ABSTRACT

AN ANALYSIS OF PAUL GOODMAN'S CONCEPTION
OF THE NATURE OF MAN AS A PERSPECTIVE

ON HIS EDUCATIONAL PROPOSALS: A
STUDY IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL

FOUNDATIONS OF RADICAL
EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT

By

Jack Hruska

Goodman is a naturalist. His prime referent is always

that of the organic person. He urges us to construct a

society which will maximize the growth, and concomitantly

the happiness of man. As human nature is not infinitely

malleable the environment ought to be structured to man's

:nature so as to be responsive with his growth needs. It

113 Goodman's criticism that society in general, and the

exhacational establishment in particular, has taken the

position that human nature is secondary and is derived

frmnn culture. PeOple are expected to adjust to institu—

to systems, to culture. Goodman argues, however,

tions ,
has basic needs that must be satisfied

that man as man,
if‘ true organism is to grow and remain healthy, and,

further, that many of these needs are incompatible with

the demands of mid—twentieth century institutions and

Jack Hruska

The purpose of this study is to examine Paul
Goodman's concept of human nature and to demonstrate how
his educational recommendations and prOposals stem from
that concept.

Goodman's fundamental postulate is that man is a
pleasure seeking self-regulating animal. Nor is it
enough that man can be self-regulating, but if he is to
grow and achieve happiness he must be self-regulating.
This position emanates from Goodman's social psychology
coupled with his humanistic posture on the desirability
of individual growth. Goodman views man as social by
nature. Subsequently self-regulating individuals, if
educated and uncoerced by external control, will form a
cooperative society maximizing the growth and pleasure of
all. Goodman's insistance on freedom from authority and
his belief that happiness is found in worthwhile
activities mark him as a community-anarchist.

Goodman defends his self-regulating theory by
illustrating that man has a hierarchy of values in that
growth needs arise spontaneously. When a lower need--
e.g. food, sleep--is satisfied, a higher need-~e.g.
creativity, curiosity--will spontaneously arise and
clamor for attention. Growth occurs when the organism
asserts its natural aggression in order to assimilate
what it finds interesting in the environment. Crucial

to Goodman's educational prOposals is that the organism

Jack Hruska

can give full attention only to what it finds spontaneously
or naturally interesting. In order to assimilate, the
organism must destructure the novel into assimilable
elements and take them on so they become at one with the
organism. This process is applicable to both physiological
processes and mental processes.

Growth, then, is the process of spontaneous interest,
aggression, and assimilation. Maximum growth requires all
three. Goodman's primary criticism as a social critic is
that society is structured so as to maximize the growth
and security of institutions and not peOple. That is,
man has natural limits to what he can comprehend,
destructure, and assimilate. If the institutions in his
environment become too large or too complicated man with-
draws, becomes hostile, and initiates stupid reaction-
formations--e.g. war, guilt, mis-directed aggression.
Therefore, institutions ought to be structured so they
are in human scale--i.e. small, flexible, decentralized,
so as to admit of individual interests and individual
aggression.

Goodman's educational proposals are a natural out-
growth of this social psychology. His emphasis is on
spontaneous interest and the freedom to act on that
interest. Therefore, he urges us toward decentralized,
flexible, autonomous units whether they be elementary

schools or universities. Being highly critical of the

Jack Hruska

established educational authorities he champions the use
of what are now considered non-educational activities as
alternatives for the academic schooling now expected of
all. He believes that a majority of the youth can be
better educated by social work, travel, Operating small
theaters and newspapers, working on farms, beautifying
small towns, or any number of socially meaningful
activities that are spontaneously interesting and admit

of learning experiences.

AN ANALYSIS OF PAUL GOODMAN‘S CONCEPTION OF
THE NATURE OF MAN AS A PERSPECTIVE ON HIS
EDUCATIONAL PROPOSALS: A STUDY IN THE
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF RADICAL

EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT

By

Jack Hruska

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Secondary Education
and Curriculum

1969

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Appreciation is extended to the members of the
writer's Doctoral Guidance Committee: Dr. Marvin
Grandstaff, Chairman; Dr. J. Allan Beegle; Dr. Frank
Blackington, and Dr. Harold Wallace.

Particularly I wish to thank Dr. Marvin Grandstaff
for his part in the development of this dissertation.
It was in his classes that I first became excited about
educational philosophy and in the challenges put forth
by the radical critics. And it is his insistence that
academic education be relevant to the growth needs of
people that drew me to him and ultimately to the works

of Paul Goodman.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . .
Chapter
I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . .

Background and Statement of the Problem .

Thesis . . . . . . . . .
Need for the Study . . . . . . .
Biographical Sketch . . . . . .

II. AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE . . . . .
The Anarchist Tradition . . . . .
Individualist-Anarchism . . . .
Collectivist-Anarchism . . . . .
Pacifism . . . . .

Anarchism and Education . . . .

Significant Influences on Paul Goodman
As a Community-Anarchist . . . .
As a Libertarian . . . . . . .
As a Social Critic . . . . .

Concluding Comments on Goodman'
Anarchism . . . . .
In the Pacifist Tradition . . .

0)

III. MAN AS A SELF—REGULATING ORGANISM .

Human Nature as Creative Adjustment
Spontaneous Consciousness of Organismic
Needs . . . . . . .
Man as a Pleasure Seeking Animal . .

Man as a Social Being . . .

Good Contact as a Precondition for the
Growth of an Organism . . . .

Man as an Aggressor--A Prerequisite for
Growth . . . . . .

Man as a Functional Being . .

iii

Page

ii

Chapter
IV. MAN AS A SPONTANEOUS BEING

Spontaneity and Ethics .

V. MAN AS AN ORGANISM THAT BOTH ASSIMILATES

INTROJECTS . . . . . . .
Introjection . . . . . .
VI. MAN, HUMAN SCALE, AND COMMUNITY

Human Scale . . . . .

Politics . . . . . .
Economic . . . . . .
Social . . . . . . .
Institutions and Human Scale
Size . . . . . . . .
Preclusion of Alternatives
Dysfunctional . . . . .

Community . . . . .
Face to Face Relations
Functional . . . .
Process Oriented . .

VII. HUMAN NATURE AND EDUCATION .

The Mini-School . .

Self-Regulation . . . .
Spontaneity . . . . .
Assimilation . . . . .

Human Scale .

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . .

APPENDICES . . . . . . . . .

iv

0 O O 0

AND

Page

98

108

115
119
126

127
128
130
1314
136
139
1141
1A2
145
1A8
1A9
151

156
163
166
170
172
177
183

192

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background and Statement
of the Problem

 

 

Paul Goodman's reputation as a severe and provocative
critic of American education emanated from the publication

of Growing Up Absurd in 1956. That blistering survey of

 

the life—style offered to the young by this society has
been followed by dozens of further criticisms and pro-
posals, contained in two more books dealing exclusively

with education (Compulsory Mis—education and Community of

 

Scholars), numerous articles and commentary on education
in other books. His writings, his speeches and his
involvement with student activists have earned him the
most prominent place among a circle of critics of educa—
tion——besides Goodman, Jules Henry, Edgar Friedenberg,
John Holt and others--most often characterized as
"romantic" or "radical." In 1956 the position Goodman
has articulated was representative of a tiny and fairly
insignificant minority. Today, due to the efforts of
Goodman, more than to those of any other person, the
"radical" critique of American schools and a concommitant

vision of "liberated" education poses a potent challenge

to the beliefs and practices of the established educa—
tional power structure.

Even though Goodman enjoys wide-spread acclaim and
attention in educational circles--especially among
students and disaffected educators-~there is little
evidence that his recommendations have been seriously
considered by the educational policy—makers. Indeed,
it seems that educational practice is moving increasingly
in the very directions that Goodman most deplores. While
Goodman extols smallness, simplicity and an interpersonal
context, the schools are, in many instances, moving toward
bigness, complexity and are more and more technological.
While Goodman suggests a leisurely and self-directed
approach to learning, the schools become more pressureful
and more inclined to take direction for curricula from
agencies outside the school.

If the neglect of Goodman and other "radicals" were
grounded in a comprehensive disagreement with the educa-
tional power structure--a disagreement that encompassed
not just methodology and administrative structure, but
one that included aims and values as well-~no particular
problem of understanding would exist. But that is not
the case. The disagreement is only partial and does not
extend to the crucial question of what constitutes worth-
while human life and endeavor. In the literature there

are few major attacks on Goodman's humanist perspective.

The "radicals" and their liberal critics usually hold
similar sets of values where the life of man is concerned.
The failure to take seriously radical proposals, then,
must rest on some conceptual confusion, some misunder—
standing. This study seeks to eliminate some of that
confusion by dealing in some detail with the philosophical
foundations from which Goodman's numerous recommendations
for educational practice flow.

Perhaps the main basis for Goodman's not being taken
seriously resides in a difference of perspective. The
prime referent for Goodman is always that of the organic
person. He is emphatically a naturalist. He starts with
man and asks: "What kind of world does man need to grow
in?" The typical pattern in educational policy—making,
on the other hand, is to begin with "society" or "culture"
and to ask how man can best be shaped to be happy, pro-
ductive and adapted within a given cultural context. For
Goodman, social criticism and analysis and even Utopian
vision are dependent upon and must be consistent with a
conception of human nature. The question: "What is the
nature of man?" has systemic priority over all others.

In the tradition that has nurtured most of the people who
now occupy positions of power in education the question
of the nature of man has largely disappeared, or where

it is raised, human nature is treated as secondary and

derivative from culture. The appropriate way to

understand man is not through the examination of man as
man, but through the study and analysis of his institu-
tions. Thus, a conceptual disposition, induced through
education and a veneration for the behavioral sciences,
stands as an obstacle to understanding Goodman and the
other radicals and, perhaps, to the acceptance of impor-
tant and workable proposals. The fault, however, lies

in part with Goodman. His failure to put forth a syste-
matic statement of his conception of man has the advantage
of protecting him from direct attack on that specific
front. But it also allows his critics to avoid a con-
frontation with his fundamental posture and makes him
subject to the even more devastating attack of being
ignored. It may be that an explication of Goodman's con—
ception of the nature of man can partially remove that

obstacle.

Thesis

Arthur Lovejoy, in his book Reflections on Human

 

Nature, writes:

And there are few more important things to know
about a writer than what his express View or his
tacit but controlling assumptions concerning
human nature and its dominant motives were, or
to know about a period than what ideas on these
subjects were prevalent in it.

 

lArthur Lovejoy, Reflections on Human Nature
(Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1961), p. 13.

 

This thesis is based on the acceptance of Lovejoy's
assertion.

In his introduction to Growing Up Absurd Goodman

 

assails present-day sociologists and anthropologists
for their lack of attention to human nature. Yet he
writes:

That is, on this view we do not need to be able
to say what human nature is in order to be able
to say that some training is "against human
nature" and you persist at your peril. Teachers
and psychologists who deal practically with
growing up and the blocks to growing up may
never mention the word "human nature" (indeed,
they are better off without too many a priori
ideas), but they cling stubbornly to the pre-
sumption that at every stage there is a develop-
ing potentiality not yet cultured, and yet not
blank, and that makes possible the taking on of
culture. We must draw "it" out, offer "it"
opportunities, not violate "it" except for
unavoidable reasons. What "it" is is not defi-
nite. It is what, when appealed to in the right
circumstances, gives behavior that has force,
grace, discrimination, intellect, feeling.

This vagueness is of course quite sufficient for
education, for education is an art. A good
teacher feels his way, looking for response.

In spite of Goodman's belief that a vague concept
of human nature is sufficient for educators, I believe
an analysis of Goodman's concept of the nature of man is
indispensible to understanding his educational recom—
mendations. First, it allows one to evaluate that con-
cept. If one fails to agree with his referent, then his

recommendations are suspect to the extent that they are

 

2Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, Vintage Books

(New York: Random House, 1956), p. 6.

 

based on that conception. However, if one accepts his
concept of human nature one is obliged to evaluate his
proposals from that standpoint or deny the naturalist

position.

The methodological tools of the study are exclu-
sively conceptual. They include the general techniques
of exploration, analysis and comparison. The central
special technique is that of taxonomic definition--that
is, the placing of Goodman's scattered statements on the
nature of man into an intelligible and reasonably precise

structure.

Need for the Study

 

Many modern critics of American education claim
our society is not suitable for the growth and development
of man. One thinks of Fromm, Maslow, Harrington,
Friedenberg, Goodman, Henry, Keniston. Each of these
critics argues that man is not as malleable as our life-
style assumes. Or, rather, as Keniston says, we mistake
man's ability to survive for his ability to flourish.3
Unless one evaluates the concept of man each postulates,
it is difficult to fully understand the recommendations.

Goodman has written of Franz Kafka, "This is a

very earnest artist; we must pay him the respect-~that

 

3Kenneth Keniston, The Uncommitted, Delta Books
(New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1960), p. 356.

 

critics, alas, rarely pay—-of asking whether what he
says is true and freely said or false and miserable.?
Goodman, too, is a "very earnest artist." I believe
that given the condition of our society today we owe
it to mankind to seriously ask whether what he says is
true. The first step in this endeavor is to analyze

what it is he says.

Biographical Sketch

 

Paul Goodman was born in New York City in 1911 and
is now a resident of the Upper West Side.5 Shortly after
his birth his father had a business failure and deserted
the family. His mother worked as a saleslady and his
older brother, Percival, ran away from home. Goodman
says that "I was a '1atch-key' boy—-someone who let
himself into his own house."6

Goodman had a thorough religious training in a
Hebrew school. Later he went to Townsend Harris, an

academic high school near the City College. He graduated

 

“Paul Goodman, Kafka's Prayer (New York: Vanguard
Press, Inc., 1947), p. 8.

5For much of the biographical information I am
indebted to Richard Kostelanetz. Kostelanetz is a
Pulitzer Fellow in Critical Writing at Columbia and the
editor of two recent books of criticism-~On Contemporary
Literature, and The New American Arts. Richard Kostelanetz,
"Prevalence of Paul Goodman," New York Times Magazine,
April 3, 1966, pp. 70-100.

6Ibid., p. 70.

 

 

 

 

at the top of his class in 1927. In 1931 he graduated
from the City College where he had maintained a straight
A average, with the lone exception of a D in public
speaking.

He later began to bicycle to Columbia University
and sat in on Richard McKeon's philosophy class.
Although not enrolled, he turned in a paper on "Neo-
Classicism, Platonism, and Romanticism." In 1934 it was

published in the Journal of Philosophy. In 1935 after

 

Richard McKeon became a dean at the University of Chicago,
he asked Goodman to lecture on English Literature.

Goodman accepted, and by 19AO he had finished a Ph.D.
thesis. However, he refused to publish his thesis in
prOper form and was not granted the degree until 1954

when the University of Chicago Press published the thesis:

The Structure of Literature. He was fired from the

 

University of Chicago for sexual irregularities.

He later taught Greek, physics, history and mathe-
matics at Manumit, a progressive school in Pawling, New
York, and at Black Mountain in North Carolina. His non-
conforming sexual behavior led to his dismissal from both
schools.

Goodman had an informal habit of helping people
understand themselves. During the 1950's he became a
lay psychotherapist. Although unlicensed, he worked at

therapy for two years with his college classmate,

Alexander Lowan, M.D., author of Love and Orgasm. In

 

1951 he co-authored, with Frederick Perls and Ralph F.

Hefferline, Gestalt Therapy, a book on the growth and

 

development of the human personality.

During the 1930's he wrote about 100 short stories.
Few were published and until 1953 he and his family lived
on $1,500 to $2,000 per year. Perhaps it was this
experience which has led Goodman to say that "Decent
poverty is really an ideal environment for serious

people."7

He claims that things get closer to human
scale during a depression--peop1e function as a community.

In Five Years he wrote, "Evidently I can be happy

 

in a place, in the world, only if I stake out a claim of
my own and do for myself from scratch."8 Contained in
that statement are two clues which are helpful in
analyzing Paul Goodman. First is his idea of community
wherein people "stake out a claim" and make—do "from
scratch." Second is his willingness to use himself--
his feelings, thoughts, and ideals-—as a prime resource
as to the nature of man.

Goodman's emergence from the lower income bracket

came in the late 1950's with the success of Growing Up

 

Absurd. He now receives up to $1,000 a lecture, and he

 

71bid., p. 91.

8Paul Goodman, Five Years (New York: Brussel and
Brussel, 1966), p. 111.

 

10

is in demand. However, he contends that his life-style
has hardly changed. He still plays on a battered piano,
tapes his upholstery, uses mis—matched china, dresses
casually, and in 1966 was driving a 1953 Chevrolet.

Goodman, once divorced, now lives with his wife,
Sally, and his three children, Mathew Ready, Susan, and
Daisy June.

Goodman has been recognized as a lecturer, teacher,
poet, novelist, dramatist, city—planner, psychologist,
essayist, social critic and as a father figure to many
of the disenchanted youth. But, he says, "First, I'm
a humanist. Everything I do has exactly the same subject-—
the organism and the environment. Anything I write on
society is pragmatic-~it aims to accomplish something."9
His thinking is grounded in a naturalistic posture, "I
am also a Taoist in that I believe that if man lives in
accordance with nature, then the state will be ruled
well."lo

It has been this philosophical commitment to live
by nature, as he sees it, that has brought him both fame
and misery. He says, "Ever since I was 12, I have been

bisexual. My desperate efforts at homosexual satisfac-

tion have given me some beautiful experiences and

 

if

9Kostelanetz, p. 70.

lOIbid., p. 98.

11

friendships, but much more frustration and unhappi-
"ll
ness.

Yet, this intense determination to openly live his
life according to his own constitution has appealed to
many, especially the young. Kostelanetz writes:

What particularly impresses the young (and

perhaps disturbs the old) is Goodman's personal
integrity. He has always lived by his ideals,
defying whatever bureaucratic systems he touched,
practicing conspicuously the sexual libertarianism
he preached, forbidding editors to bowdlerize what
he had written, attaining such a mastery over
poverty that he could never succumb to money, and
having a sense of purpose that made him resistant
to flattery or vanity.l2

Goodman's rallying cry is not new. He argues, like
many before him, that man is being sacrificed--dehumanized—-
in the interest of progress and efficiency. Thus, it is
not the uniqueness of his warning that has brought him
to the forefront of social criticism, but, rather, it
is the radicalism--1iterally, to get to the roots-—of his
solutions that marks him as a guiding spirit to his
supporters and as a "romantic" to his critics. He insists
on making the challenge that our standard of happiness is
too low, and that we can increase pleasures and satis-
factions by positing man as a self-regulating animal

and shaping the environment to suit man's growth needs.

Thus, he calls himself a true conservative in that he

 

llIbid., p. 100

lzIbid.

l2

wants to conserve both the basic nature of the human
organism and the natural habitat for that pleasure
seeking animal.

It is Goodman's argument that the battle for
human happiness, and survival, is not between We and
They (e.g., Russia and the United States) but between
the people of the world and the power structures.
Whereas he sees human happiness as compatible only with
decentralization, community, spontaneity, aggression,
involvement, peace, love, and freedom, he maintains
that power structures thrive on centralization,
bureaucracy, role playing, suppression of animal
instincts, war, and rigidity. His ideas for radical

reform identify him as a community—anarchist.

