work at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 193[9?]. (He was not officially awarded his Ph.D. until 1953, for the dissertation which was later published by the University of Chicago as
The Structure of Literature.)
Career
Goodman was a prolific writer of essays, fiction and poetry. Although he had been writing short stories since 1932, his first novel,
The Grand Piano, was published in 1942.
In the mid-1940s, together with
C. Wright MillsCharles Wright Mills was an American sociologist. Mills is best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination in which he lays out a view of the proper relationship between biography and history, theory and method in sociological scholarship...
, he contributed to
PoliticsPolitics was a journal founded and edited by Dwight Macdonald from 1944 to 1949.Macdonald had previously been editor at Partisan Review from 1937 to 1943, but after falling out with its publishers, quit to start Politics as a rival publication, first on a monthly basis and then as a...
, the journal edited during the 1940s by
Dwight MacdonaldDwight Macdonald was an American writer, editor, film critic, social critic, philosopher, and political radical.-Early life and career:...
. In 1947, he published two books,
Kafka's Prayer and
CommunitasCommunitas is a Latin noun commonly referring either to an unstructured community in which people are equal, or to the very spirit of community. It also has special significance as a loanword in cultural anthropology and the social sciences....
, a classic study of urban design coauthored with his brother
Percival GoodmanPercival Goodman was an American urban theorist and architect who designed more than 50 synagogues between 1948 and 1983. He has been called the "leading theorist" of modern synagogue design, and "the most prolific architect in Jewish history."-Biography:Percival Goodman was born in New York City...
. Fame came only with the 1960 publication of his
Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized SystemGrowing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society is a non-fiction book written by Paul Goodman and published in 1960. This book analyses the causes and effects of: "the disgrace of the Organised System, of semimonopolies, government, advertisers, etc., and the disaffection of the...
.
Goodman also knew and worked with other leading New York intellectuals, including
Daniel BellDaniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor emeritus at Harvard University, best known for his seminal contributions to the study of post-industrialism...
,
Norman MailerNorman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
,
Irving HoweIrving Howe was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America.-Life and career:...
,
Alfred KazinAlfred Kazin was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America....
,
Norman PodhoretzNorman B. Podhoretz is an American neoconservative pundit and writer for Commentary magazine.-Early life:The son of Julius and Helen Podhoretz, Jewish immigrants from the Central European region of Galicia, Podhoretz was born and raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn...
,
Mary McCarthyMary McCarthy may refer to:*Mary McCarthy , novelist, critic, and memoirist*Mary McCarthy , former CIA employee accused of leaking information...
,
Lionel TrillingLionel Trilling was an American literary critic, author, and teacher. With wife Diana Trilling, he was a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to the Partisan Review. Although he did not establish a school of literary criticism, he is one of the leading U.S...
, and
Philip RahvPhilip Rahv was an American literary critic and essayist.-Life:...
. In addition to
Politics, his writings appeared in
Partisan ReviewPartisan Review was an American political and literary quarterly published from 1934 to 2003, though it suspended publication between October 1936 and December 1937.-Overview:...
,
The New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
,
CommentaryCommentary is a monthly American magazine on politics, Judaism, social and cultural issues. It was founded by the American Jewish Committee in 1945. By 1960 its editor was Norman Podhoretz, a liberal at the time who moved sharply to the right in the 1970s and 1980s becoming a strong voice for the...
,
The New LeaderThe New Leader was a political and cultural magazine begun in 1924 by a group of figures associated with the Socialist Party of America, including Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas, and published in New York by the American Labor Conference on International Affairs. Its orientation is liberal and...
,
DissentDissent is a quarterly magazine focusing on politics and culture edited by Michael Walzer and Michael Kazin. The magazine is published for the Foundation for the Study of Independent Social Ideas, Inc by the University of Pennsylvania Press....
and
The New York Review of BooksThe New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
.
Goodman was strongly influenced by
Otto RankOtto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
's "here-and-now" approach to psychotherapy, fundamental to Gestalt therapy, as well as Rank's post-Freudian book
Art and Artist (1932). In the late 1940s,
Fritz PerlsFriedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
asked Goodman to write up the notes which were to become the seminal work for the new therapy, Part II of Perls, Goodman, and Hefferline (1951)
Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. A year later, Goodman would become one of the Group of Seven - Fritz and
Laura PerlsLaura Perls in Pforzheim, was a noted German-born psychologist and psychotherapist who helped establish the Gestalt school of psychotherapy....