CHAPTER II

AN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

This chapter has three purposes: first, to present
an overview of the tradition of anarchist thought out of
which Goodman has formulated his beliefs; second, to
identify three men whose central theses are interwoven
into Goodman's thinking, and, at the same time, to demon-
strate the relationships of these central tenets to
Goodman's anarchism-~the communist-anarchism of Peter
Kropotkin, the libertarianism of John Dewey, and the
notion of conflict between individual instincts and the
demands of civilization as analyzed by Sigmund Freud;
and third, to review Goodman's own idea of anarchism

and his commitment to pacifism.

The Anarchist Tradition

 

To classify Goodman as an anarchist without making
further distinctions is to paint him with a broad brush
which distorts more than it reveals. Although all
anarchists reaffirm the humanitarian principles of free-
dom, equality, and justice, and share certain philosophi-
cal assumptions about the nature of man and the role of

authority in society, they differ significantly in their

13

1A

views on economics, the use of Violence, and the role of
government during the transition period from an authoritar-
ian to an anarchistic society. Thus, to properly place
Goodman as an anarchist it is necessary to offer a brief
treatment of anarchist theory, stressing both the philo-
sophical views which bind anarchists together, and the
differences which have fractionalized their adherents.l
Although anarchist thought can be traced back to
dissenters in the age of Classical Greece in the fifth
Century B.C., it was not deve10ped into a systematic
theory until the publication in 1793 of William Godwin's

An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice and Its Influence

 

on General Virtue and Happiness. Godwin is generally

 

credited as the first man to offer a comprehensive
analysis of the economic, political, and social factors
consistent with an anti—government, anti-authoritarian
society. Godwin never identified himself as an anarchist,
but later anarchists borrowed heavily from him, and modern
writers date the philosophical formulation of anarchist

thought with his publication in 1793.

 

1The following sketch of anarchist thought was

developed from four books. See George Woodcock,
Anarchism, Meridian Books (New York: The World Publish-
ing Company, 1967); Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry
eds., Patterns of Anarchy, Anchor Books (Garden City:
Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1966); Irving L. Horowitz, ed.,
The Anarchists (New York: Dell Publishing Company.,
196F); Corinne Jacker, The Black Flag of Anarchy (New
York: Scribner's Sons, 1966).

 

 

 

 

l5

Anarchism, properly considered, is more than a
negation of government and authority. Neither is it
merely a social movement. Rather, fully elaborated, it
is a positive, constructive theory—-Kropotkin considers
it a moral philosophy--of how men ought to live together
in pursuit of the good life. Woodcock defines anarchism:

As a system of social thought, aiming at
fundamental changes in the structure of society

and particularly-~for this is the common element
uniting all its forms—-at the replacement of the
authoritarian state by some form of nongovernmental
co—operation between free individuals.2

However, anarchists disagree on both how this
"replacement of the authoritarian state" should come
about, and on the specific structural details of the
"nongovernmental co-operation between free individuals."
Consequently there has evolved a classification of
hyphenated terms to distinguish between the central
tenets of anarchistic philosophy. Irving Horowitz
offers eight classifications, although he is quick to
caution that these distinctions do not imply eight
separate and mutually exclusive systems. Horowitz
writes:

In examining the basic forms of anarchism we do
not mean to imply the existence of eight distinct
doctrines. What is at stake is not so much
alternative models of the good society as dis-

tinctive strategies for getting there. Therefore
the differences in forms of anarchism involve

 

2Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 13.

 

16

details of priority rather than programmatic

rhetoric. Should the first step include or

exclude violence? Should the State be liquidated

as a consequence of workers' organization from

below, or must the first stage in organizing a

system of mutual aid be in terms of first

liquidating the State? Should anarchism strive

for victory through numbers or through conspira-

torial techniques?3

Horowitz's schema includes utilitarian-anarchism,
peasant-anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, collectivist—
anarchism, conspiratorial—anarchism, communist-anarchism,
individualist—anarchism and pacifist—anarchism. A
moment's reflection will show that Horowitz's classifi-
cation necessitates the placement of any one anarchist
under two or more categories. For instance, if we
classify Goodman as a pacifist, we have not yet identi-
fied his economic position. In short, Horowitz wishes
to identify both the anarchist's economic theory and
his stance on violence. For present purposes, however,
it is unnecessary to elaborate on the eight categories.
The discussion is limited to the fundamental distinctions
which distinguish the primary economic postures.
Before addressing the economic structural differ-

ences in anarchistic thought, however, let us consider
the basic assumptions and Values with which all anarch-

ists are in general agreement. The essence of all

anarchist philosophy is individual freedom. Basic to

g

3Horowitz, The Anarchists, p. 29.

 

17

the position is that natural man has evolved into a
social being, who when properly educated, will inter-
nalize the morals and values of his culture to such a
high degree that there is no need for outside constraint.
The good man then, is the natural man, whose instincts
and powers of reason, if unhampered by external coercion,
will lead to a harmonized social life. Underlying these
thoughts, of course, whether explicitly or implicitly,
are assumptions of human nature. It is the absolute
criticalness of these assumptions which has prompted
Goodman to write: "I have a democratic faith, its a
religion with me—-that everybody is really able to take
care of himself, to get on with people, and to make a
good society. If its not so, I don't want to hear of
it."u

Also intrinsic to anarchism is an asceticism that
urges the elimination of superfluous material objects
and services. Woodcock says, "The sufficiency that will
allow men to be free-—that is the limit of the anarchist

"5

demand on the material world. This ascetic mood does
not stem from a Protestant Ethic, nor from any religion
whatever. Rather, it is grounded in the bias toward
naturalism, which views the good life in simple human

endeavors such as food, recreation, art, love, meaningful

 

“Kostelanetz, "Prevalence of Paul Goodman," p. 99.

5Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 28.

 

18

work, and intellectual development. This tendency toward
simplicity does not, however, brand all anarchists as
proponents of the idyllic peasant life, nor make tech-
nology incompatible with anarchistic principles. Thus,
while Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Bakunin propounded a basically
agricultural society, other anarchists were eager to
adapt anarchism to technological advances. Godwin saw
the machine as a potential liberator, and Goodman, who
also favors simplicity wherever applicable, argues for
the speedy installation of machines where they can do

the work as well as human labor. He finds it degrading
to the dignity of man to be working at a job which could
be done equally well by machinery. Nevertheless, as will
be demonstrated in Chapter VI, Goodman urges us toward a
way of life comprehensible to individuals, and he per-
sistently cautions us that the good life is found along
the road of simplicity. He writes:

For most people, I think, a candid self-
examination will show that their most absorbing,
long, and satisfactory hours are spent in
activities like friendly competitive sports,
gambling, looking for love and love-making,
earnest or argumentative conversation, political
action with signs and sit-ins, solitary study
and reading, contemplation of nature and cosmos,
arts and crafts, music, and religion. Now none
of these requires much money. Indeed, elaborate
equipment takes the heart out of them. Friends
use one another as resources. God, nature, and
creativity are free. The media of the fine arts

are cheap stuff. Health, luck, and affection are
the only requirements for good sex. Good

19
food requires taking pains more than spending
money.

Also fundamental to all anarchists is an antistatism.
Historically, anarchism is concerned mainly with man in
his relation to society. Its ultimate aim is social
change. But, anarchists View mutual aid and freedom as
evolutionary advances, and therefore any permanent estab-
lishment of authority, particularly the State, can only
work to the hinderance of this evolutionary trend. For
if man is naturally good "then the purpose of life, in
contrast to the purpose of politics, ought to be the
restoration of the natural condition of human relations."7
Anarchism assumes the brotherhood of man and the natural-
ness of this equality; therefore statism or nationalism,
founded on artificial distinctions and boundaries, is
unnatural and is directly the cause of conflict and human
misery. Hence, central to anarchistic movements is the
dissolution of authority and government and the decentrali-
zation of responsibility. All reforms, programs, rules,
and moralizing which are initiated by the authority of
the State are worthless at best, and potentially damaging
as they tend to disrupt the natural functioning and

interaction of individuals. Only behavior that begins

 

6Paul Goodman, Compulsory Mis—education and The
Qommunitygof Scholars, Vintage Books (New York: Random
House, 1962), pp. 29-30. These two books have been pub-
lished in one volume. References will be made to the
Specific book, not to the entire volume.

7

 

Horowitz, The Anarchists, p. 17.

 

2O

locally and gradually expands to a federal or inter-

national level, by voluntary cooperation, can be success-

ful. Therefore, "social and moral evils such as poverty,

robbery, prostitution, and discrimination cannot be

cured by the State, which is actually the servant of

oppression and exploitation that causes these evils."8
Anarchists are skeptical of all man—made laws

which infringe upon the naturally evolving society. They

see progress "in terms of the moralizing of society by

the abolition of authority, inequality, and economic

"9

exploitation. What unites and characterizes all

anarchists is a faith in the essential decency of man,
a desire for individual freedom, and an intolerance of
domination. In the closing paragraph of Anarchism,
Woodcock says:

The great anarchists call on us to stand on our
own moral feet like a generation of princes, to
become aware of justice as an inner fire, and to
learn that the still, small voices of our own
hearts speak more truly than the choruses of
propaganda that daily assault our outer ears.

. . . In this insistence that freedom and moral
self-realization are interdependent and one cannot
live without the other, lies the ultimate lesson
of anarchism.lo

Yet, when individual advocates of anarchism formu-

late plans for the ideal society, it is evident that

 

8Jacker, The Black Flag of Anarchy, pp. 3—“.
9

10

Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 29.

 

Ibid., p. A76.

21

there are significant disagreements. It is these various
social and economic structural arrangements coupled with
radically different positions on violence which make for
the distinguishing features among conflicting anarchistic

theories. It is to these that we now turn.

Individualist—Anarchism

 

Individualist—anarchism is well represented by the
writings of William Godwin (1756-1836), Max Stirner (1806—
1856), and Benjamin Tucker (185A—l939).

The individualist-anarchist considers self-interest
as the supreme law for men. Any action that he initiates
or refrains from doing, any contract which he enters, any
agreement which he makes ought to be done on the basis of
personal gain. Thus, the individual "person" or "ego"
is the repository of all that is human and self—determining,
and the State is a repository of all that is inhuman and
oppressive.

The individualist-anarchist favors private property
and individual proprietorships, insofar as this embraces
no more than the total produce of individual labor,
because he believes any form of collectivism will ulti-
mately lead to an authoritarian system. The principle
of mutualism is to be arrived at on a strictly voluntary
basis, without any connections whatever with agencies of
the state. While envisaging a limited amount of coopera—

tive ventures, the "individualists distrust all

22

co-operation beyond the barest minimum for an ascetic
life."ll
Democracy, where the minority is bound by decisions
of the majority, is an evil. "The purpose of society is
to preserve the sovereignty of every individual without
exception."12 In short, there is no rightful authority
outside individual consent, and any attempt at such
authority legitimizes any means, violent or otherwise, to
curb that coercion. Krimerman and Perry, in commenting
on Max Stirner, stress this centrality of internal
authority.
Stirner is not only against the State, law and
private property, but also against many concepts,
such as God, country, family, and love, because
they claim the individual's allegiance and thus
limit his freedom.1
Lest the reader conclude that individualist-
anarchists view society as a bloody battleground dominated
by the powerful and the crafty, I urge you to recall the
assumptions regarding the nature of man shared by all
anarchists. These assumptions enable the individualists

to anticipate a peaceful culture. Woodcock says of

Godwin:

 

lllbid., p. 22.

12Horowitz, The Anarchists, p. A8.

 

l3Krimerman and Perry, Patterns of Anarchy, p. 10.

23

It is only this power of "positive institutions,"
Godwin claims, that keeps error so long alive in
the world, for, like all anarchists, he believes
that, left to itself, the human mind will naturally
tend to detect error and to approach steadily
nearer the truth.14
Of Max Stirner Woodcock concludes:
In Stirner's world there will be neither masters
nor servants, but only egoists, and the very fact
of the withdrawal of each man°into his unigueness
will prevent rather than foster conflict.l
And Benjamin Tucker, while denying moral responsi-
bility or any existence of inherent rights and duties,
developed a law of equal liberty, which he believed would
foster a peaceful and harmonious society. "Equal liberty
means the largest amount of liberty compatible with
equality and mutuality of respect, on the part of
individuals living in society, for their respective
spheres of action."16
In short, while advocating the absolute freedom of
the individual, the individualist—anarchist believes it is
in the pure self-interest of every individual to grant
equal liberty to others. This rational characteristic
of man, coupled with his decency and social nature, is

sufficient material for the voluntary and spontaneous

development of the good society.

l”Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 74.

 

lSIbid., p. 102.

16Jacker, The Black F1ag_of Anarchy, p. 123.

 

2A

Collectivist—Anarchism

 

Clearly not all anarchists distrusted collective
arrangements and networks as did the individualists. The
first man to call himself an anarchist, Pierre Joseph
Proudhon (1809-1865), rejected the fear of association
characteristic of the individualists and led the way for
the formulation of several collectivistic economic
systems which aimed at "freeing anarchism from a class
base and placing it on a mass base."l7 While lauding the
sanctity of the individual, Proudhon believed that there
was no such thing in society as an isolated being, and
that the basis for all human societies was the contract,
a reasonable voluntary agreement between men. He pro-
posed the abolition of the State in favor of small
communes and workers' cooperatives which in time would
form larger federations for voluntary cooperation. There
were to be contracts of exchange and mutual free credit
among the individuals and among the communities.

Although Proudhon's most noted work, What Is
Property? is an attack on the abuses of property, he dis-
avowed communism because it tried to destroy private
property. Proudhon held that individual possession was
essential for liberty, and that the distribution of

economic values should be based on the worker's time.

l7Horowitz, The Anarchists, p. 36.

25

Michael Bakunin (181A-l876) retained much of
Proudhon's federalism and the emphasis on workers'
associations, but Bakunin sought to adapt anarchist
principles to an increasingly industrial society. Thus,
he replaced Proudhon's insistence on individual possession
with possession by voluntary institutions, while assuring
the worker reimbursement according to his individual con-
tribution.

Later, Peter Kropotkin (l8A2—1921), who argues that
communism is the evolutionary choice of free men, took
the development one step further. The central tenet of
communist-anarchism is that it is no longer possible to
precisely apportion economic values in accordance with
individual contributions, nor is it desirable, as the
worth of the human individual transcends his value as a
producer. The position encourages the adoption of the
maxim, "From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs." The distinguishing features of
communist-anarchism are, then, the elimination of a wage
system and the free distribution of goods.

The anarcho-syndicalists, who had no notable
theoretician, differed from the communists primarily in
that they "emphasized the revolutionary trade union both
as an organ of struggle (the general strike its most

potent tactic) and also as a foundation on which the

26

18

future free society might be constructed." Horowitz
conceives anarcho-syndicalism as a "marriage of unionism
and anarchism," out of the fear European (mainly French)
factory workers had for the state. The syndicate is based
on the organization of the workers by industry at the
place of work. It lacks centralization and bureaucracy,
but Operates as a loose federation for the functions of
production and distribution. However, the federal organi-
zation has no authority over the workers in any branch,
whether it be farm, business, or factory.

Ideally, syndicalism is organized so as to satisfy
the natural needs of men rather than to promote the
interests of a ruling class. The pivotal weapon in this
endeavor is the general strike. The general strike is
typical of the anarchist's propensity to confront estab—
lished authority with humanitarian issues. The following
quote from Horowitz illuminates the fact that syndicalism,
and the general strike particularly, are anarchistic
techniques aimed at far more than an improvement in
wages, hours, and working conditions.

The growth of anarcho—syndicalism was greatly
assisted by a new turn toward the problems of
tactics in social revolution—-something notable
for its absence in older anarchist postures.
The fusion of socialism and unionism was seen
as functionally complete in the general strike.

This was not viewed either as a strike for summer
wages, or as a widespread attempt to garner

18Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 21.

 

27

political concessions from the State. While the
possibilities of immediate gains were not denied,

the essence of the general strike was to evoke the
deepest class allegiances and obligations of the
workers. As economic strife between classes would
become more intense, the meaning of the general
strike would become manifest. The anarcho-
syndicalist strike would entail direct worker
participation in a broad social and economic
upheaval. It would become an instrument for
compelling the State to abandon its place on the
historical stage to the direct association of the
wage-earning class. 'For the most part, revolutionary
unionism, such as that practiced by the International
Workers of the World in the United States and the
General Confederation of Labor in France, did not
View the general strike as a replacement of the
traditional economic strike. Rather, it was to
supercede all pragmatic "short-run inspired" strikes.
Key-noting this approach was an intense disdain

and a flat rejecting of anything that the government
or opposing politicians were willing to concede the
workers. The general strike was antipolitical,
conceived of as part of the permanent social
revolution.l9

Anarcho—syndicalism has found itself on the horns

of a dilemma—-a position shared to a lesser degree by all

anarchists. Syndicates have engaged in mass politics at

the same time that they have professed an abhorrence of

politicians and state authority. Horowitz concludes that

the paradox was insurmountable and that the syndicates

were "increasingly compelled to flee the state, rather

than defeat the State in a general contest of class

wills."

2O

 

19Horowitz, The Anarchists, pp. 35-36.

2OIbid., p. 37.

 

28

I can find no better concluding statement of these

various anarchistic positions than this summation by
Woodcock.

The differences between the various anarchist

schools, though at first they appear considerable,

actually lie in two fairly limited regions:
revolutionary methods (especially the use of
violence) and economic organization. All recog—
nize that if anarchist hopes are fulfilled and
political domination is brought to an end,
economic relations will become the main field
in which organization is necessary; the differ—
ences we have encountered between the various
schools of thought reflect differing views of
how far co-Operative "administration of things"
(to use a Saint-Simonian phrase which anarchist
writers have borrowed extensively) can then be

applied without danger to individual independence.

At one extreme, the individualists distrust all
co-Operation beyond the barest minimum for an

ascetic life; at the other, the anarchist commun-
ists envisage an extensive network of inter-
connecting mutual-aid institutions as a necessary
safeguard for individual interests.21

Pacifism

Having briefly considered the differences in

organizational structures advocated by anarchistic

thought, a mention needs to be made of the other crucial

area of disagreement--the use of violence. Anarchists

are popularly portrayed as mad bombers and pistol-

wielding assassins, and surely anarchy has had its

violent revolutionaries. Michael Bakunin, for instance,

had a burning faith in violence and destruction; and

Max Stirner lauded crime as a weapon against the State.

 

21Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 22.

 

29

Yet, anarchism, given its assumptions of the nature of
man, is irrevocably allied with pacifism. The pacifists—
anarchists have accepted the principle of resistance

and even revolutionary action, but they stOp short of
violence, as violence is coercive power and non-
anarchistic in principle. Fundamentally, the anarchists
fear decisions based on invested interest and entrenched
authority——Goodman speaks of the dangers in the "mind-
lessness of empty institutions." Resistance makes for
open confrontations and, hopefully, the peaceful conflict
will result in the utilization of the inherent common
sense and empathy of man.

Historically, Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), who rejected
the anarchist label, was the first notably pacifist anti-
statist. His ideas were dramatically put into practice
by Ghandi in India and later by Civil Rights workers in
the United States. An attitude of non-violence also
permeates the writings of most of the influencial anarch-
ists, including Proudhon, Godwin, Tucker, Thoreau,

Kropotkin, and, as we shall see in detail, Goodman.

Anarchism and Education

 

Historically, anarchists have persistently addressed
themselves to the role of education in society. Char-
acteristically, in fact, they have considered education
as the key to enlightenment. Krimerman and Perry go so

far as to say, "Indeed, no other movement whatever has

3O

assigned to educational principles, concepts, experiments,
and practices a more significant place in its writings

and activities."22

The reason is twofold. First, an
anarchistic society places its faith in the individual,
rather than in rules, laws, or institutions. When anarch—
ists advocate that a good society will evolve from a

free and non—authoritarian community, they ground their
beliefs in man's power of reason, but they assume the
development of these intellectual faculties. Yet, almost
all prOponents of an ideal society are committed to an
educational system which will foster that particular
culture; so that alone will not account for the heavy
emphasis anarchists apply to education. Krimerman and
Perry, while acknowledging the need for any social recon-
structionist to treat the educational system in a manner
which will perpetuate that culture, offer this more
penetrating analysis of the centrality of education to
anarchistic philosophy.

An explanation of the anarchists' stress on
education might better be sought in their view that
education should ideally function as the focus of
intrinsic value, that is, as the living center and
clearest model of what is ultimately desirable in
human relations. In other words, education is not
a mere training ground for some future community
nor is its foremost aim that of producing a supply
of well-trained and dedicated anarchist revolution-
aries. On the contrary, education must itself

manifest, indeed consist of, libertarian relations
and activities. Education does not simply lay the

 

22Krimerman and Perry, Patterns of Anarchy, p. 40A.

31

groundwork for subsequent achievements; at its
best it constitutes the most complete and most
feasible paradigm of those achievements.

. . . The teacher's major aim should be to
develop the powers, the autonomy, and the per-
sonality (in Berdyaev's sense) of his pupil.
Authority and coercion, if he permits himself
any at all, should be employed temporarily and
solely to eliminate immediate deficiencies (for
example, the child's natural ignorance in matters
of physical health). Above all, a teacher should
strive to encourage his pupils to become men
who transcend his own wisdom and accomplishments and
are thus fully capable of initiating and executing
further steps in their own development of them-
selves. In short, then, the only forms of coercion,
authority, control, interference, and leadership
which, for a libertarian, can count as legitimate
in the larger community are those that a teacher
may rightfully utilize in his endeavor to wean the
young away from any further dependence on external
regulation. To paraphrase the Republic, could it
not be said that for an anarchist the good society
is merely the educational community writ large?23

Thus, Goodman's exhaustive attentiveness to methods,

principles, and practices of rearing our young is con—

sistent with the outstanding anarchist thinkers.

Significant Influences on Paul Goodman

As a Community-Anarchist

Although Goodman is well versed in anarchist

history and his works contain traces of the thoughts of

Godwin, Proudhon, Bakunin, Tolstoy, and Thoreau, there

is no question but that he aligns himself most closely

\Nith Peter Kropotkin. Woodcock writes of Kropotkin:

 

23Ibid., pp. 404—405.

32

. . . and in so far as anarchism came to be

considered a serious and idealistic theory of

social change rather than a creed of class

violence and indiscriminate destruction,

Kropotkin was principally responsible for the

change.2’4

This View of anarchism as a moral philosophy is
unquestioningly the tradition which Goodman has endorsed.
Goodman is not unlike Kropotkin. KrOpotkin was gentle
in nature, a pacifist who preferred the open forum to
conspiracy, a prolific writer drawn to the ascetic life,
prone to ground his thinking in empirical evidence.
Using the small village of the Middle Ages as his
anarchistic model, he had a "crystal vision of an earthy
paradise regained."2S
Kropotkin was a communist-anarchist, however, where

Goodman rejects that category and prefers to call himself
a community-anarchist. The distinction stems from the
change which took place in the first half of the twentieth
century regarding communism. Kropotkin used the term
to denote an anti-authoritarian, decentralized collection
of voluntary communes, where wages were abolished, dis-
tribution was free, and each citizen could take an active
part in the everyday affairs of the community. In Good-

man's time, of course, communism has come to mean

centralization, authoritarianism, nationalism, with an

2“Woodcock, Anarchism, p. 185.

 

25Ibid.

33

economic policy closer to capitalism than to Kropotkin's
communism. Subsequently, Goodman, in order to promote
the organizational structures and life-style as did
Kropotkin, has preferred the name community—anarchist.
Petr Alexeyevich Kropotkin, born in Moscow in 18A2,

did outstanding work in geography, geology, and zoology.

Under the influence of Darwin's Origin of Species he

 

studied zoology as a field naturalist in Siberia from
1862 to 1866. During these four years his personal obser-
vations of the animal kingdom led him to doubt the popular
interpretations of the "struggle for existence." During
his four years in Siberia Kropotkin had two experiences
which did much to influence his political philosophy.
First, he became disillusioned with the notion that the
mass of the people could be usefully served by administra—
tive machinery. He wrote, ". . . I lost in Siberia what-
ever faith in state discipline I had cherished before. I
was prepared to become an anarchist."26
Secondly, his life among the natives of Siberia gave
him a profound respect for the accomplishments of the
unknown masses in historical events. He concluded that
men of initiative are needed everywhere, but that once

the impulse has been given, the enterprise must be con—

ducted in some communal way featuring common understanding.

 

26Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid (Boston: Extending
Horizons Books, 1955), p. A.

 

34

He stated that if framers of plans for state discipline
could learn from real life experience, "We should then
hear far less than at present of schemes of military and
pyramidal organization of society."27
As a philosophical anarchist Kropotkin saw anarchism
as the only means of establishing justice in human rela-
tions. He detested violence, and disassociated himself
from militant anarchists. To him anarchism was the replace—
ment of state manipulation and incompetence with the
spontaneous cooperation of individuals, groups, and
nations.

Kropotkin's main work, Mutual Aid, is an historical

 

scientific work aimed at emphasizing the less known con-
cept of the struggle for existence; especially the impor-
tance of mutual aid in the development and evolution of
mankind. Kropotkin identifies the two different aspects
of the struggle. First, there is the "exterior" struggle
between the species and its natural environmental condi-
tions and rival species. Secondly, there is the "inner"
struggle for the means of existence within the species.
It is KrOpotkin's belief that the inner struggle has

been exaggerated far in excess of either reality or what
Darwin himself intended. Therefore, Mutual Aid is an
attempt to demonstrate the importance of sociability and

the social instinct for the survival and well—being of

 

271bid., p. 15.

35

animals, including man. It is not love or even sympathy,
says Kropotkin, which causes a man to seize a pail of
water and rush toward his neighbors flaming house.

It is a feeling infinitely wider than love or
personal sympathy--an instinct that has been
slowly developed among animals and men in the
course of an extremely long evolution, and which
has taught animals and men alike the force they
can borrow from the practice of mutual aid and
support, and the joys they can find in social
life.

The importance of this distinction will be easily
appreciated by the student of animal psychology,
and the more so by the student of human ethics.
Love, sympathy, and self-sacrifice certainly play
an immense part in the progressive development of
our moral feelings. But it is not love and not
even sympathy upon which Society is based in man-
kind. It is the conscience--be it only at the
stage of an instinct--of human solidarity. It is
the unconscious recognition of the force that is
borrowed by each man from the practice of mutual
aid; of the close dependency of every one's
happiness upon the happiness of all; and of the
sense of justice, or equity, which brings the
individual to consider the rights of every other
individual as equal to his own. Upon this broad
and necessary foundation the still higher moral
feelings are developed.28

Sociability, then, is as much a part of the laws of
nature as is the struggle for existence.

Kropotkin argues that the anarchist thinker, in
order to realize the greatest happiness for humanity,
follows the "course traced by the modern philosophy of

29

evolution." That is, considering society as an

 

28Ibid., p. xiii.

29Peter Kropotkin, "A Scientific Approach to Com-
munist Anarchism," in Patterns of Anarchy, ed. by Leonard
I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry (New York: Doubleday and
Company, Inc., 1966), p. 225.

 

36

aggregation of organisms, he tries to determine the best
way to combine individual wants with those of cooperation

for the well—being of the species. He studies tendencies

 

of society, and its needs, "and in his ideal he merely
points out in which direction evolution goes."3O
Kropotkin cites what he believes to be the two most promi—
nent tendencies throughout the history of mankind. The
first is the integration of labor for the benefit of all
in such a manner as to not be able to discriminate the
contribution of each individual. The second is a tendency
toward freedom for each individual in the pursuit of his
goals, consistent with the benefit both for himself and
the larger society. Thus, Kropotkin asserts that his
anarchist views are scientifically grounded in social
evolution.

Kropotkin's approval of the evolutionary tendencies
constitutes for him an ethical principle. "Anarchists
recognize the justice of both tendencies towards economic

"31 He goes on to state that to

and political freedom.
each economic phase of life there corresponds a political
phase: absolute monarchy to serfdom; representative

government to capital-rule. "But in a society where the

distinction between capitalist and laborer has disappeared,

 

3OIbid., p. 225.

3lIbid.

37

there is no need of such a government; it would be an

"32 If there is no ruling elite

anachronism, a nuisance.
the workers are free and, according to Kropotkin, this
would require a free organization whose only basis could
be free voluntary cooperation. Thus, anarchism becomes
a synthesis of the two powerful tendencies-~political and
economic freedom.

Goodman's conception of a self-regulating organism
demands freedom for maximum growth. He_is led, like

Kropotkin, to consider anarchism the only form of govern—

ment compatible with the nature of man.

As a Libertarian

 

Goodman, the anarchist, also works the historical
tradition of academic liberalism. His ethical posture,
his conception of human nature, his construction of the
relationship between means and ends and his philosophical
commitment to human growth are strikingly similar to the
positions taken by John Dewey. Dewey cites three com-
ponents of liberalism:

These values are liberty; the development of
inherent capacities of individuals made possible

through liberty; and the central role of free 33
intelligence in inquiry, discussion and expression.

 

32

33John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action (New
York: Capricorn Books, 1963), p. 32.

Ibid., p. 226.

 

38

Dewey, strongly influenced by the evolutionary
thoughts of Darwin and Hegel, never forgot that meaningful
liberty is a function of the social and economic condi-

tions existing at the moment. In Liberalism and Social

 

Action Dewey stresses this historical neglect on the part
of liberals.

But disregard of history took its revenge. It
blinded the eyes of liberals to the fact that
their own special interpretations of liberty,
individuality and intelligence were themselves
historically conditioned, and were relevant only
to their own time. They put forward their ideas
as immutable truths good at all time and places;
they had no idea of historic relativity, either
in general or in its application to themselves.3u

At one time, liberty signified liberation from
chattel slavery; at another time, release of a
class from serfdom. During the late seventeenth
and early eighteenth centuries it meant libera-
tion from despotic dynastic rule. A century later
it meant release of industrialists from inherited
legal customs that hampered the rise of new forces
of production. Today [1935], it signifies libera-
tion from material insecurity and from the coercions
and repressions that prevent multitudes from
participation in the vast cultural resources that
are at hand. The direct impact of liberty always
has to do with some class or group that is suffer-
ing in a special way from some form of constraint
exercised by the distribution of powers that
exists in contemporary society.35

Liberals, Dewey says, have too often failed to
distinguish between legal freedom--freedom from
restraint——and positive freedom-—the ability to effectu-

ate one's thoughts and desires. Consequently they have

 

3uIbid., p. A1.

351b1d., p. u8.

39

at times supported the status quo which stood for legal
freedom, but which in reality was a barrier to meaning-
ful freedom. The classic example is the liberal fight
for laissez faire capitalism long after the large
corporate structures were exploitative and monopolistic.
Dewey, like Kropotkin and Goodman, rejected the

notion of individuals having a psychological and moral
nature independent of their association with one another.
Therefore, the institutions of society determine to a
significant extent the behavior and beliefs of individ-
uals within the society. This is not to say that certain
native organic and biological structures do not remain
fairly constant, but, rather, that the "laws" of human
nature are laws of individuals in association. Thus,
Dewey was critical of the individualistic liberalism
which posited opposition between the individual and
society.

The only form of enduring social orgization that

is now possible is one in which the new forces of

productivity are cooperatively controlled and used

in the interest of the effective society. . . .

The ends can now be achieved only by reversal of 36

the means to which early liberalism was comm1tted.
But, Dewey, like Goodman, held that the social institu-
tions had gotten out of hand, and further, that there

was a need for reform beyond what was typically "liberal."

 

36Ibid., p. Bu

40

It demands no great power of intelligence to see

that under present conditions the isolated individual
is well-nigh helpless. Concentration and corporate
organization are the rule. But the concentration

and corporate organization are still controlled in
their operation by ideas that were institutionalized
in eons of separate individual effort. The attempts
at cooperation for mutual benefit that are put forth
are precious as experimental moves. But that society
itself should see to it that a cooperative industrial
order be instituted, one that is consonant with the
realities of production enforced by an era of
machinery and power is so novel an idea to the
general mind that its mere suggestion is hailed 37
with abusive epithets--sometimes with imprisonment.

In short, liberalism must now become radical,

meaning by "radical" perception of the necessity of
thorough-going changes in the set-up of institutions
and corresponding activity to bring the changes to
pass. For the gulf between what the actual situation
makes possible and the actual state itself is so
great that it cannot be bridged by piecemeal policies
undertaken ad hoc. The process of producing the
changes will be, in any case, a gradual one. But
"reforms" that deal now with this abuse and now with
that without having a social goal based upon an
inclusive plan, differ entirely from effort at re-
forming, in its literal sense, the institutional
scheme of things. The liberals of more than a
century ago were denounced in their time as sub-
versive radicals, and only when the new economic
order was established did they become apologists

for the status quo or else content with social
patchwork. If radicalism be defined as perception

of need for radical change, then today any liberalism 38
which is not also radicalism is irrelevant and doomed.

Dewey, like Kropotkin and Goodman, emphatically

rejected the use of violence frequently associated with

radicalism. Democracy, to Dewey, is associated with

organized intelligence, and he sees this as antithetical

to violence.

 

37Ibid., p. 61.

381bid., p. 62.

Al

It has not been my intention to demonstrate that
Dewey was an anarchist. He was not. It is my Opinion,
however, that Goodman's philosophical conception of the
"good society," particularly his notion of liberality,
is closely allied with Dewey's. Further, I suggest that
their psychological positions on the nature of man,
especially the social nature, are sufficiently similar
to warrant identifying Goodman as a liberal in the
Deweyian sense.39

When I classify Goodman as a liberal I do so at
my peril because he unhesitatingly refers to himself as
a community—anarchist. And there is no question that he
is hostile to modern liberalism as he sees it. He
believes that modern liberals have lost sight of the
historical libertarian principles--individuality, liberty,
intelligence--and have clung tenaciously to an overgrown
institutional structure which precludes the very prin-
ciples it was organized to foster. Goodman also accuses

modern liberals of polarizing the powerful state and

the "protected" individual. This restricts the use and

 

39Dewey, like Goodman, argues for putting "the
results of the mechanism of abundance at the free dis-
posal of individuals." However, Dewey speaks in terms
of a socialized economy. If he means large centralized
state-owned corporate structures he is, of course, not
compatible with Goodman's commitment to decentraliza-
tion. Although Goodman discriminatingly points out that
decentralization is an empirical problem and in some
cases--e.g. health and transit--we need more centraliza-
tion. John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action, p. 89.

 

A2

development of human capacities and results in anxiety,
frustration, boredom, stupidity, and mis-directed aggres-
sion. He considers as the essence of community-anarchism
that it strengthens every kind of humanly manageable
institution and association. Thus, modern liberalism and
community-anarchy are similar in their pursuit of humani-
tarian ends, but they are promoting incompatible means.
In spite of Goodman's acknowledged rejection of

modern liberalism I have tried to demonstrate that he is
philosophically aligned with liberal tradition as
described by John Dewey. Further evidence for this con—
clusion is contained in an article "Is Anarchism
Distinct from Liberalism?" Here Goodman replies to
Richard Lichtman, who wrote a critical review of an
article by Goodman on the topic of pornography. In the
article Goodman identifies freedom.

In my opinion, we must understand freedom in a

very positive sense: it is the condition of

initiating activity. Apart from this pregnant

meaning, mere freedom from interference is both

trivial and in fact cannot be substantially

protected. . . . I submit that in the heroic age

of the liberal philosophy, gradually extending

over religion, science, economics, and politics,

from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries,

liberals were saying pretty much what I have been

saying. Freedom meant freedom to enterprise, to
bear witness, to initiate and govern.'~IO

 

 

 

 

Goodman says that by the time of John Stuart Mill

meaningful liberal thought "has begun to sour a good

 

uoPaul Goodman, "Is Anarchism Distinct from
Liberalism?" Patterns of Anarchy, p. 55.

 

“3

deal." Goodman, with Dewey, does not view freedom as
legal liberty or the absence of restraint, but rather

as the ability for individuals to grow in their culture

by utilizing their full natural capacities. In the
closing paragraph of his reply to Lichtman, Goodman
castigates the liberals for their retreat from the battle
to improve the quality of life. His final sentence reads,
"That is why, since the nineteenth century, some of us

liberals have chosen to call ourselves anarchists.”l

As a Social Critic

 

Unquestioningly at the heart of Goodman's criticisms
of mid-twentieth century society is the idea that the
requirements and expectations of man as a citizen, patriot,
employee, spouse, parent, and lover are incompatible with
his animal requirements for happiness. Clearly this
thesis has been most notably promulgated by Sigmund Freud,

especially in Civilization and Its Discontents. While

 

Goodman is less pessimistic than Freud as to the pros-
pects for remedying this antagonism, they are in general
agreement that the conflict flows from man's instinctual
nature. I believe, therefore, that a short treatment of
this analysis by Freud will be invaluable as a prelude

to the following chapters on Goodman's concept of man.

 

ullbid., p. 56.

AA

Freud sees man as an animal who, lacking any God
given purpose, seeks to maximize his pleasure and minimize
his pain—-the pleasure principle. Happiness is found in
a combination of life experiences. He cites intoxica-
tion, love, beauty, the use of our mental faculties,
work,u2 and the gratification of our instincts. Of
particular importance, in light of our concern with

Goodman, is Freud's assertion that the highest happiness

is spontaneous gratification of the instincts.

 

2While Freud claims that intellectual and physical
work is a source of happiness, he does not View it as
intense a pleasure as is the gratification of instincts.
Freud writes: "Professional activity is a source of
special satisfaction if it is a freely chosen one-—if,
that is to say, by means of sublimation, it makes possible
the use of existing inclinations, of persisting or consti-
tutionally reinforced instinctual impulses. And yet, as
a path to happiness, work is not highly prized by men.
They do not strive after it as they do after other possi-
bilities of satisfaction. The great majority of people
only work under the stress of necessity, and this natural
human aversion to work raises most difficult social prob—
lems." (Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
[New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1961], p. 27).

Goodman is in disagreement with Freud on this point.
Goodman finds no "natural aversion to work." Rather, he
contends that meaningful work is probably a requirement
for a happy life. However, the work, to be fulfilling,
must be compatible with the nature of the individual
worker. It is for this reason that Goodman applauds
those who quit their jobs to seek their avocations, and
why he recommends that we design jobs to fit people,
rather than adjust people to predesigned jobs.

Thus, when Freud argues that the weak point of work
as a source of happiness is that it "is accessible to
only a few people," he is arguing that job requirements
and human instinctual impulses are at odds. Goodman
agrees. He asserts, however, that it needn't be that
way.