, Isadore From, Goodman, Elliot Shapiro,
Paul WeissPaul S. Weiss is a leading American nanoscientist at UCLA. He holds numerous positions, including Fred Kavli Chair and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute and Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry...
, Richard Kitzler - the founding members of the New York Institute for Gestalt Therapy.
Goodman wrote on a wide variety of subjects; including education, Gestalt Therapy, city life and
urban designUrban design concerns the arrangement, appearance and functionality of towns and cities, and in particular the shaping and uses of urban public space. It has traditionally been regarded as a disciplinary subset of urban planning, landscape architecture, or architecture and in more recent times has...
,
children's rightsChildren's rights are the human rights of children with particular attention to the rights of special protection and care afforded to the young, including their right to association with both biological parents, human identity as well as the basic needs for food, universal state-paid education,...
, politics,
literary criticismLiterary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...
, and many more. In an interview with
Studs TerkelLouis "Studs" Terkel was an American author, historian, actor, and broadcaster. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1985 for The Good War, and is best remembered for his oral histories of common Americans, and for hosting a long-running radio show in Chicago.-Early...
, Goodman said "I might seem to have a number of divergent interests — community planning, psychotherapy, education, politics — but they are all one concern: how to make it possible to grow up as a human being into a culture without losing nature. I simply refuse to acknowledge that a sensible and honorable community does not exist."
He was equally at home with the
avant-gardeAvant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
and with
classicalClassical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
texts, and his fiction often mixes formal and experimental styles. The style and subject matter of Goodman's short stories influenced those of
Guy DavenportGuy Mattison Davenport was an American writer, translator, illustrator, painter, intellectual, and teacher.-Life:...
.
In 1967, Goodman's son Matthew died in a mountain climbing accident. Paul's friends claimed that he never recovered from the resulting grief, and his health began to deteriorate. He died of a heart attack at his farm in New Hampshire just before his 61st birthday.
Views and opinions
While Goodman himself described his politics as anarchist, his love as
bisexualBisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
, and his profession as that of "man of letters",
Hayden CarruthHayden Carruth was an American poet and literary critic. He taught at Syracuse University.-Life:Hayden Carruth grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut, and was educated at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the University of Chicago. He lived in Johnson, Vermont for many years...
wrote "Any page of Paul Goodman will give you not only originality and brilliance but wisdom — that is, something to think about. He is our peculiar, urban, twentieth-century Thoreau, the quintessential American mind of our time."
Bisexuality
The freedom with which he revealed, in print and in public, his homosexual life and loves (notably in a late essay, "Being
QueerQueer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
"), proved to be one of the many important cultural springboards for the emerging
gay liberationGay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
movement of the early 1970s. However, his own views ran counter to the modern construction of homosexuality; it was his view that sexual relationships between males were natural, normal, and healthy.
In discussing his own sexual relationships, he acknowledged that public opinion would condemn him, but countered that "what is really obscene is the way our society makes us feel shameful and like criminals for doing human things that we really need."
Radical politics
After having been a strong advocate of the student movement during most of the 1960s, Goodman eventually became a staunch critic of the ideological harshness the
New LeftThe New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
embraced toward the end of the decade. In
New Reformation (1970), his tenth book of social criticism, he argued that the "alienation" and existential rage of 1960s youth had usurped all their worthwhile political goals (e.g., the
Port Huron StatementThe Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society , written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Michigan, a...
), and that therefore their tactics had become destructive. The book further situated the drama of the tumultuous 1960s in the larger context of what Goodman called "the disease of modern times". In drawing this parallel between young people's socio-historical consciousness and their political activism, Goodman made an early contribution to the argument that the philosophical underpinnings of the New Left were largely informed by postwar disenchantment with
EnlightenmentThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
conceptions of science, technology, truth, knowledge, and power relations.
For instance, after a hostile exchange with student radicals who had heckled him "heatedly and rudely" at a campus appearance in 1967, Goodman wrote, "suddenly I realized that they did not believe there was a nature of things. [To them] there was no knowledge but only the
sociology of knowledgeThe Sociology of knowledge is the study of the relationship between human thought and the social context within which it arises, and of the effects prevailing ideas have on societies...
. They had learned so well that physical and sociological research is subsidized and conducted for the benefit of the ruling class that they were doubtful that there was such a thing as simple truth, for instance that the table was made of wood—maybe it was plastic imitation...I had imagined that the worldwide student protest had to do with changing political and moral institutions, and I was sympathetic to this. But I now saw that we had to do with a religious crisis. Not only all institutions but all learning had been corrupted by the
Whore of BabylonThe Whore of Babylon or "Babylon the great" is a Christian allegorical figure of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is given as "Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth." -Symbolism:...