 

AS

What we call happiness in the strictest sense
comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction
of needs which have been dammed up to a high
degree, and it is from its nature only possible
as an episodic phenomenon. When any situation
that is desired by the pleasure principle is pro-
longed, it only produces a feeling of mild con—
tentment. We are so made that we can derive
intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very
little from a state of things.u3

The feeling of happiness derived from the
satisfaction of a wild instinctual impulse
untamed by the ego is incomparably more intense
than that derived from sating an instinct that
has been tamed.44

In his opening sentence in Civilization and Its

 

Discontents Freud suggests that "people commonly use
A5

 

false standards of measurement" in their pursuit of
happiness. If this were his main contention he could
simply argue that better education and a revamping of
social institutions and mores will produce happiness in
our civilized world. This is not the case, however, and
herein lie the roots of Freud's pessimism. Freud wants
to argue that the instincts of man are in substantial
conflict, and that the gratification of some instincts
through the development of civilization are possible

only through the sublimation of other instincts that can

be satiated only in a less civilized culture.

 

u3Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 23.
AA

 

Ibid., p. 26.

uSIbid., p. 1.

 

A6

We believe that civilization has been built up,
under the pressure of the struggle for existence,
by sacrifices in gratification of the primitive
impulses, and that it is to a great extent for
ever being re-created, as each individual,
successively joining the community, repeats the
sacrifice of his instinctive pleasures for the
common good.“
Therefore, no matter which way he turns man is unable to
gratify all his instinctual needs, and to that extent he
is unhappy.

Freud cites three sources of unhappiness. First,
there is the inevitable decay and pain from our bodies;
secondly, the uncontrollable forces of destruction of the
external world; and thirdly, the heartbreak and suffering
as a result of our relationships with other people. It
is this third source of anguish that he believes to be
the most painful, and also to which he has dedicated his
life's work.

Historically, in order to experience happiness and
avoid unhappiness, man has persistently pursued a greater
degree of civilization. Inherent in being civilized is
the formation of communities.

In the developmental process of the individual,
the programme of the pleasure principle, which
consists in finding the satisfaction of happiness,
is retained as the main aim. Integration in, or
adaptation to, a human community appears as a

scarcely avoidable condition which must be ful-
filled before this aim of happiness can be

 

u6Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to

Psychoanalysis (New York: Washington Square Press, 1952),
p. 27.

 

A7

achieved. If it could be done without that con-

dition, it would perhaps be preferable.“7
But, says Freud, the attainment of happiness cannot be
done without "that condition"—-the establishment of com-
munities. The foundation for this essential social
institution is Eros and Ananke (Love and Necessity). In
order to provide for his means of livelihood and to
satisfy his sexual desires primitive man formed bands,
which inevitably evolved into more complicated networks.

It is this absolute need to form communities, and

the irrevocable restrictions which they inherently impose,
that forms the insurmountable paradox on which the ship
of happiness must flounder. According to Freud the
establishment of a community means that the pleasure
principle is circumscribed, for in the process of civili-
zation "the most important thing is the aim of creating

A8 (In

a unity out of the individual human being."
Freud's terms the pleasure principle is modified by the
reality principle.) Freud admits that in forming a com-
munity the aim of happiness is still prevalent, "but it
is pushed into the background. It almost seems as if

the creation of a great human community would be most

successful if no attention had to be paid to the happiness

 

 

of the individuals.”9
A7 . .
Freud, Civil1zation and Its Discontents, p. 87.
u81bid.
49

Ibid.

A8

Surely one of the decisive contentions in Freud's
thesis is the validity of the incompatibility between the
pleasure principle and the essential restrictions imposed
by the community. It is to these restrictions that one
must turn to evaluate his argument. Freud argues that
the impositions of civilization are most notable in
regards to its demands for beauty, cleanliness, orderli-
ness, a bias toward the intellectual life, and in man's
social relationships. Central to all of these modifica—
tions of the natural, or uncivilized, life is the
renunciation of instinct-—which, we recall, is the highest
source of pleasure.

Whereas the individual, guided by the pleasure prin—
ciple, perpetually seeks his own gratification, a community
seeks the efficient operation and perpetuation of itself.
For instance, surely one of the first requirements for
stabilized community institutions is orderliness. Yet,
Freud finds that "human beings exhibit as inborn tendency
to carelessness, irregularity and unreliability in their
work . . ."50 It is the control of these "inborn ten-
dencies" that characterizes civilization. Freud says,
"this replacement of the power of the individual by the
power of the community constitutes the decisive step of

civilization."51

 

SOIbid., p. 40.

511616., p. A2.

A9

The final outcome should be a rule of law to
which all-—except those who are not capable of
entering a community--have contributed by a
sacrifice of their instincts, and which leaves
no one--again with the same exception——at the
mercy of brute force.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of
civilization. . . . The urge for freedom, there-
fore, is directed against particular forms and
demands of civilization or against civilization

altogether.
. . . and this seems the most important of all,

it is impossible to overlook the extent to which
civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct,
how much it presupposes precisely the non—
satisfaction (by suppression, repression or some
other means?) of powerful instincts.52

The two instincts—~I do not mean to imply a mutual

exclusiveness-—which have been historically contained in
the evolution of civilization are the natural tendencies
toward aggression and sexual gratification. I believe
Freud's analysis of neurosis attributable to unfulfilled
sexual urges is common knowledge, and I shan't belabor
it here. However, his work on aggression is crucial to
(Soodman's psychology, and I believe a short sketch of it
.is necessary.

Civilization, Freud claims, is not content with
Dnerely encouraging love relationships between one man and
(Brie woman. But, rather, "It aims at binding the members
C>f‘the community together in a libidinal way as well

EiIdd employs every means to that end."53 This is demon-

Estrated in such ideals as "Thou shalt love thy neighbor

\

52Ibid., pp. u2, A3, an.

53Ibid., p. 56.

50

as thyself," and a second commandment which Freud finds
incomprehensible, "Love They Enemies." Freud finds an
insoluable conflict in this need to bind the members of
a community together with the glue of love. For it is
not, by his observation, man's nature to love indis-
criminately.5

In fact, argues Freud, to be loved is not one of
man's primary goals.

The element of truth behind all this, which
people are so ready to disavow, is that men are
not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and
who at the most can defend themselves if they are
attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures
among whose instinctive endowments is to be 55
reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.

The existence of this inclination to aggression,
which we can detect in ourselves and justly assume
to be present in others is the factor which
disturbs our relations with our neighbors and
which forces civilization into such a high expendi-
ture of energy. In consequence of this primary
mutual hostility of human beings, civilized
society is perpetually threatened with disintegra-
tion. The interest of work in common would not
hold it together; instinctual passions are
stronger than reasonable interests. Civilization
has to use its utmost efforts in order to set
limits to man's aggressive instincts and to hold
the manifestations of them in check by psychical
reaction-formations.56

5“Perhaps Freud's position could be strengthened if

lice discriminated between the various kinds of love. He is

Eglailty of setting up an opponent's argument differently
1:11an the opponent himself would have done, and then attack-
jLIig the self—designed argument. I am suggesting that the
'Ilove' intended in "Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Self" is
fiatter understood as agape which implies a love of humanity

51rNi not of a particular personality.

55
56

Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 58.

Ibid., p. 59.

51

In all that follows I adopt the standpoint,
therefore, that the inclination to aggression is
an original, self-subsisting instinctual disposi-
tion in man, and I return to my view that it
constitutes the greatest impediment to civiliza-
tion.57

Freud, in language reminiscent of Thomas Hobbes,
argues that man makes these sacrifices to civilization
only because of his inability to defend himself and pro-
vide for himself in an uncivilized setting. In short,
civilized man has exchanged the gratification of certain
instincts for a measure of security.

It seems necessary at this point to deviate momen-
tarily. Certainly Freud's concept of aggression is incom-
plete without mention of his "death instinct," which he
alludes to in this concise statement on civilization.

And now, I think, the meaning of the evolution

of civilization is no longer Obscure to us. It
must present the struggle between Eros and Death,
between the instinct of life and the instinct of
destruction, as it works itself out in the human
species.58

This thesis, which Goodman finds dubious, is pro-
pounded most completely in Beyond the Pleasure Principle.
The short sketch which follows is intended only as an
acknowledgment of this concept of Freud's, as our main
concern-~the restrictions on aggression imposed by

civilization--is understandable without an exhaustive

review of the death instinct.

 

571616., p. 69.

58Ibid.

52

Freud contends that early in the process of evolu—
tion, life emanated from inanimate substances. And
further, that in the mind there exists a compulsion to
repeat which overrides the pleasure principle. That is,
"instincts tend towards the restoration of an earlier

0
state of things."5’

And, of course, the "earlier state
of things was inanimate." Now, coupling this instinct
to return to a previous state with the sexual instinct
toward a prolongation of life, Freud is able to form his
hypothesis which theorizes civilization as a struggle
between Eros and Death.

However, the validity of Freud's postulation of
inherent aggression does not rest solely, or even signifi-
cantly, on his death instinct, and as the aggression is
our prime concern we shall return to that inquiry.
Recalling that civilization results in the strengthening
of the masses and thus rendering innocuous several indi—
vidual instincts, we have occasion to wonder as to the
disposure of this instinctual aggression which apparently
finds no outlet. Freud's answer, like Goodman's, is that
it is "introjected," "internalized," directed back against
the ego.

There it is taken over by a portion of the ego,

which sets itself over against the rest of the ego

as super-ego, and which now, in the form of "con—
science" is ready to put into action against the

 

59Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle (New
York: Bantam Books, Inc., 1959), p. 69.

53

ego the same harsh aggressiveness that the ego
would have liked to satisfy upon other extraneous
individuals. The tension between the harsh super-
ego and the ego that is subjected to it is called
by us the sense of guilt; it expresses itself as

a need for punishment.60

Thus, the feeling of guilt, which Goodman also
finds as a pervasive cause of unhappiness, arises ini-
tially from fear of authority, and later, after intro-
jection has taken place, from fear of the super—ego. This
line of thought is seen in this analysis by Goodman.

Why are we so well behaved? It seems to require
so few in society to deter the rest. I can think of
two factors. First, it is not the present threat or
risk that deters, but childhood fear and guilt that
were implanted when disproportionate strength was
indeed brought to bear: the policeman is papa and
mama writ large, so we are still disproportionately
small. A psychopath is relatively free of these
particular internalized fears, so he calculates
only the present risk, which is often not great.
But, for most, a small deterrent keeps the old
time spasm of fear from thawing out; we remain in
a state of deep freeze° and so a few easily prevent
the happiness Of all.61

The result is that we cannot liberate ourselves by
a renunciation of Our aggressive instincts; because in
the process of renunciating these instincts we erect a
conscience which is a source of unhappiness. Freud says,
A threatened external unhappiness--loss of
love and punishment on the part of the external
authority—-has been exchanged for a permanent

internal unhappiness, for the tension of the
state of guilt.62

 

6OFreud, Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 70.

 

lGoodman, Five Years, p. 11.

62Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents, p. 75.

 

 

5A

In his closing remarks in Civilization and Its

 

Discontents Freud concludes that he has intended

 

to represent the sense of guilt as the most

important problem in the development of civiliza-

tion, and to show that the price we pay for our

advance in civilization is a loss of unhappiness

through the heightening of the sense of guilt.63

The more guilt one experiences, the less happy he

is. Civilization, Freud asserts, assumes that a man's
ego is psychologically capable of anything that is demanded
of it; that is, it can accept any amount of guilt and
suppress any instinct. This, argues Freud, is a mistake.
Once pushed beyond a specific point man will revolt or
develop a neurosis. Freud then raises the question as to
whether an entire civilization, "or some epochs of civili-
zation" can become neurotic. He does not speculate as to
the possibility of this, but he does suggest that future

researchers will. He was right. Eric Fromm acknowledged

the challenge by Freud, and Fromm's The Sane Society is

 

a probing analysis as to the extent that the United States
has become a neurotic society. This assertion permeates
all of Goodman's writing also.

This inclusion of Freud's exploration of the incom-
patibility between civilization and human instincts is
not intended as being part and parcel of Goodman's
psychology. Most assuredly it is not; as Goodman is far

less Hobbesian in his assumptions about the social nature

 

63Ibid., p. 81.

55

of man, and he is far more Optimistic regarding the
function of aggression in organisms. Yet, Goodman is in
substantial agreement with Freud's thesis that civiliza—
tion, especially if it evolves mindlessly and without
concern for animal instincts, is a potent source of human
misery.

Concludinngomments on Goodman's
Anarchism

 

 

Goodman's anarchism does not emanate from natural
law theory. Rather, it is grounded in his psychological
beliefs coupled with a humanistic/libertarian philosophi—
cal commitment to the growth of man, and tempered by
empirical observations of how institutions actually
function.

Goodman claims the press speaks of anarchy to mean
chaotic riot and meaningless defiance of authority.
Reporters tend to lump together "communists and anarchists"
and "bourgeoise revisionists, infantile leftists and
anarchists." Yet Goodman has little difficulty in making
the distinctions between socialism, communism, and anarchy.
He demonstrates that even the communists dispel the
anarchist.

The possibility of an anarchist revolution--
decentralist, anti-police, anti-party, anti-
bureaucratic, organized by voluntary association,
and putting a premium on grassroots spontaneity--
has always been anathema to Marxist Communists and
has been ruthlessly suppressed. Marx expelled the

Anarchist Unions from the International Workingmen's
Association; Lenin and Trotsky slaughtered the

56

Anarchists in the Ukraine and at Kronstadt;

Stalin murdered them during the Spanish Civil War;

Castro has jailed them in Cuba, and Gomulka in

Poiand.64

Neither is Goodman's anarchism socialistic, if by

socialism is meant common ownership. Goodman believes
that corporate capitalism, state capitalism, and state
communism are all incompatible with maximizing the growth

of human beings. In other words, he does not believe

that ownership is the determining variable in the problem

 

of humanizing institutions. He finds the centralization,
inflexibility, and authoritarianism of all three types of
production mentioned above as exploiting man and castrat-
ing him of his initiative, aggression, and spontaneity.
Central to community-anarchism as espoused by
Goodman is "participatory democracy." Simply put, it
demands a say in the decisions that shape the lives of
the people involved. It stands against the bureaucrati-
zation, social engineering, centralization, the perva-
siveness of mass media, as well as taxation without
representation. It lauds "grassroots populism, the town
meeting, Congregationalism, federalism, Student Power,
Black Power, workers' management, soldiers' democracy,

guerrilla organizations,n55

 

6”Paul Goodman, "Black Flag of Anarchism," New
York Times Magazine, July 1A, 1968, p. 15.

65Ibid., p. 16.

57

Goodman's confidence in participatory democracy,
or spontaneous democracy, naturally flows out of his
social-psychology. It centers on his belief that the
human organism is both self—regulatory and social in
nature. If left alone the free decisions of people
working in their common interest will be graceful,
forceful, inventive, and intelligent. In opposition,
top—down authority and complex situations beyond human
comprehension——out of human scale--make people anxious,
bored, stupid, and hostile.

In a New York Times article, July 1A, 1966, Goodman
carefully distinguishes between anarchy as a merely nega—
tive philosophy, which he heartily opposes, and anarchism,
as an ordered community society based on voluntary enter-
prise and voluntary institutions, which he advocates.

The following summation of anarchism appears in that
article.
Anarchism is not anarchy. It is against existing
social and political systems, but it proposes to
replace them with some form of ordered decentralized,
individualistic community cooperation.
Anarchism is to come about not through violent
revolution, since that creates its own rigid
counter-organization, but through eventual mass
understanding and increased practice of anarchist
living--as may be seen, for example, among some
of today's students and hippies. Its effect is
reVolutionary, but in general its means are to be
disruptive rather than violent, persuasive rather
than dictatorial.
Anarchism would run a complex modern society not

by increased centralization but by using
cybernetic techniques to make small community

58

units viable. With modern technology it would

be possible for very small-scale industrial

units to maintain their own sources of energy,

their own small-scale industrial units, their

own computerized agriculture, and so on.66

Goodman's community—anarchism, grounded in the

assumptions of human nature promulgated by Peter KrOpotkin,
purports to foster the libertarian principles espoused by
John Dewey. And, it is my opinion, that Goodman turns
to anarchism because he shares with Freud the view that
civilization, improperly structured, can dehumanize man

by erecting insurmountable barriers to his spontaneity

and natural instincts.

In the Pacifist Tradition

 

Goodman is unfailingly a pacifist. He successfully
resisted the draft during World War II and his writings
are consistently scornful of the use of violence.

Typical of his abhorrence of violence is this statement

from Kafka's Prayer. "Violence is truly as Aristotle

 

said, moving something not by the energy of its own
nature; and truly by violence no good thing is accom—

plished."67 And in People or Personnel he writes:

 

 

66Ibid., p. 20.

67Goodman, Kafka's Prayer, p. 82.

 

59

In the violent situation the evil effect of

practicing violence has distinctions. The violence

of those who revolt tends to be brutal and vin-

dictive; it is humanity debased and debasing

itself further. The violence practiced by the

established and powerful is dehumanized, they

have become like machines, and this is probably

worse.68

He is, however, an ardent supporter and participant

in non-violent action such as picketing, demonstrating,
resisting, and other means of open confrontation. He
supports non-violent activity because it generates con-
flict and fosters the use of intelligence. He writes,
"For the most part unanimity is found not by relaxing
but by sharpening the conflict, risking natural coercion

69 That is, as complex

until the emergence of a new idea."
institutions run for their own sake, individuals within

are frequently unconcerned and/or ignorant of the conse-
quences of their action or inaction; and "acts which lead

70 A confrontation

to unconcerned behavior are crimes."
with an aroused public, however, brings the consequences
into the open and asks "What is your real will, when you

confront our resistance and have to think, feel, and

 

68Paul Goodman, People or Personnel and Like a
Conqpered Province (New York: Random House, 1968), p.
392. These two books have been published in one volume.
References will be made to the specific book, not to the
entire volume.

69Paul Goodman, Drawing the Line (New York:
Random House, 19A6), p. AA.

 

 

 

70Ibid., p. 5.

60

decide?"71 Therefore, Goodman both applauded and
chastized the Students for a Democratic Society for its
activities at Columbia in the spring of 1968. He sup-
ported their efforts to confront the administration with
the issues involving the new Morningside gymnasium and
the university's military affiliations, but he was
critical of their going beyond those issues merely to
radicalize the student body. Goodman, a student of Kant,
argues that everything must be done for its own sake.

But the concept of "radicalizing" is a rather

presumptuous manipulation of people for their

own good. It is anarchist for people to act on

principle and learn, the hard way, that the

powers that be are brutal and unjust, but it is

authoritarian for people to be expended for the

cause of somebody's strategy.72

In opposing the violent activity of the Guevaristas,

Goodman uses an ethical principle refuting the difference
between means and ends. He argues that he does not con-
done the use of any activity aimed at reforming a society
that he could not use in a good society. Thus, where
the Guevaristas are for clandestine conspiracy, he is
for Open confrontation. In November of 1967 Goodman

expressed concern at the young radicals growing attach-

ment to violence. He wrote:

 

71Paul Goodman, "The Resisters Support U.S.
Traditions and Interests," New York Times Magazine,
November 26, 1967, p. 122.

72Goodman, "Black Flag of Anarchism, p. 11.

61

In my opinion, also, they will have to learn that
one is not going to re-structure modern society
with a fraction Of the 10 per cent Negro popula-
tion, nor even with the "Third World" ruled by

Ben Bellas, Nassers, Maos, Nkrumahs, Sukarnos,

or their successors. This is not the stuff of

new humanism. For instance, those who objected to
being processed at Berkeley will have to think
seriously about Chairman Mao's little red book.
And those who want to make love not war but who
also want to imitate Che Guevara in American cities,
must ask themselves what adequate guerilla tactics
would be in a high technology, namely to poison
the water, wreck the subways, and cause power
failures in New York and Chicago; is this what
they want?73

Clearly Goodman, like Kropotkin, believes that revo-
lutionaries cannot make revolution, rather they can only
encourage, link, illuminate, and guide the efforts that
originate among the dissatisfied peOple themselves.
Goodman's pacifism is consistent with his ethical stance,

and with his pragmatic means-ends Continuum.