, and there was no longer any salvation to be got from Works."
After a life of revolutionary revelry and social criticism, Goodman's likening of the youth revolt in the 1960s to the
Protestant ReformationThe Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
of 1517 made up the crux of his belief about American modernity in the late 1960s: "It is evident that, at present, we are not going to give up the mass faith in scientific technology that is the religion of modern times; and yet we cannot continue with it, as it has been perverted. So I look for a 'New Reformation.'"
Goodman participated at the 1967 Congress on the Dialectics of Liberation, held in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and coordinated by South African psychiatrist
David CooperDavid Graham Cooper was a British psychiatrist, theorist and leader in the anti-psychiatry movement....
. The Congress aimed at "creating a genuine revolutionary consciousness by fusing ideology and action on the levels of the individual and of mass society". Goodman's views on politics, social psychology, and society could be usefully compared and contrasted with those of fellow attendees
Herbert MarcuseHerbert Marcuse was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
and R. D. Laing, and with those of
Norman O. BrownNorman Oliver Brown was an American classicist.-Life:Brown's father was an Anglo-Irish mining engineer. His mother was a Cuban of Alsatian and Cuban origin...
.
In 1968, Goodman signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.
Quotations
- "It is by losing ourselves in inquiry, creation & craft that we become something. Civilization is a continual gift of spirit: inventions, discoveries, insight, art. We are citizens, as Socrates would have said, & we have it available as our own. "
- "We propose banning private cars from Manhattan Island ... Present congestion & parking are unworkable, & other proposed solutions are uneconomic, disruptive, unhealthy, nonurban, or impractical ..." - from "Banning Cars from Manhattan" (1961) by Paul & Percival Goodman
- How well they flew together side by side
- the Stars & Stripes my red & white & blue
- & my Black Flag the sovereignty of no
- man or law!
- - Paul Goodman, in Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...
, For Reasons of State (1973)
- "The issue is not whether people are 'good enough' for a particular type of society; rather it is a matter of developing the kind of social institutions that are most conducive to expanding the potentialities we have for intelligence, grace, sociability and freedom." - Paul Goodman (1964)
Paul Goodman Changed My Life
In October 2011 a biographical documentary film
Paul Goodman Changed My LifePaul Goodman Changed My Life is a 2011 documentary film directed by Jonathan Lee and distributed by Zeitgeist Films. It will be released theatrically in the United States on October 19, 2011 at Film Forum in New York City.-Synopsis:...
about Goodman by
Jonathan LeeJonathan Lee is a Taiwanese record producer, singer, and songwriter. Throughout the mid-1980s through the 1990s, he composed song lyrics and melodies for numerous musical artists in the Rock Records label, including Angus Tung, Sarah Chen, Sandy Lam, Sylvia Chang, Winnie Hsin, Tarcy Su, Jeff...
opened.
Complete works
Nonfiction
- Pieces of Three, with Meyer Liben and Edouard Roditi (Harrington Park, N.J.: 5 X 8 Press, 1942)
- Art and Social Nature. (New York: Vinco Publishing Company, 1946)
- Kafka's Prayer. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1947); reprinted (New York: Stonehill, 1976)
- Communitas
Communitas is a Latin noun commonly referring either to an unstructured community in which people are equal, or to the very spirit of community. It also has special significance as a loanword in cultural anthropology and the social sciences....
: Means of Livelihood and Ways of Life, with Percival Goodman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1947); revised 2nd edition (New York: Vintage Books, 1960); revised 3rd edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)
- Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality. with Frederick S. Perls and Ralph Hefferline [volume two, "Novelty, Excitement, and Growth," by Goodman] (New York: Julian Press, 1951); reprinted (Highland, New York: The Gestalt Journal Press, 1994)
- The Structure of Literature. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954)
- Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry. (New York: Random House, 1971)
- Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System. (New York: Random House, 1960; London: Victor Gollancz, 1961)
- Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals. (New York: Random House, 1962)
- The Community of Scholars. (New York: Random House, 1962)
- Drawing the Line. (New York: Random House, 1962)
- The Society I Live In Is Mine. (New York: Horizon Press, 1962)
- Compulsory Mis-education. (New York: Horizon Press, 1964)
- Seeds of Liberation, edited by Goodman (New York: George Braziller, 1964)
- People or Personnel. (New York: Random House, 1965)
- The Moral Ambiguity of America. [Massey Lectures, Sixth Series] (Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1966); published in the U.S. as Like a Conquered Province: The Moral Ambiguity of America (New York: Random House, 1967)
- Five Years. With an Introduction by Harold Rosenberg. (New York: Brussel & Brussel, 1966
- The Politics of Being Queer. 1969.