 

73Goodman, Like a Conquered Province, p. A37.

 

CHAPTER III

MAN AS A SELF—REGULATING ORGANISM

It's an empirical question what the average

norms of inner self-regulation are: for example,

Luther said that people should have sexual inter-

course twice a week. That's an empirical

observation--and a rather good one. To me, this

seems to be the most beautiful attitude to take

toward things like that--that is, this animal

can take care of itself, so if we have to give

people advice let's see by and large how that

animal does operate.1

The dominant thesis central to all of Goodman's

proposals and recommendations is the claim that man is a
self-regulating organism. Nor is it sufficient to argue
that man can be self-regulating. Rather, if he is to
fulfill his potential and live with grace, force, and
vigor he must be self-regulating. This theme is at the
heart of Goodman's ideas for anarchism, decentralization,
and a wholesale reduction of tOp-down influence, whether
the arena is the state, the corporation, or school
administration.

Goodman is a humanist and a functionalist. The

proper life for man is one that enables him to develop

 

lPaul Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine

(New York: Horizon Press, 1962), p. 8A.

 

62

63

and utilize his mental, physical, and sensual capacities.
Only then can mankind progress and build a better world.
For man to fully utilize his capabilities he must be
aware of them and cognizant of the interrelationship with
the environment. Goodman adOpts a unitary concept when
speaking of environment and organism. He finds it sense-
less to speak of an organism breathing without the environ-
mental air or of the organism stepping without the ground
underfoot. The human organism/environment is not only
physical but social and cultural. Therefore, in any
humane study, Goodman speaks of a field in which social-
cultural, animal, and physical factors interact. This is,
of course, a Gestaltist approach.

. . . we believe that the Gestalt outlook is the

original, undistorted, natural approach to life;

that is, to man's thinking, acting, feeling. The

average person having been raised in an atmosphere

full of splits, has lost his Wholeness, his

Integrity. To come together again he has to heal

the dualism of his person, of his thinking, and

of his language. He is accustomed to thinking

of contrasts--of infantile and nature, of body

and mind, organism and environment, self and

reality, as if they were opposing entities. The

unitary outlook which can dissolve such a dual-

istic approach is buried but not destroyed and

as we intend to show can be regained with

wholesome advantage.é

The concept of unity is one reason why Goodman

supports psychotherapy rather than psychoanalysis.

 

2Frederick Perls, Ralph F. Hefferline, and Paul
Goodman, Gestalt Therapy (New York: Dell Publishing Co.,
1951), p. viii.

 

6A

Free-association is intended to uncover experiences
characteristically hidden in the subconscious. But it
relies solely on the patient's ability to recall and to
verbalize what he thinks or feels. Psychotherapy, on
the other hand, attempts to "recover all experiences con—
comitantly--whether they be physical or mental, sensory,
emotional, or verbal--for it is in the unity functioning
of "body," "mind," and "environment" (these are all
abstractions) that the lively figure ground emerges."3
Goodman argues that neither a full understanding
of the organism's functions nor the complete knowledge
of the environment will provide sufficient information
for psychology. Rather, the Gestalt-psychology approach
concerns itself with the relation of figure and background.
The healthy figureeground formation is represented by
attention, concentration, interest, concern, excitement,
and grace. The unhealthy figure—ground to the contrary
is characterized by confusion, boredom, compulsions,
fixations, anxiety, amnesias, stagnation, and self-
consciousness. It is the function of psychotherapy to
enable the patient to produce healthy figure-grounds--
which is natural in situations that admit of organismic

self-regulation.

 

31bid., p. 83. Gestalt Therapy is co-authored,
but I have used the book under the assumption that
Goodman is in agreement with all of the content.

 

65

Evidence as to the truth of the unitary conception
of the organism may be demonstrated by observing the
functioning organism. An organism functioning as a
whole-—body, feeling, environment--will know what it is
about. It will function with clarity and self-awareness.

When you relinquish your determination to make

your behavior fit the arbitrary, more or less
fixed pattern that you have taken over from the
"authorities," aware need and spontaneous interest
come to the surface and reveal to you what you

are and what it is appropriate for you to do.

This is your nature, the very core of your
vitality.”

The unitary concept enables Goodman to claim he
writes on only one subject--"the human beings I know in
their man-made scene." It is this approach which obli-
gates him to punctuate his educational proposals with
references and recommendations involving architecture,
vocations, government, rural reconstruction, food
production, etc. Problems of growth and human development
must take into account all contacts between the organism
and its environment. The isolation of any single
e1ement——e.g. education--must result in error-laden
thinking, because, properly considered, education

affects and is affected by all existing institutions in

the environment.

 

Ibid., p. 112.

66

Human Nature as Creative Adjustment

 

Everybody engages in creative arts and is likely
to carry a sketchbook, proving what the psychologists
and progressive educators have always claimed, that
every child is creative if not blocked. Resigning
from the rat race, they have removed the block.5
Goodman agrees with Kant that the question "What is
man?" is unanswerable. Man is, to a limited extent,
malleable and is always changing. In fact, the ability
to adjust in favorable circumstances is itself an essential
of the basic human nature. Human nature is a sharing of
not only animal but extremely divergent cultural factors.
For this reason Goodman refuses to identify a human
nature, because not all men have the same human nature.
Rather, he argues that whatever it is, human nature is a
potentiality. In adjusting to its environment human
nature creates itself._ Living, in fact, is a process of
making creative adjustments to further the growth of the
self-regulating organism. In this sense psychology is
the study of creative adjustment. All men, given prOper
environmental conditions, are creative.
Goodman cites as evidence that the organism is
creative and self-regulating the fact that man evolved

"to the point of having approximately the same form and

functional prOperties as modern man prior to the time Of

 

5Goodman, Growinngp Absurd, p. 176.

67

the invention of language itself."6 He anticipates the

argument that while this may have been possible in times
past, our technological modern civilization simply doesn't
admit of self—regulation. His reply is that there is
little evidence that a self-regulating organism would
tolerate society as it is organized today. This is, of
course, the basic thesis running throughout his fiction,
non-fiction, and works of art. He argues that the
organism must be creative and self-regulating and that
education, technology, society, etc. ought to be adjusted
to serve the self-regulating needs. Modern society, in
contrast, assumes an infinite malleability of man, and
seeks to adjust him to the institutional needs of society.
In short, to a large extent Goodman's treatment of human
nature centers on the growth needs of a creative self—
regulating organism.

Spontaneous Consciousness of
Organismic Needs

 

 

You can't be interested in making money for
somebody, because that isn't interesting. You
have to be interested in some product. Profits
are not products. But trade is interesting; to
distribute goods, and see people better off.
Trade could be very interesting.7

Organismic self-regulation is the process by which

the dominant needs come to the forefront of awareness as

 

6
p. 20.

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

 

7Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 168.

 

68

they arise. No one needs to tell the organism when it
should eat, sleep, make love, or cry. These needs arise
spontaneously and the organism can reach equilibrium by
merely giving way to a felt desire. Crying, for instance,
is a felt need for an organism which has sustained loss.
If one gives in to the need it enables the organism to
release the sense of loss and to once again become aware
of other needs. However, if the organism has intro-
jected a social norm which is critical of crying, it may
deliberately suppress the tears which has the dual crip-
pling effect of not allowing release and Of not freeing
the organism to become aware of other needs.

Spontaneous needs cannot be eradicated via punish-
ment. Goodman argues that we punish at our peril. He
would have us do so only when the organism's safety is
threatened. We may paddle the child to keep him out
of the street, but Goodman finds few other instances
where punishment has a positive consequence. When
strong desires are frustrated or punished the child
actively inhibits himself. He then proceeds to identify
with those whose authority controls him. When carried
far enough the child loses his desire and his power of
initiation--which are both necessary for growth. Punish-
ment does not annihilate the need to behave in that way
that met with punishment, but it teaches the organism to

hold back the punishable responses. However, the

69

. . . impulse or the wish remains as strong

as ever and, since this is not satisfied, it is
constantly organizing the motor apparatus-~its
posture, pattern of muscular tonus, and incipient
movements--in the direction of overt expression.

The position taken here is that the human organism is
active, not passive. Thus, the inhibition of spontaneous
desires or behaviors is not merely the absence of those
behaviors, but is the conscious holding in of those
punishable overt performances. Thus, what started as a
conflict between the organism and its environment becomes
a conflict within the organism itself.9 The result is an
inhibition of felt need and a corresponding loss of grace
and vigor as the organism uses energy to suppress

spontaneous desires.

Man as a Pleasure Seekinngnimal

"Look here," says the Dutchman in a rasping voice.
"An animal that does not move directly toward its
chief desires——safety, sexual pleasure, exploration--
is demented. (I'm not hungry, I'll eat after a
while.) Suppose there are obstacles: then they do
not move as directly as possible to circumvent or
destroy the obstacles. This is to be simply demented.
In fact, long ago they have forgotten what their
chief desires are: and they construct and encourage
and submit to obstacles in order to distract them-
selves from remembering what their desires are.

Then here comes some fool and proves to them, by
the plainest demonstration from the most obvious
evidence, that they are acting against their own

 

8Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 1A6.

9This is the source of guilt as analyzed by Freud.
See Chapter II.

70

welfare. Naturally they turn a deaf ear. They are
quite demented." His voice is like an iron file.10

So speaks one of the characters in The Empire City.

 

Throughout his writings Goodman makes the comment that
life is "simple but hard." He wants to say that man, like
other animals, finds growth and satisfaction in the simple
things, but that the simple things are frequently diffi-
cult to attain. He is fond of quoting from Franz Kafka
that "life is a mathematical problem." That is, the

means for satisfying the organisms of this world are
available, but the organism does not always come into
contact with the need fulfilling environment. For
instance, potentially there is someone to love for each

of us, "but lust seldom meets its most satisfying poten-

11

tial." The following lines are from a poem in Hawkweed.

People tend to like me who know me
nor am I shy to pick up friends,
that I am usually unhappy
is only mathematical 12
rarely is anyone both lovely and available;
Of course, claims Goodman, most of us increase our dif-
ficulties by suppressing our animal desires in favor of

less satisfying introjected desires--material goods, a

 

loPaul Goodman, The Empire City (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 196A), p. 301.

llPaul Goodman, Adam and His Works (New York:
Vintage Books, 1968), p. 381.

12Paul Goodman, Hawkweed (New York: Vintage Books,
1967), p. 153.

 

71

better job, status, etc. He does not argue that pleasure

is the sole criterion of the good, but he does assert

that pleasure is an excellent indication of the good.

So pleasure, the feeling of contact, is always,
in whatever form and under whatever conditions,
a prima facie evidence of vitality and growth.
In ethics it is not the sole criterion--there is
no sole criterion-~but its occurrence is always
positive evidence toward a behavior, and its
absence always raises a question.1

He says that the hierarchy of needs is "capital for

ethics and politics." The hierarchy is, in a sense, an

inductive theory of human nature. That is, the concept

of healthy self-regulation is, in fact, the theory of

human nature. Goodman's hierarchy of values is similar

in kind to Abraham Maslow's as presented in Toward a

Psychology of Being.

 

All of the foregoing may now be related to the
general motivation theory, set forth in my Motiva-
tion and Personality, particularly the theory of
need gratification, which seems to me to be the
most important single principle underlying all
healthy human development. The single holistic
principle that binds together the multiplicity
of human motives is the tendency for a new and
higher need to emerge as the lower need fulfills
itself by being sufficiently gratified. The child
who is fortunate enough to grow normally and well
gets satiated and bored with the delights that he
has savored sufficiently, and eagerly (without
pushing) goes on to higher more complex, delights
as they become available to him without danger or
threat.

This principle can be seen exemplified not only
in the deeper motivational dynamics of the child
but also in microcosm in the development of any
of his more modest activities, e.g., in learning

 

p.

l3Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

A22.

72

to read, or skate, or paint, or dance. The child
who masters simple words enjoys them intensely
but doesn't stay there. In the prOper atmosphere
he spontaneously shows eagerness to go on to more
and more new words, longer words, more complex
sentences, etc. If he is forced to stay at the
simple level he gets bored and restless with what
formerly delighted him. He wants to go on, to move,
to grow. Only if frustration, failure, disapproval,
ridicule come at the next step does he fixate or
regress, and we are then faced with the intricacies
of pathological dynamics and of neurotic compromises,
in which the impulses remain alive but unfulfilled,
or even of loss of impulse and of capacity.

What we wind up with then is a subjective device
to add to the principle of the hierarchical arrange-
ment of our various needs, a device which guides and
directs the individual in the direction of "healthy"
growth. The principle holds true at any age.
Recovering the ability to perceive one's own delights
is the best way of rediscovering the sacrificed self
even in adulthood. The process of therapy helps
the adult to discover that the childish (repressed)
necessity for the approval of others no longer
need exist in the childish form and degree, and
that the terror of losing these others with the
accompanying fear of being weak, helpless and
abandoned is no longer realistic and justified as
it was for the child. For the adult, others can 1A
be and should be less important than for the child.

However, whereas Maslow posits a reasonably predictable
scale from food to self—realization, Goodman is either
less certain of the specific arrangement of the values,
or is simply not sufficiently concerned about the point
to spell it out. He writes:

In the struggle for survival the most relevant

need becomes figure and organizes the behavior of

an individual until this need is satisfied, where

upon it recedes into the background (temporary
balance) and makes room for the next now

 

l“Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

(New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1962), pp. 53-55.

73

most important need. In the healthy organism

this change of dominance has the best survival

chance.l5

A cursory reading of Goodman's writings might lead

one to believe that he finds sex disproportionally
relevant to human satisfaction. But that is false.
Goodman views sex as an animal need and, of course, as
an animal pleasure. It becomes an all-pervasive need
or an obsession when, like food, drink, or creativity,
it is left unattended: "as soon as you push sex into
the background it begins to pervade all of life."16

Goodman claims that this is similar to the position

espoused by Freud. In A General Introduction to Psycho-

 

analysis Freud wrote:

 

You must not be led away by my eagerness to
defend myself against the accusation that in
analytic treatment neurotics are encouraged to
"live a free life" and conclude from it that we
influence them in favour of conventional morality.
That is at least as far removed from our purpose
as the other. We are not reformers, it is true;
we are merely observers; but we cannot avoid
observing with critical eyes, and we have found
it impossible to give our support to conventional
sexual morality or to approve highly of the means
by which society attempts to arrange the practical
problems of sexuality in life. We can demonstrate
with ease that what the world calls its code of
morals demands more sacrifices than it is worth,
and that its behavior is neither dictated by honesty
nor instituted with wisdom. We do not absolve our
patients from listening to these criticisms; we
accustom them to an unprejudiced consideration of
sexual matters like all other matters; and if
after they have become independent by the effect
of the treatment they choose some intermediate
course between unrestrained sexual licence and

15
p. xi.

 

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

 

16Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 88.

 

7A

unconditional asceticism, our conscience is not
burdened by the outcome. We say to ourselves

that anyone who has successfully undergone the
training of learning and recognizing the truth
about himself is henceforth strengthened against
the dangers of immorality, even if his standard of
morality should in some respect deviate from the
common one. Incidentally, we must beware of over-
estimating the importance of abstinence in affecting
neurosis; only a minority of pathogenic situations
due to frustration and the subsequent accumulation
of libido thereby induced can be relieved by the
kind of sexual intercourse that is procurable
without any difficulty.l7

Perhaps Goodman's most concise statement on sex is:

My own View, for what it is worth, is that

sexuality is lovely, there cannot be too much of

it, it is self-limiting if it is satisfactory and

satisfaction diminishes tension and clears the

mind for attention and learning.18

One can identify two grounds for pleasure being a

good. First of all pleasure serves as an indicator of
what the organism ought to attend to. Goodman believes
that over the years the organism has made very conserva-
tive creative adjustments. (He likes to demonstrate that
anarchists are truly conservative. "It is only the
anarchists who are really conservative, for they want

to conserve sun and space, animal nature, primary com-

munity, and experimenting inquiry."19 It adjusts to what

 

17Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction,to Psycho-
analysis (New York: Washington Square Press, 1952), p.
p. o

 

18Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education, pp. 29-30.

 

19Goodman, Drawing the Line, p. 16.

 

75

enables it to survive and grow. And pleasure identifies
that need. Secondly, however, is the idea that only
pleasure allows a man to function at his most productive
level. He sees pleasure as not something accidental,
". . . but as a quality of a completed action with
important inner drives Operating and meeting of those
impulses from within by opportunities from without."20
During the nadir of his frustrating years, 1955-1960,
when he sensed he had something to offer the world, but
no one wanted it, he wrote:

I undo myself because of a theory that I, alas,

believe: that happiness, satisfaction, is the

necessary ground for the full exercise of power.

It is not that I am miserable, I can really put

up with that philOSOphically; but that, being

miserable, I am wasted. Then all is lost.21
Characteristic of his writings is the notion that evil
is indicative of an error in sOcial or technological
conditions. That is, if, as he claims, modern society
does not legitimately allow for the satisfaction of
animal needs, the organism will become neurotic or will
go outside the legal or social norms for satisfaction.
In either case one could argue that neurotic or illegal
behavior represents socially contrived error. In short,

if society constructs itself solely on the grounds of

satisfying animal needs there would be little cause for

 

20Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 83.

21Goodman, Five Years, p. 10.

 

 

76

delinquency and crime. This point is best understood if
we remember that human nature, as a unitary concept,
includes a social and cultural facet, and that education
is essentially a process of teaching the young to grow
up into that culture. From this vantage point Goodman
can say:

Do not be afraid that by dissolving conscience

you will become a criminal or an impulsive psycho-
path. You will be surprised when you allow organic
self-regulation to develop and your outgoing

drives to contact other persons, how the principles
that you ought to live by will seem to emerge from
your very bones and will be obviously appropriate
for living out regardless of the social situation
you are in . . . .22

Man as a Social Being

 

. . . because the greater part of each man's self

is his social self; therefore, we suggest it to

one another and we are not ashamed.23

Goodman rejects the Hobbesian thesis of a contrac-

tual theory of society. Rather, he propounds an "organic
theory"; that people exist in society by bonds of
animality, fellowship, and loyalty and obedience that are
"deeper than rational choice." Psychologically the basis
of our society is prior to the formation of the ego.
Whereas the social contract theory hypothesizes an inter-

personal agreement between individuals, an organic theory

approach emanates from an intrapersonal theory grounded in

 

22
p. 220.
23

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

Goodman, Empire City, p. 216.

 

77

love, fraternity, imitation, learning, sympathy, infan-
tile dependency, the ability to communicate, and compan-
ionship. Thus, like Kropotkin, Goodman posits in man
an inherent social nature that fulfills itself in social
relations and meaningful community. This social nature
is repressible, but ineradicable.

Characteristic of Goodman's concern for animal
natures—-in large part sociable—~is his treatment of

Benjamin Spock's book Problems of Parents. Goodman

 

initially salutes Spock's earlier book, Baby and Child

 

Gaga, because it undertook to protect the natural
development of the growing animal against the harmful
practices and unhealthy customs of.society. Spock urged
that babies are tough and self-regulating and what they
need from adults is nourishment and affection. However,

in Problems of Parents Spock does not start with a

 

natural setting-—the birth and early development of a
child--but rather with an ongoing highly conventional
society. And when Spock speaks of "high standards" and

the "practices of an established family" he is alluding

to practices and customs that emanate from a technological
and commercial society which grounds its behaviors in

Gross National Product, technological progress, efficiency,
nationalism, and not in animal desires. Accordingly,
Goodman accused Spock of retreating from the naturalism

of his earlier book to a more conventional, and less

satisfying position in The Problems of Parents.