- New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic Conservative. (New York: Random House, 1970)
- Little Prayers and Finite Experience. (New York: Harper & Row, 1972)
- The Writings of Paul Goodman, edited by David Ray and Taylor Stoehr, special double issue of New Letters, 42 (Winter/Spring 1976)
- Drawing the Line: Political Essays, edited by Taylor Stoehr (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977)
- Creator Spirit Come!: Literary Essays, edited by Taylor Stoehr (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977)
- Nature Heals: Psychological Essays, edited by Taylor Stoehr (New York: Free Life Editions, 1977)
- Finite Experience and Crazy Hope, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Cleveland: Gestalt Institute of Cleveland Press, 1994) [augmented edition of Little Prayers and Finite Experience]
- Decentralizing Power: Paul Goodman’s Social Criticism, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1994)
- Format and Anxiety: Paul Goodman Critiques the Media, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1995)
Fiction
- The Grand Piano; or, The Almanac of Alienation. (San Francisco: Colt Press, 1942) [volume one of The Empire City (1959)]
- The State of Nature. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1946) [volume two of The Empire City (1959)]
- The Copernican Revolution. (Saugatuck, Conn.: 5 X 8 Press, 1946)
- The Break-Up of Our Camp and Other Stories. (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1949)
- The Dead of Spring. (Glen Gardner, N.J.: Libertarian Press, 1950) [volume three of The Empire City (1959)]
- Parents' Day (Saugatuck, Conn.: 5 X 8 Press, 1951); reprinted (Santa Barbara, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1985)
- The Empire City. (Indianapolis & New York; Bobbs-Merrill, 1959); reprinted (New York: Vintage, 1977); reprint (Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 2001)
- Our Visit to Niagara. (New York: Horizon Press, 1960)
- Making Do. (New York: Macmillan, 1963)
- Adam and His Works: Collected Stories. (New York: Vintage Books, 1968)
- The Break-Up of Our Camp, Stories 1932-1935, volume one of The Collected Stories, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA.: Black Sparrow Press, 1978)
- A Ceremonial, Stories 1936-1940, volume two of The Collected Stories, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA.: Black Sparrow Press, 1978)
- The Facts of Life, Stories 1940-1949, volume three of The Collected Stories, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA.: Black Sparrow Press, 1979)
- Don Juan: or, The Continuum of the Libido, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA.: Black Sparrow Press, 1979)
- The Galley to Mytilene, Stories 1949-1960, volume four of The Collected Stories, edited by Taylor Stoehr (Santa Barbara, CA.: Black Sparrow Press, 1980)
Poetry & Plays
- Stop-Light: Five Dance Poems. (Harrington Park, N.J.: 5 X 8 Press, 1941)
- The Facts of Life. (New York: Vanguard Press, 1945; London: Editions Poetry London [Nicholson & Watson], 1946)
- The Lordly Hudson: Collected Poems. (New York: Macmillan, 1962)
- Three Plays: The Young Disciple, Faustina, Jonah. (New York: Random House, 1965)
- Hawkweed: Poems. (New York: Random House, 1967)
- North Percy. (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1968)
- The Open Look, with photographs by Stefan Congrat-Butlar (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1969)
- Tragedy & Comedy: Four Cubist Plays. (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1970)
- Homespun of Oatmeal Gray: Poems. (New York: Random House, 1970)
- Collected Poems, edited by Taylor Stoehr. With a memoir by George Dennison. (New York: Random House, 1973)
Secondary literature
- Stoehr, Taylor, Here, Now, Next: Paul Goodman and the Origins of Gestalt Therapy.
- Widmer, Kingsely, 1980. Paul Goodman. Twayne.
- Nicely, Tom, 1979. Adam & His Work: a bibliography of sources by and about Paul Goodman (1911–1972). Scarecrow Press.
- "On Paul Goodman", in "Under the Sign of Saturn: Essays" by Susan Sontag (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980)
- "Artist of the Actual: Essays on Paul Goodman," edited by Peter Parisi (Metuchen, NJ, Scarecrow Press, 1986).
External links