 

78

Critics have on occasion made light of Goodman's
references to his "animal spirits." But, Goodman is

indeed in earnest.

Sometimes since you don't love me any more
I cannot find an animal spirit

to move my feet,
or one quits and leaves me in the street

among the buses and the traffic's roar

as if I were deep in thought, but I am not
—-—until the animal spirit that preserves

me still alive
takes care of where I am and slowl drives

my feet their way across the street.2

Good Contact as a Precondition for
the Growth of the Organism

Growth is the normal function of any organism.
Growth is psychologically described as:

(1) After contact there is a flow of energy,
adding to the energy of the organism the new
elements assimilated from the environment.

(2) The contact-boundary that has been "broken"
now reforms, including the new energy and the
"organ of second nature." (3) What has been
assimilated is now part of the physiological
self-regulation. (A) The boundary of contact
is now "outside" the assimilated learning,
habit, conditioned reflex, etc.-—e.g., what is
like what one has learned does not touch one,
it raises no problems.25

However, growth is also characterized by restora-
tion, an increase in size, procreation, rejuvenation,
recreation, assimilation, learning, memory, habit,

imitation, and identification. Goodman makes no pretext

 

2“Goodman, Hawkweed, p. 91

25Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. A28.

79

of explaining how this growth takes place. ". . . [Ijts
details belong to physiology-—to the extent that they
are understood at all."26
An organism grows through contact with its environ-
ment. Contact—~in touch with--refers to both sensory
awareness and motor behavior. In its broadest applica-
tion it means appetite, rejection, approaching, avoiding,
food-getting and eating, loving, aggressing, sensing,
feeling, manipulating, perceiving, communicating, learn-
ing, locomotion, and in general every interaction that
occurs at the boundary of the organism/environment field.
The contact itself is the forming of a figure of
interest against a ground of the organism/environment
field. Good contact is characterized in awareness by a
clear, vivid image, insight, or perception. In motor
behavior good contact results in movement that has grace,
rhythm, and follow-through. 0n the contrary, when the
figure is dull, graceless, lacking in follow—through,
confused, ambiguous, etc. it identifies poor contact (a
weak gestalt); something in the environment is blocked
out, some vital organic need is not being expressed.
Establishing good contact, in order to foster growth, is
the function of psychotherapy as presented in Gestalt
Therapy. The interplay of figure and background deter-

mines the strength or richness of the contact, the

 

26Ibid., p. A21.

80

quality of the contact determines what is assimilated by
the organism, and assimilation leads to growth. Growth,
being a natural function of the organism, is self-
justifying.

From this position it can be argued that a humane
society, especially its educational institution, ought
to be structured to facilitate good contacts. It is
this weakness, the lack of opportunity for good contact,
that is highlighted in Goodman's criticisms and proposals.
It must be recognized that contact is not merely a matter
of physical proximity. One can sit in an alcove without
contacting the furniture; or scan a painting or make love
with more or less contact. But, always, the degree of
the contact determines the degree of growth. Goodman
asks "Why go to school?" on the basis of his theory of
contact. He argues that children read history, study
literature, and complete assignments, but little contact
is made with the world in which they must live. And
not only do they lose the time spent in doing lessons,
but they learn to live without good contact, and to be
guilty and fearful of it and ultimately adjust to a
society where the satisfaction of basic animal desires,
via establishing good contacts, is not fundamentally

important, or even taken seriously. In Growing Up

 

Absurd Goodman offers an example.

81

Let me give a childish but important illustra-
tion of how this works out. A boy of ten or
eleven has a few great sexual adventures-—he
thinks they're great--but then he has the bad
luck to get caught and get in trouble. They try
to persuade him by punishment and other explana-
tions that some different behavior is much better,
but he knows by the evidence of his senses that
nothing could be better. If he gives in, he
lives on in a profound disbelief, a disbelief in
their candor and a disbelief even of his own
body feelings. But if he persists and proves
incorrigible, then the evidence of his senses is
attached to what is socially punished, explained
away; he may even be put away. The basic trouble
here is that they do not really believe he has
had a sexual experience. That objective factor
is inconvenient for them; therefore it cannot
exist.27

Good contact requires an active reaching out,
excitement, a stretching toward whatever is interesting
and holds promise of fulfilling a need. And when this
aggressive action toward need fulfillment is punished,
discouraged, or frustrated, the organism feels that the
environment attacks it;

but if--and this is what we shall have to
prove-~the organism, by virtue of fears and
trepidations acquired in previous functioning,
does not dare to initiate and take responsibility
for the necessary contacts, then, since they
must occur for life to go on, the initiative

and responsibility are thrust upon the environ-
ment.28

 

When this happens the organism turns to parents,
government, or other authority figures for satisfactions

or to be told "what it ought to do." And as long as the

 

27Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, p. 38.

28Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 7A.

 

 

82

organism takes the environment as "given" it tends to
perpetuate its most undesirable aspects. But, if the
organism accepts the environment as part of its very
being, if it actively seeks to satisfy its needs by
spontaneous contact with the environment, and in so
doing acts to restructure the environment so it can more
efficiently satisfy organismic needs, then the organism
makes good contact and grows. Of course, if the organism
has been effective in its restructuring, the environment
is able to foster even more growth. This is the message
contained in Goodman's collection of letters in The

Society I Live In Is Mine. If man is to make contact he

 

must be an active participant in his society and he is
part of a society only when that society has provisions
for satisfying his needs and for responding to his con-
cerns and recommendations. (We saw earlier that his
disenchantment with modern liberals is that their institu-
tional arrangements do not promote contact.)

Much of what follows describes the conditions for
good contact. Suffice it here to say that there is much
poor contact in long friendships, marriages, and in educa-
tion. In short, the conditions for good contact--
aggression, spontaneity, excitement, need, assimilation--
are not met merely by proper physical arrangements or
social agreements. Social contact like "mixing with

people," "dating," or "talking things over" may well be

83

contactless. Making genuine contact usually involves
destructuring and excited animation. One does not contact
music via Muzak, nor news via Timg magazine, nor educa-
tion via the lecture. "Reality, we have been saying, is
given in moments of "good contact," a unity of awareness,

29

motor response, and feeling." Central to understanding
Goodman is understanding the conditions for good contact.
One condition is the need for aggression.

Man as an Aggressor-—A Prerequisite
for Growth

 

 

At the last moment both had not punched Ostoric
in the nose and their pent up aggression turned
against each other. There was no longer a congre-
gation of Jews at our camp.30

Natural aggression, as used by Goodman, has no
negative connotations. It is a healthy function of the
organism that includes anything the organism does to
initiate contact with the environment. Aggression is the
"step toward" the Object of appetite or hostility. The
passing of the impulse into the step is initiative:
"accepting the impulse as one's own and accepting the

"31

motor execution as one's own. The infant squalls when

hungry. We frequently identify this as impatience or

 

291bid., p. 27A.
30

31Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 3A2.

Goodman, Adam and His Works, p. 2A3.

 

 

8A

greed when it is really aggression which is functional
and healthy in the mother—infant situation. Goodman
argues that we may do serious harm by inhibiting
aggression. For instance, when children first get

teeth there is a natural tendency to try out this new
ability by biting into whatever they believe is biteable.
Parental interference at this stage is frequently of

two types. First, the parents punish biting to impress
upon the child the idea that biting is cruel or naughty.
Secondly, parents frequently force the child to eat

food which the child finds undesirable. Goodman holds
the Opinion that these parental behaviors are the basic
prerequisites for tendencies to introject--"to swallow
down whole what does not belong in your organism."
Aggression is a necessary part of all good contacts.

In The Empire City Goodman informs us that Horatio had

 

an "aggressive prudence" in the certain knowledge of

the terrain of New York streets which enabled him to get
the most speed with the least effort when traveling
astride a bicycle.

In Five Years he writes: "The lad can't hammer a

 

nail because he doesn't hammer on the outbreath, he holds

back his anger. They want them to have skill and strength,
32

but they will not speak of aggression." In short, when-

ever an organism wishes to impose itself on the

 

32

Goodman, Five Years, p. 7.

 

85

environment it must take aggressive action. Thus, in
the clinical use of Gestalt theory aggression is indis-
pensible to happiness and creativity.

Aggression has three components: destroying,
annihilating, and initiating. When annihilated the object
is completely rejected and ceases to exist for the
organism. The gestalt completes.itself without the
object. Annihilation takes place in flight when the
organism eliminates the object. Annihilation is a
function of defense. There is no lust or appetite
involved, as the non—existence of the object is not a
source of pleasure; rather merely a removal of a threat.
Destroying is, however, a function of appetite. "The
anger that arose in them was hygienic, for it helped them
to attack and destroy the food itself with more vehe-

n33

mence. The organism grows by assimilating new matter.
Before it can assimilate elements, whether it be food

or knowledge, there must be a destructuring of what
exists. The individual parts of the de—structured

object "must be recombined in a fashion more adequate

to the requirements of the here—and—now actuality."3M
If the organism is unable to commit the destruction so

as to assimilate the parts, it either introjects or

inhibits the appetite altogether. Initiative is the

 

33

314
p. 67.

Goodman, Empire City, p. A52.

 

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

 

86

passing of the impulse and the accepting of the motor
execution as one's own. Much of Goodman's criticism--

e.g. People or Personnel-—is based on the idea that

 

society as presently constituted inhibits much adult
initiative, and thereby restricts growth.

If growth is to occur, and it can only take place
through the process of assimilation, there must be de—
structuring and initiative; both are overt signs of
aggression. Since aggression is a natural drive it
cannot be reduced, but its manifestations can only be
deliberately suppressed. And when a natural, healthy
function of the self—regulating organism is inhibited it
causes a malfunction somewhere in the organism. Goodman
goes so far as to say that if aggressive drives are anti-
social it is the social mores which ought to be recon—
sidered and not the aggression.

And thus, to return to our starting point, when
the aggressive drives are anti-social, it is
that the society is opposed to life and change
(and love); then it will either be destroyed by
life or it will involve life in a common ruin,
make human life destroy society and itself.35

That is, anti—social aggression such as "domination,
irritability, sadism, lust for power, suicide, murder,
and their mass equivalent war" are examples of displaced

aggression. It is Goodman's view that in each case of

displaced aggression we can find that a natural aggressive

 

35Ibid., p. 352.

87

act was stifled, frustrated, or inhibited and the resul—
tant anti—social behavior is a discharge of this surplus
energy. Goodman believes, for instance, that the struc-
ture of modern society--which is out of human scale--

causes people to act more stupid than they are.36

That is, modern society does not allow for the

expression of natural aggression, which results in pent—up
hostility and anger. When the organism finally discharges

this energy out of frustration it may do so in a manner

which is both anti-social and unsatisfactory to the

 

36Eric Fromm has taken a similar position. In 229
Sane Society Fromm writes: "In observing the quality in
thinking in alienated man, it is striking to see how his
intelligence has developed and how his reason has
deteriorated. He takes his reality for granted; he
wants to eat it, consume it, touch it, manipulate it.
He does not even ask what is behind it, why things are
as they are, and where they are going. You cannot eat
the meaning, you cannot consume the sense, and as far
as the future is concerned—-apres nous 1e deluge! Even
from the nineteenth century to our day, there seems to
have occurred an observable increase in stupidity, if by
this we mean the opposite to reason, rather than intelli—
gence. In spite of the fact that everybody reads the
daily paper religiously there is an absence of under-
standing of the meaning of political events which is
truly frightening, because our intelligence helps us to
produce weapons which our reason is not capable of con-
trolling. Indeed, we have the know-how, but we do not
have the know-why, nor the know-what-for. We have many
persons with good and high intelligence quotients, but
our intelligence tests measure the ability to memorize,
to manipulate facts--but not to reason. All this is true
notwithstanding the fact that there are men of outstanding
reason in our midst, whose thinking is as profound and
vigorous as ever existed in the history of the human race.
But they think apart from the general herd thought, and
they are looked upon with suspicion--even if they are
needed for their extraordinary achievement in the natural
sciences." Eric Fromm, The Sane Sociepy (Greenwich, Conn.:
Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1955), p. 15A.

 

 

88

the organism itself. This Goodman calls "reactive
stupidity." He applauds the idea put forth by William
James that we need a moral equivalent of war. Throughout
his writings Goodman argues that it is not enough to
simply be against war, we must actively, aggressively
wage peace. This waging of the peace is not merely
picketing the Pentagon. Rather, it refers to a recon-
struction of society so that human beings can implement
their aggressions in naturally and socially satisfying
ways. Thus, Goodman urges a speedy continuation of the
sexual revolution, the development of a genuine folk
culture to enliven community, decentralization in industry
and education so that persons can effectuate desires and
decisions, and a redesigning of jobs so as to utilize
individual capacities rather than design production so
that individuals are freely interchangeable.

An occasional fist fight, a better orgasm,

friendly games, a job of useful work, initiating

enterprises, deciding real issues in manageable

meetings, and being moved by things that are

beautiful, curious, or wonderful—-these diminish

the spirit of war because they attach people to

life.37

Waging peace is the best means of preventing war,

and pacifists do well to invent and support pro-

grams for the use of our wealth and energy freed

from the expense, fear, and senselessness of war.

In my opinion, let me say, there is also natural

violence that diminishes war, e.g., the explosion

of passion, the fist fight that clears the air,
the gentle forcing of the virginal, the quarrel

 

37Goodman, Drawing the Line, p. 8A.

 

89

that breaks down the barrier to interpersonal
contact. War feeds on the inhibition of normal
aggression.3

It is evident that Goodman views the inhibition of
aggression as a major cause of human unhappiness and of
people's infatuation, and even exaltation, of war,
airplane crashes, natural disasters, brutal sports,
and other forms of destruction and human suffering.

It is because of his concern for human growth and
his pacifist nature that Goodman urges the full release
of the self-regulating natural aggressions. Later we
will see that this plays a significant part in his pro-
posals that there cannot be too much sex, that the
Socratic model is best for education, and that, in

general, education must allow for more freedom on the

part of those to be initiated into the culture.

Man as a Functional Being

 

In our view the body is full of inherited
wisdom--it is roughly adjusted to the environment
from the beginning: it has the raw materials to
make new wholes, and in its emotions it has a
kind of knowledge of the environment as well as
motivations of actions; the body expresses itself
in well-constructed purposive series and complexes
of wishes.39

Goodman, as a naturalist, argues that every impulse,

instinct, emotion, feeling, or natural ability has a

 

38Paul Goodman, UtOpian Essays and Practical Pro-
posals (New York: Vintage Books, 196A), p. 77.

39
p. AAO.

 

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

 

90

function that works to the satisfaction and growth of the
organism. And to resist, frustrate, or inhibit these
functions is to do so at a cost-—the ultimate cost may

be the mass annihilation of mankind itself in a self-
inflicted holocaust.

Thus, the function of aggression is to initiate
action so that the organism can grow. The function of
the dream is to keep the animal asleep. He sees blotting
out and hallucination as "healthy temporary functions in
a complicated organism/environment field."LIO Conscious-
ness, of course, has the function of making selections in
an environment where growth is dependent upon discrimina-
tory responses. Pain, disgust, and repulsion are dis—
agreeable, but not accidental; they make the organism
aware of something in the environment that needs atten-
tion. Crying enables the organism to relieve itself of
the burden of loss. The function of contact is growth.
Intelligence serves to solve problems; or where problems
are insoluable to dissipate energy in fantasy and ideas.
It is interesting to note that Goodman assumes a function
even if empirical evidence is not conclusive. For
instance, he asks himself about the prolonged suffering

among human beings. And he answers the question with

 

uolbid., p. 262.

91

We hazard the guess that it is to get us to
attend to the immediate present problem and then
to stand out of the way, to give the threat all
our powers, and then to stand out of the way, to
relax useless deliberateness, to let the conflict
rage and destroy what must be destroyed (emphasis
mine).41

 

He implicitly assumes that all functions of the
organism work to its advantage. It is this assumption
which enables him to say that anti-social aggression is
an example of wrong-headed social structuring or social
mores, because human aggression has a self-regulating
function.

The function of emotions are particularly misunder-
stood according to Goodman. He claims it is ". . .
biologically absurd on Darwinian grounds" to argue that
emotions have no knowledge value. He says, "Experiencing
the organism/environment field under the aspect of value
is what constitutes emotion."l42 An emotion is not merely
a state of the organism, but rather it constitutes a
relationship between the organism and its environment.
Emotion, too, is a "continuous process" since every
moment of life is to some degree pleasant or unpleasant.
The emotions are not mediated by thought and deliberate
concentration but are immediate. They provide a basis

for what in the organism/environment field is important,

 

ullbid., p. 359.

l*2Ibid., p. 95.

92

and it energizes the satisfying action or, at least,
initiates the search for the satisfying response.

Emotions per se are not vague and diffuse, but

are just as sharply differentiated in structure

and function as is thegperson who experiences them.
If a person experiences his emotions as confused
and crude, then these terms apply also to Blfl'

From this it follows that emotions in themselves
are not something to be rid of on such trumped-up
charges as being impediments to clear thought

and action. On the contrary, they are not only
essential as energy-regulators in the organism/
environment field, but they are also unique
deliveries of experience which have no substitute—-
they are the way we become aware of our concerns,
and therefore, of what we are and what the world
is.

A proper understanding of emotion locates emotional
responses precisely in places thought to be devoid of
feeling. Frigidity and boredom, for instance, are very
strong feelings. Even numbness is a strong feeling, so
strong that it is excluded from awareness. Only by the
recognition of these emotions can a biological organism
know what threats or opportunities are presented to it
by the environment. Goodman acknowledges the wisdom in
the James—Lange theory that one runs away not because he

is afraid, but he is afraid because he is running away.

 

u31bid., p. 96.

uuGoodman argues, however, that the theory is only
half right. He says that "bodily actions or condition
are also a relevant orientation to, and a potential
manipulation of, the environment; for example it is not
just running, but running away, running away from some-
thing, running away from something dangerous, that
constitutes the situation of fear." Ibid., p. 98.

 

 

 

 

93

It is only by acknowledging a loss and a sense of
grief that one can weep, or by recognizing your anger at
frustration that one can mobilize his energies in order
to overcome the barriers to one's appetite. Thus,
emotions, like pleasure, serve as a primary indicator of
growth-fostering ethical behavior. While Goodman claims
there is no single criterion for ethical behavior, he does
find emotional response of primary importance.

Whether or not we can logically ground ethical
sentences depends on how complexly and humanly

we take our primitive propositions, how much of
the speaker and his behavior we want to include

in their meaning. Further, it is certainly

false that feelings and emotions have no cogni-
tive value; they are structures of the relation
of organism and environment, and they give
motivating information (how else would an animal
survive?). And even more, by the working up of
feelings and emotions into articulate literary
speech-—which is a storehouse of perceptions and
memories, nicely discriminating and structured
from beginning to end,vand, not least, embodying
the social wisdom of the vernacular—-we are given
ethical premises grounded in the nature of things.
Indeed, if we consider the human sciences, we may
say that the concrete "complex words" of stories,
plays, and eloquence are more adequate observations
and hypotheses of reality than any formulae and
samplings of psychologists and sociologists; but
besides, they are exemplary and moving. In brief,
students of poetry, history, philosophy, and
natural philosophy, do not in fact find the gap

so unbridgeable between "what is the case?" and
"what ought we to do?"A5

Goodman's emphasis upon the organism as a collection
of self-regulating functions does not end with the

biological. He also extends his functionalism into the

 

uSGoodman, Utopian Essays, pp. 252—253.

 

9A

social and cultural fields. That is, considering growth
as the normal function of an organism he urges that
social institutions be structured upon a functional
basis.

The functions of civilization include production,

trade and travel, the bringing up of the young in

the mores; also subtle but essential polarities

like experimentation and stability; also irra-

tional and superstitious fantasies like exacting

revenge for crime and protecting the taboos.

Different interests in the whole will continually

conflict, as individuals or as interest groups,

yet, since all require the commonwealth there is

also a strong functional interest in adjudication

and peace, in harmonizing social invention or at

least compromise.A

It is this requirement that we always turn to

function as a guiding light, that undergirds Goodman's
proposals. His mild acceptance, given mid-twentieth
century choices, of socialism, is grounded in the philo—
sophical functionalism of socialistic production, but
his fear of socialism is based on the inflexibility of
large organizations and on their tendencies to put their
own growth and security in front of social functions.247
His anarchist/pacifist position, too, is grounded in part
on the basis that only small, controlled-by-those-involved
type communities or groups can continually operate

according to life functions. He defines normal politics

as ". . . the constitutional relations of functional

 

A6

“7This is one of the main themes in John Kenneth
Galbraith's The New Industrial State.

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 181.

 

 

95

interests and interest groups in the community in which
they transact.”8 He finds the imposition of national
states, political parties, electioneering, and bureau-
cratic rule as anathema to growth producing functions like
aggression, initiation, spontaneity, assimilation, and
excitement. His detestation of the educational administra-
tion hierarchy springs from what he believes to be its
dysfunctionalism. Goodman views small group dialogue as
the prOper model for education, with a totally flexible
physical structure which allows the learner to relocate
to wherever fosters the best education at the moment.
He sees the bureaucratization of education as systemati-
cally oriented to rigidity, the curtailment of spontaneity,
and the replacement of an educational function with a
political one. Thus, ". . . the teachers are relegated
to being forever academics, but it is their embarrassment,
timidity, and lack of function in the world what make
them so."u9
It is Goodman's adherence to functionalism which
causes him to be critical of academic sociologists. He
finds them quite reluctant to mention function, satisfac-
tion, process, product, or utility. Rather, they concen-

trate on roles and there ". . . is no factual criterion

 

“8Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 12.

 

ugGoodman, Drawing the Line, p. 12.

 

96

outside the system of roles to justify liquidating some

of the roles."50

When the normal functions of the organism-—
biological or social—~are thwarted there is a reaction-
formation. And the reaction-formation is an inhibition
or curtailment of normal growth. If the means are
available to remove the barrier there may be rebellion.
Thus, history presents numerous examples of rebellion
over issues of starvation, free speech, free thought,
taxation without representation, and subsistence wages.-
But, when a life-style becomes so specialized and techni-
cal that people no longer know what they are about, they
cease to oppose the oppressors and begin to identify

with them.51 He writes, "The more powerless people are,

5OIbid.

51Eric Fromm, in The Sane Society, stresses this
theme of alienated persons identifying with powerful
forces that may have caused their alienation. In a chapter
titled, "Man in Capitalistic Society" he writes: "Every
act of submissive worship is an act of alienation and
idolatry in this sense. What is frequently called "love"
is often nothing but this idolatrous phenomenon of
alienation; only that not God or an idol, but another
person is worshipped in this way. The "loving" person
in this type of submissive relationship, projects all
his or her love, strength, thought, into the other person,
and experiences the loved person as a superior being,
finding satisfaction in complete submission and worship.
This does not only mean that he fails to experience the
loved person as a human being in his or her reality, but
that he does not experience himself in his full reality,
as the bearer of productive human powers. Just as in
the case of religious idolatry, he has projected all his
richness into the other person, and experiences this
richness not any more as something which is his, but as

 

97

the more they put their faith in princes; and the more

they put their faith in princes, the more powerless they

are."52

 

something alien from himself, deposited in somebody else,
with which he can get in touch only by submission to, or
submergence in the other person. The same phenomenon
exists in the worshipping submission to a political
leader, or to the state. The leader and the state
actually are what they are by the consent of the governed.
But they become idols when the individual projects all
his powers into them and worships them, hOping to regain
some of his powers by submission and worship. Fromm,
The Sane Society, p. 113.

52

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 91.

CHAPTER IV

MAN AS A SPONTANEOUS BEING

We speak of 'paying attention', but in fact we

can become absorbed in only what meets our under-
lying needs. We speak of 'excluding our surround-
ings', but this is possible only within the

limits of not arousing anxiety. An artist makes
what solves his inner conflict; he cannot inte-
grate what fails to solve it.1

The idea of spontaneity is like a ubiquitous spirit
throughout the works of Goodman. It is one of the corner
stones for each of his recommendations and proposals. In
order to emphasize this point I quote a passage from
Franz Kafka which Goodman applauds with much gusto.

Human nature, essentially unchangeable, unstable
as the dust, can endure no constraint; if it binds
itself it soon begins to tear madly at its bonds,
until it rends everything asunder, the wall, the
bonds, and its very self.2

The organism grows by assimilating contacted ele—
ments in the environment. The degree of growth, however,
is a function of the quality of the contact. The richest
contact—-where the object brightens and becomes more

unified, but also more detailed as figure and the back-

ground darken--is a result of spontaneous attention.

 

lPaul Goodman, Structure of Literature, Phoenix

Books (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 195A), p. 6.

 

2Goodman, Kafka's Prayer, p. 238.
98

 

99

As the organism is self—regulating the implicit assump-
tion is that the spontaneous attention ". . . becomes
more and more the carrier of functions and importances
that are matters of excited concern to the organism."3

Spontaneity may best be understood by contrasting
it to deliberateness. In deliberate concentration one
attends to what he feels he should, or ought to, or to
what he believes is expected of him, or, in gestalt
terms, the deliberate effort to control is the ground.
The figure clamors for attention, but a new situation
arises to which one feels he ought to attend. In meeting
this new situation, the old spontaneous unfinished situa—
tion must be suppressed. But it exists as part of the
ground and not figure. The total energy of the organism
undergoes a three-way division: "part goes to the task,
part goes to energizing the resister, and part goes into
fighting the resister."u

In Five Years Goodman distinguishes between deliber-

 

ate and spontaneous behavior.

Phases: (1) Threshold of perception or fantasy,

(2) passage into muscular action. Both these
require a prior accumulation of latent energy.

The passage into muscular action is known as 'will.‘
There is an interval during which the 'idea' does
not change, but much energy must be added to it

till the result of overt behavior. In this con—
text, however, we must also contrast deliberate—
ness and spontaneity. In deliberateness much

A

3Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy, p. 63.

 

”Ibid., p. 55.

100

energy is extrinsically employed in inhibiting

other activity, in ayin attention rather than

being 'distracted' (attracted elsewhere). In

spontaneity, it is as if we were already well

toward the phasic change of state, so to speak,

'over the hump'--and so in spontaneous action

there is little 'idea'; the idea does not con-

tinue to be energized, and the energy of the

idea itself merges into the overt act. E.g.,

orgasm is murky.5

Spontaneous interest is the forming of a figure/
ground without deliberate concentration. In Gestalt
Therapy we are told to "close your eyes and daydream.
This will frequently provide a clear notion of what you
want to do."6 The spontaneous excitements are one's
nature, "the very core of your vitality." Ghandi, for
instance, says Goodman did not fast as a calculated
threat, but rather because under the conditions with
which he was confronted food was spontaneously nauseating
to him. It was a physiological judgment and thereby
an identifiable characteristic of the nature of the man.
The most easily identified spontaneous behaviors

are those involving muscular action: the thrust of the
pelvis before orgasm, the swallowing of well-chewed food,
and most actions of children as they attend to what they
find exciting and interesting. But, it is central to

Goodman's thesis that spontaneous behavior has meaningful

characteristics that indicate growth even though the

 

5Goodman, Five Years, p. 17.

 

6Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy:
p. 100.

 

101

overt response is less identifiable than reaching out
or swallowing. Spontaneous behavior may have subtle
characteristics, whereas deliberate behavior may be

gross and obvious. In Compulsory Mis-education Goodman

 

argues that operant conditioning, deliberate behavior,
is vastly overrated even though its results are clearly
observable. He finds it rather uninteresting to be
informed that an animal's behavior can be radically
shaped if we deprive it of its natural environment and
restrict it to minimal spontaneous motion. Further, he
argues that behavior learned via operant conditioning
is of a different kind than spontaneous learning.

It has been a persistent error of behaviorist
psychologies to overlook that there are overt
criteria that are organically part of meaningful
acts of an organism in its environment; we can
Observe grace, ease, force, style, sudden
simplification--and some such characteristics
are at least roughly measurable. It is not
necessary, in describing insight, knowledge,
the kind of assimilated learning that Aristotle
called 'second nature,’ to have recourse to
mental entities. It is not difficult to £22
when a child knows how to ride a bicycle; and
he never forgets it, which would not be the
case if the learning were by conditioning with
reinforcement, because that can easily be wiped
away by a negative reinforcement.7

 

Goodman is quite reticent to precisely spell out
the characteristics of healthy spontaneous behavior.
Perhaps the closest he comes to pinning down what he

means by spontaneous human behavior characteristics is

 

7

Goodman, Compulsory Mis—education, p. 89.

102

with his frequent usage of the terms "force, vigor,
grace, intellect, and feeling." In the quotation cited
above he identifies "grace, ease, force, style, sudden

simplification." In Growing Up-Absurd he says that

 

human nature ". . . is what, when appealed to in the
right circumstances, gives behavior that has force,
grace, discrimination, intellect, feeling."8 In an

article written for Commentary in 1961 he justifies

 

freedom on the basis that the best human actions require
initiative and "only free action has grace and vigor."
In 1962 he gave a talk to a sociology seminar at
Carleton College. During the time allotted for questions
he was asked why he stressed "interest" so much in regard
to city planning. His response, in part, was,

So insofar as we're interested in the perfection

of everybody's life we must try as much as we can

to have a basis of spontaneous interest for

anything that is done. The reason is that it

will be done better, more accurately, with more

grace, more intelligence, and more force.9

These terms are, as Goodman concedes, only roughly

measurable, but they are typical of his writing. I
suspect that he believes that words like force, vigor,
intellect, grace and feeling have common meanings and
are observable to the intelligent and alert person. He

has little sympathy with attempts to quantify all human

behavior.

 

8Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, p. 6.
9

 

Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 1A3.

 

103

Just as there are characteristics of spontaneous
behavior there are contrary characteristics of repressed
spontaneity and deliberate concentration. During deliber—
ation, since the dominant need--spontaneous need--cannot
reach the foreground, it creates a disturbance in the
background, and the threefold division of the self occurs.
Consequently, one cannot draw on full energy and to that
extent the figure becomes less clear and less detailed.
And when attention is paid to something lacking spontaneous
interest the result is boredom. Flights from boredom
include daydreaming, staring, fantasy, stubbornness and
sleep, or frequently, insomnia. Chronic boredom is a
major contributor to what we call stupidity, because,
Goodman asserts, we cannot learn or be intelligent about
what we do not find interesting. (This is not to say that
what we initially contact via deliberate concentration
cannot become spontaneously interesting.)

In Growing Up Absurd he writes: "Considering our

 

wonderful faculties and powers, people on the average
have never accomplished much."10 He goes on to attribute
much of the waste of human talents to repressed spon-
taneity. Since certain aims are forbidden and punishable,

or unattainable under societal conditions, we inhibit

them or suppress them altogether. Soon we come to reject

 

loGoodman, GrowingAUp Absurd, p. 71.

 

10A

not only the overt behavior but the aims as well. We
become apathetic, and seemingly stupid.

Cumulatively our society has become bored, anxious
and unhappy. The fact is that we have far fewer satis-
factions than we could have. Unhappiness is so prevalent,
in the first place, because the person who gives way to
his spontaneous interest may not achieve final contact.
It is definitely Goodman's View that our social structure
is not designed with the satisfaction of spontaneous
interest in mind. In fact, spontaneous recreation, sex,
work, or intimacy are rarities. Thus, one who gives way
to his spontaneous self will encounter disruption,
frustration, and rage. The result is misery, not happi—
ness. On the other hand, one can resist his spontaneous
interests, which leads to neurosis, ". . . neurosis is
the avoidance of spontaneous excitement and limitations
of the excitements."ll Goodman holds that many of the
well-established values of modern man are symptoms of
neuroses; particularly compulsiveness, ". . . the out-
standing neurotic symptom Of our time," habitual
deliberateness, factuality, non-commitment, and excessive
responsibility.

Goodman further claims that we will be an unhappy

people-—unless we end it all in massive war--until we

llPerls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. A32.

 

105

allow our spontaneous interests to naturally arise, and
until we are willing to construct society so that they
can be attended to. It is on this basis, he says, that
many psychoanalysts who deal with nervous break-downs
urge patients to quit their job and seek their avocation.
He claims he quit practicing psychotherapy in part
because there are simply no jobs available suitable to
the spontaneous interests of human beings, and this,

more than anything else, is what was needed. Jobs, of
course, are designed with just the opposite in mind--

to make human labor into interchangeable parts. Thus

the instinctive and spontaneous pleasures of work have
been systematically removed. Goodman, a student of Marx,

airs his views on the instinct of workmanship in Communitas.

 

Men like to make things, to handle the materials
and see them take shape and come out as desired,
and they are proud of the products. And men like
to work and be useful, for work has a rhythm and
springs from spontaneous feelings just like play,
and to be useful makes people feel right. Pro-
ductive work is a kind of creation, it is an
extension of human personality into nature. But
it is also true that the private or state capital-
ist relations of production, and machine industry
as it now exists under whatever system, have so
far destroyed the instinctive pleasures of work
that economic work is what all ordinary men dislike.
. . . Mass production, analyzing the acts of

labor into small steps and distributing the
products far from home, destroys the sense of
creating anything. Rhythm, neatness, style belong
to the machine rather than to the man.12

 

l2Paul Goodman and Percival Goodman, Communitas

(New York: Random House, 19A7), p. 153.

 

106

Goodman's high regard for the abilities springing
from spontaneous interest are consistent with his thinking
on decentralization and anarchism. He wants sufficient
flexibility and lack of structure so that those involved
can act according to their individual natures, which are
characterized, of course, by grace, vigor, intellect,
force, and feeling.13

This problem of the incompatibility between human
instinct and spontaneity on the one hand and the desire
for maximizing production and material prosperity on the
other was Freud's concern in Civilization and Its Dis-
contents. Goodman acknowledges the argument, but claims
that Freud was overly pessimistic about productivity
potential under social and economic conditions allowing

for, or even fostering, spontaneity and self-regulation.lu

 

13However, as demonstrated in Chapter II, Goodman's
faith in anarchism and spontaneous community spirit does
not lead him to support planlessness. In The Empire City
he writes, "The lack of a plan is not no plan but only a
bad plan" (p. 267).

And in an article for the New Republic he wrote,
"A master plan is a directive for the progressive develop-
ment of a region toward its ideal form" (Percival and
Paul Goodman, "Master Plan for New York," New Republic,
November 20, 19AA, p. 656).

1“Although I can locate no reference by Goodman to
Herbert Marcuse, I believe he would be sympathetic to
Marcuse's conception of "surplus repression" as elaborated
in Eros and Civilization. Marcuse's book is essentially
a challenge to the pessimism of Freud's Civilization and
Its Discontents. Freud contended that no matter how
rich, civilization depends on steady and methodical work,
and thus on unpleasing delay in satisfaction. And as
primary instincts rebel against delays, they have to be

 

 

 

 

 

107

It is difficult to overestimate the centrality of
spontaneity in Goodman's concept of human nature. It is,
in fact, the essence of the self, the ego, and of one's
individual nature. It is at the heart of Goodman's
concept of psychological health.

The description of psychological health and dis—
ease is a simple one. It is a matter of the
identification and alienations of the self. If

a man identifies with the forming self, does not
inhibit his own creative excitement and reaching
toward the coming solution; and conversely, if

he alienates what is not organically his own and
therefore cannot be vitally interesting, but rather
disrupts the figure/background, then he is psycho-
logically healthy, for he is exercising his best
power and will do the best he can in the difficult
circumstances of the world. But on the contrary,
if he alienates himself and because of false
identifications tries to conquer his own spon-
taneity, then he creates his life dull, confused
and painful. The system of identifications and
alienation we shall call the 'ego.'

 

continually repressed. Marcuse challenges some of Freud's
basic assumptions, particularly those involving the need
for instinctual repression in the interest of productivity.
Marcuse's hypothesis flows from this analysis.

"In order to meet this argument, we would have to
show that Freud's correlation 'instinctual repression—-
socially useful labor--civilization' can be meaningfully
transformed into the correlation 'instinctual liberation—-
socially useful work——civilization.' We have suggested
that the prevalent instinctual repression resulted, not
so much from the necessity of labor, but from the specific
social organization of labor imposed by the interest in
domination--that repression was largely surplus-
repression. Consequently, the elimination of surplus-
repression would per se tend to eliminate, not labor,
but the organization of the human existence into an
instrument of labor. If this is true, the emergence of
a nonrepression reality principle would alter rather
than destroy the social organization of labor: the
liberation of Eros could create new and durable work
relations." Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization,
Vintage Books (New York: Random House, 1955), p. 1A0.

108

From this point of view, our method of therapy
is as follows: to train the ego, the various
identifications and alienations, by experiments
of deliberate awareness Of one's various func-
tions, until the sense is spontaneously revived
that it is I who am perceiving, feeling, and
doing this at this point he takes over on his
own. 5

Spontaneity and Ethics

 

Man does not strive to be good, the good is what
it is human to strive for.16

Clearly Goodman's conception of the self-regulating
organism, particularly his propensity to give free reign
to spontaneity, raises questions about man's relationship
to man. Yet, Goodman would argue that inherent in his
self-regulating theory is an ethical postulate. Goodman
wants to argue that naturalism leads "us to an honest
ethics, intrinsic in animal and social conditions."17
Ethics in any conventional or academic sense simply
disappears in a natural setting because man, as a self-

regulating organism, i3 able to conserve the whole.

Ethical problems occur when the environment stiflgs

 

self—regulation, inasmuch as the natural environment is_

 

 

 

conducive to self-regulapipp, The ethical problem is

‘F——

then one of institutions, norms, laws, or customs.

 

 

15Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 235.

l6Ibid., p. 335.

17

Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education, p. 11A.

 

109

In natural ethics there is no such principle
as the choice of the lesser of two evils. Such
a principle is self-contradictory, for any free
action or abstention must draw on natural power
and cannot depend on a negation. When a social
issue has come to pass of a choice between evils
(as, conscripting an army to resist a tyrant),
then we know that the citizens have long neglected
their welfare; the free actions that we can then
invent are all attended with great suffering.
They must involve withdrawing utterly from the
area of guilt, a painful sacrifice--and more and
more painful till all the consequences work
themselves out. The lesser evil is a sign that
an interest has been allowed to develop in
isolation until it now threatens even our lives.
It is the isolation of the issue from its causes
that restricts the choice to the lesser evil.
Those who break the spell and again draw on all
their forces will find other choices.18

 

 

 

 

Goodman argues that the natural hierarchy of
values is "capital for ethics and politics." And that
this ordered hierarchy "is really nothing less than an

19 That is, recalling

inductive theory of human nature."

Goodman's belief of the inherited wisdom of the body,

the organism avoids sudden death before quenching thirst,

and it quickly attends to the speck in the eye. Goodman

suggests the affirmative principle: "the basic law of

life is self-preservation and growth."20
When this hierarchy is coupled with Goodman's

humanistic philos0phy it provides the basis for his con-

cept of the whole. Goodman, who argues that the greater

 

 

 

18Goodman, Drawing the Line, p. A2.

19Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 279.

20

Ibid.

 

110

part of human nature is a social nature, emphatically
urges us toward a brotherhood of man. The purpose of
education, he says, is to get each man "into the one
humanity." Subsequently, a naturalistic ethic is one
that attends to the lowest values on the hierarchy for
a1; men before committing human powers and material
resources to the higher values. It is this principle
that ought to guide the actions of men. And Goodman
claims, ". . . I ppypp do what I 'prefer,' but always
what, according to my lights, best conserves the whole."21
But, Goodman argues that not only pg works to conserve
the whole, but that it is a natural behavior of man.
However, as Goodman insists that education is a natural
community function, his conception of a naturalistic
ethics assumes, concomitantly, a natural education.
Therefore, he is able to say what his critics believe to
be naive. When speaking about managers Goodman says:

This is quite contrary to the anarchist idea

of a collective, where each man plans for the

whole, understands what he is about and makes

a rational choice, and exercises himself men-

tally andzphysically without a basic division

of labor.

The same ethical principle is embodied in Goodman's

assertions that ". . . it is impossible for anyone to be

 

21Goodman, Five Years, p. 2A9.

 

22Goodman, Kafka's Prayer, p. 119.

 

111

extremely happy until we are happy more generally,"23

and, "There is no happiness without virtue."2l4
Goodman, with Dewey, believes that happiness is not
something we consciously strive for, but, rather it is a

result of growth. Apd growth is the outcome of worth-

WM
~~..~.
M
""- F-mo—lmmg.

 

__,,,,.
while activities. ("A sage, on the other hand, is a man

\_

 

who has come to want what he can do, and so he causes

")25

life to spring around him. So, while Goodman says,

"By bad they mean, I trust, simply that it does not work
for happiness but creates unhappiness,"26 he is offering
less substance than when he says that moral questions
turn on "whether it leads to growth." That is, "happi-
ness, satisfaction, is the necessary ground for the full
exercise of power."27
Therefore, Goodman does not find relevance in the
commonly asked questions about whether man is basically
"good" or basically "bad." Man is. He finds happiness

by actualizing his powers. His powers, by nature, are

subordinate to a hierarchy of needs. Thus, we have an

 

23Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 251.

2“Goodman, Five Years, p. 27.

 

 

251bid., p. 89.

26Goodman, Empire City, p. 385.

 

27Goodman, Five Years, p. 10.

 

112

"immediate ethics, not infallible and yet in a privileged

"28

position. The privilege comes from this:

. . . that what seems spontaneously important
does in fact marshal the most energy of
behavior; self—regulating action is brighter,
stronger, and shrewder. Any other line of
action that is presumed to be 'better' must
proceed with diminished power, less motivation,
and more confused awareness; and must also
involve devoting a certain amount of energy,
and distracting a certain amount of attention,
to keeping down the spontaneous self, which is
seeking expression in self-regulation.29

How then does one account for evil or corruption?
Goodman offers two answers: {it springs from ignorance or
frustrationZ] Delinquency, for instance, is "to a large
extent a matter of inaccurate orientation, a misunder—

"30 Goodman,

standing of the person's role in society.
like Socrates, finds evil as error. Also, it comes from
dammed up potential or frustration. "PeOple don't want

1."31 And when

power, but activity, to realize potentia
realizing potentials people are responsible.

I Subsequently, Goodman believes that the evil is
drastically reduced by conserving the whole--i.e. subject—

ing all decisions to the growth needs of humanity, for

"activity cannot make social sense without mind and concern

 

28
p- 275.

29Ibid.

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

30Ibid., p. 220.

31Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 138.

113

at every step."32 Therefore, when confronting the nega-

tive activity of youth Goodman invokes his prerequisites
for growth—-education and worthwhile activities.
The cure for their violent sexuality is to
allow them guiltless sex. The cure for their
defiance is to teach them their real enemies to

fight. The cure for their foolish activism is

to provide them a world that has worthwhile
tasks.33

His ethical posture helps to illuminate why Goodman
so fears institutions--they are unethical, they do not
attend to the whole. And in this neglect they constitute
what Goodman believes is the gravest threat to mankind.
A_Spvereign State, for example, does not concern itself

with the need ts essed enemies; a profit seeking

corporation is heedless to individual nature, workmanship
W.

 

 

 

instincts, and other employee growth needs; political

 

bodies enact_§exual restrictions oblivious to natural

v—f

homosexuality; factories pollute the air and the water-

W

ways; religious doctrine counsels us to have faith,

‘_—

 

 

 

 

frequently to the exclusion of reason; school§_are

 

F7
organized by subjecting an animated, passionate, excited,
f

active youth to the requirements of quietness, orderli-

g

 

—
_‘

 

‘

ness, and control; and social norms and traditions are

——

established explicitly to curtail what to some are natuEal

'—

 

 

 

ro ensities and rowth needs. Goodman smiles:
P p g ‘._”,,.

 

32

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 85.

33Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 163.

11A

The gentlemen who sleep drunk on the sidewalks
and in doorways are usually past middle-age,
as though it took a lot of living to get rid
Of the conventions inhibiting normal lust for
ease.3A

Only man thinks and feels. Only free man, uncoerced
by institutions and other man-made restraints, is flexible,
creative, able to conserve the whole. Inflexibility and
mindlessness is inadequate for an organism perpetually
in the process of social evolution.

Goodman, in pp way, wants to argue that his theory
of naturalistic ethics will eliminate all evil. Rather,
he argues it is the best system we have, and will provide
for considerably more happiness than any alternative

presently known.35

 

3A

35A significant contrast to Goodman's anarchist
model for preserving the whole is offered by Elijah
Jordan in The Good Life. Jordan and Goodman are in
substantial agreement on the contents of the good life
. . . i.e. in regard to aesthetics, religion, community,
craftsmanship . . . , but especially in their insistence
that ethical behavior must always be grounded in the
growth of man. Jordan argues that institutions, to act
ethically, must function in a manner both compatible to
and in support of the functions of all other institu-
tions. But, whereas Goodman stresses decentralized,
small, independent, cooperative units, Jordan Opts for
large, socialistic, and state-owned institutions. Much
of the strife in the United States during the late
1960's has revolved around the advantages and disad—
vantages Of these two structural formulations.

Goodman, Five Years, p. 3.

 

 

CHAPTER V

MAN AS AN ORGANISM THAT BOTH

ASSIMILATES AND INTROJECTS

In imposing its culture, our society was the
most disastrous in history, not by evil intention
but simply quantitatively. The culture, like any
culture, imposed itself on every function and
through the most multifarious channels; but what
was imposed was so extremely complicated and
technical that it was quite unassimilable by an
animal whose powers had developed during a
million years of very different circumstances.

No wonder the culture imposed itself in stereo—
typed patterns (authors spoke of "patterns of
culture"); and the live animal froze and had to
adapt itself by blind trial and error, like any
creature in a maze.1

The organism persists in its environment by maintain-
ing its difference, and, specifically, by taking on part
of the environment so that it becomes at one with the
organism. What is selected by the organism must be
unlike the organism at first contact, and for growth to
occur it must become like the organism. Thus, growth
occurs only by assimilating the novel. All contact then
must be creative and dynamic. It cannot be routine or
stereotyped because it must continually cope with the

novel, for "only the novel is nourishing." In order to

 

lGoodman, Empire City, p. A10.

 

115

116

nourish, the contact cannot simply accept or adjust to
the novelty, because the novelty must be taken into the
organism so as to be at one with it. Therefore, the
novel must be de-structured in some manner and taken on
by the organism so that the transition leads to growth.
Goodman writes that "psychology is the study of creative
adjustment. Its theme is the ever—renewed transition
between novelty and routine, resulting in assimilation
and growth."2

Certainly the clearest example of assimilation—-
"literally, made similar to"-—is the eating of food.
Properly digested food becomes stored energy in the
tissues and organs of the body. It has become "naturalized"
and it and the organism are one.

We may recall the discussion, in Chapter III, of
the role of aggression in assimilation and growth. New
matter must be destroyed or destructured into its
assimilable elements. Food which is improperly chewed
or swallowed whole becomes foreign to the organism and
must be vomited up or passes through the organism without
becoming at one with it.

Goodman has no hesitancy in applying this seemingly

physiological phenomenon to mental processes. He believes

 

2Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 230.

 

117

that the acquisition of habits, attitudes, ideals, or
knowledge is quite analogous to the process of taking
food.

When it is not physical food but concepts,
"facts," or standards of behavior, the situation
is the same. A theory which you have mastered--
digested in detail so that you have made it
yours--can be used flexibly and efficiently
because it has become "second nature" to you.

But some "lesson" which you have swallowed whole
without comprehension--for example "on authority"
-—and which you now use "as if" it were your own,
is an introject. Though you have suppressed your
initial bewilderment over what was forced into
you, you cannot really use such foreign knowl-
edge and, to the extent that you have cluttered
your personality with gulped-down morsels of this
and that, you have impaired your ability to

think and act on your own.3

Thus, a proposition, theory, lecture, or idea being
taught or expressed needs to be destructured by the learn-
ing organism into easily identifiable elements. Each
element then needs to be examined, tested, and compared to
what the organism already feels or believes to be true.“
Only that which is consistent with the nature of the
organism can be readily assimilated without inner

conflict. In Compulsory Mis—education Goodman writes

 

that certain subjects--"sociology, anthropology, world
literature"--cannot be taught to boys and girls because
they have had no experience with which to assimilate the

new. Under those circumstances learning is verbal wisdom

 

3Ibid., p. 189.

“One is reminded of William James saying in Talks
to Teachers that education is the process of weaving
something new to something old.

 

118

and may easily result in a withdrawal from the real world
and into an academic world of no or poor contact. It is
for this same reason that he is critical of the "great
books" theories of Robert Hutchins and why he proposes
that certain colleges require entering freshman to have
had two years of experience after high school before
being admitted. The experience could be working for a
living; community service, such as volunteer service in

a hospital or a domestic Peace Corp; or independent
enterprise in art, business or science. He Offers two
purposes for the experiment. First, it breaks up the
twelve consecutive years of assigned lessons and allows
the student to discover some intrinsic motivation.
Secondly, it might provide some life experience so that
the social sciences and humanities have some meaning.
Here, as in all of his proposals, he prepares the way for
assimilation--spontaneous interests and real life experi-
ence. In short, to assimilate knowledge one must de-
structure it, and take it in one element at a time.
However, each element must be understood and evaluated
according to the experiences and judgments of the
organism. But the novel is, of course, delimited in

how far it can be destructured into assimilable elements.
If the organism cannot, because of a lack of experience,
knowledge, or judgment, assimilate the destructured

elements it cannot then become one with the new knowledge.

119

Goodman reminds Hutchins and Mark Van Doren that Plato
put off until age 35 the teaching of philosophy.
Goodman's notion of community is, in part, grounded
in his assimilation concept. He argues that close
friendship requires aggression, initiation, and destruc-
turing; that a person must be explored closely like a
painting, "so that his parts become reconstituted in
relation to one's own background needs, and these, pre-
cisely in contact with the other person, now become fore-

"5 Close contact requires destroying

ground and figure.
the barriers to communication and understanding.
Recalling Goodman's unitary concept and his belief
that a large part of human nature is social nature we
can conclude that education is the process whereby human
nature assimilates a culture, and therein completes its

nature. And if we understand what Goodman means by

assimilation, we realize education is not lectures,

   

assignments, and examinations, but it is experiencing the
wprld in which he lives and actively seekimg_1g_alfigz_ L»_1

that world so he can experience it even more fully.

'f

Intrqjection

 

Forced feeding, forced education, forced
morality, forced identifications with parents
and sibling, result in literally thousands of
unassimilated odds and ends lodged in the
psychosomatic organism as introjects. They

 

5
p. 68.

Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,

120

are both undigested and, as they stand,
indigestible. And men and women, long accustomed
to being resigned to "the way things are," con—
tinue to hold their noses, desensitize their
palates, and swallow down still more.

An introject is material, feelings, ideals, beliefs,
ways of acting, etc. which one has taken into his system
of behavior, but which has not been assimilated and made
at one with the organism. Again Goodman draws the analogy
between physiological processes and mental processes. He
cites as a case of perfect introjection a patient who has
an eidetic memory and can remember with photographic
exactness whole pages of information, yet in no way under-
stands the content.

If one governs his behavior according to an imposed
set of rules which he never questions or considers their
reasons for being in light of other things he holds to be
true, he has introjected this outside authority. He has
taken it in without destructuring it, assimilating it.
Thus, each introject is an item of "unfinished business."
Every introject is the acceptance of a conflict given up
before it was resolved. The self gives up and identifies
with the conqueror. There are multiple partial—
identifications; these destroy self-confidence and the

organism becomes even less aggressive and more willing

to introject norms, standards, ideals, and beliefs.

’4

6Ibid., p. 202.

121

Then for instance, introjected social norms may be
slavishly followed, indignantly vocalized to friends,
and one may be willing to fight to the death for an
ideal or slogan.

In Compulsory Mis-education Goodman writes that the

 

high school teenager is defeated in his search for
meaningful-growth providing satisfactions, ideals, and
functions. Thus, he identifies with mass society and
rationalizes a desire for a $50,000 a year job, or to get
married and raise a family. In short, he foregoes the
search for his own nature and natural avocation, and
introjects societal norms.

Significantly Goodman is critical of the alternative
taken by hipsters and beatniks. While he applauds their
rejection of the dysfunctional values of modern society,
he is less sanguine about their potential for growth in
the beat culture. The beat exhausts himself in staying
ahead of the game and in castigating what he holds in
contempt. But "playing it cool" and "dropping out,"
says Goodman, provide little Oppprtunity for meaningful

aggression, love, and assimilation.( Rather than‘drppping,

 

out Goodman chooses to reconstruct his societygr His
9',_____1

lectures, his art, his non-fiction are dedicated to that
cause. This message comes across with exquisite clarity

in The Society I Live In Is Mine.

 

122

Fixation is another characteristic of the intro—
jected syndrome. Fixations are the tendencies to cling
to customs, memories, morals, friends, etc. that are no
longer functional. Even though the organism involved is
no longer nourished by the behavior, one is unable to
aggressively "bite through" and sever the connections.
He cannot finish what is unfinished and seek novelty
elsewhere. This comes about because if one did not under-
stand--assimilate--the conditions under which he accepted
a belief he is unable to acknowledge when those conditions
are no longer valid or functional. For instance, if one
has been told and accepts that nationalism is good in
itself, it becomes extremely difficult to move oneself
to a position more compatible with one world or inter-
nationalism, simply because the beliefs one holds are
not subject to worldly conditions or rational thought.
That is, if one did not assimilate the various components
of a nationalistic philosophy or belief, he is unable to
eliminate dysfunctional parts and renew them with
functional ones. He must completely accept the introject

or spew it forth.7

 

7Milton Rokeach, in The Open and Closed Mind,
suggests that closed-minded persons can replace a belief
easier if the replacement belief is presented all at
once. I believe this is the same position as that held
by Goodman. Rokeach concludes his chapter "On Party—
Line Thinking" with: "From these results we tentatively
conclude that closed persons work more efficiently with
'silver-platter handouts' because the new beliefs need
not be reconciled with Old beliefs, thereby removing a

 

123

Clearly a dangerous adjunct to introjection is the
resultant inhibition of aggression. Introjection needs
no aggression and initiation. If biological activities
are not utilized in growth functions it creates a store
of surplus energy. The surplus energy finds discharge
in displaced aggressions. Goodman emphatically wants to
argue that assimilation is a proper function of the
organism and that introjection is the avoidance of that
function. But, one cannot allow functions to lie fallow
without the organism seeking a secondary outlet. And
with introjections the secondary outlets tend to reduce
human satisfactions, and are in themselves a source of
much human misery.

The outgoing satisfaction of introjection is
masochism--nausea inhibited, jaws forced open in
a smile, pelvis retracted, breath drawn in.
Masochistic behavior is the possibility of
creatively adjusting the environment in a frame-
work of inflicting pain on oneself with the
approval of one's false identifications.
Intensifying the identification and turning

further against the self he indulges in sadistic
biting, complaining, etc.8

 

major obstacle to synthesis leading to the formation of
new systems. Open persons, however, resist having new
beliefs 'rammed down their throats' without first working
them through COgnitively for themselves. This may
account for the fact that open persons take longer than
necessary over the problems in the Silver-Platter Condi-
tion. In the end this pays off, because it leads to
creative problem-solving which in no case, under any
experimental conditions, is inferior to the problem-
solving behavior of persons with closed belief systems.
Milton Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York:
Basic Books, Inc., 19607, p. 2A2.

8Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. A53.

 

 

12A

Goodman's treatment of advance guard art helps to
clarify his concept of introjection. He argues that
within the advance guard artist the societal norms exist
as introjects; and the irritation they cause to the
organism is the special problem of the artist. The
advance guard artist wants to remove the irritant. He
must either remove it or assimilate it. "All creative
work occurs at the limit of knowledge and feeling, and the
limits here are the risky attack on the unassimilated,
and perhaps unassimilable, as if to say, 'Until I get
rid of this, I cannot breathe.'"9

It is significant that Goodman writes that advance
guard art is not directly an attack on the inhibiting
mores, but is that secondarily. This is because it is
precisely the sensitive and precocious children--
future artists frequently--who most identified themselves
with whatever values the accepted culture Offered. Sub—
sequently, their art work is an attempt to make discrimina—
tions aimed at promoting the good in the culture and

annihilating the bad.10

 

9

10Kenneth Keniston in the Young Radicals comes to

similar conclusions regarding the youth who participated
in Vietnam Summer in 1967. He says that the young radi-
cals are in no way making a sweeping assault on the
American culture. But, rather, it is just the brighter
than average youngsters who have accepted the ideals of
the culture. What they are rejecting is the previously
introjected processes of effectualizing those ideals.
Keniston writes, "This points to one of the central

Goodman, Utopian Essays, p. 193.

 

 

125

Goodman claims that evidence for this position is
found in the fact that audience reaction to avant garde
is not defense and counterattack—-the expected reply to
direct assault--but outrage on the part of the audience
which indicates an inner empathy, but an unwillingness
to accept it. That is, the artist by attempting to
destructure the introject threatens the audience because
they too have introjected the social standards. And
introjections are not readily broken down into components.
Thus the artist flails away at the introject, and the
audience becomes outraged and threatened as they find
whole beliefs exposed to doubting scrutiny. It is for
these reasons that advance-guard art is never the best
art. "Advance—guard works tend to be impatient, frag-
mentary, ill-tempered, capricious."ll The advance-guard
artist must spend his energy destructuring, destroying,
and in some cases, annihilating the introject, which
leaves less energy for the development of creative

achievements.

 

characteristics of today's youth in general and young
radicals in particular: they insist on taking seriously
a great variety of political, personal, and social
principles that 'no one in his right mind' ever before
thought of attempting to extend to such situations as
dealings with strangers, relations between the races,

or international politics." Kenneth Keniston, Young
Radicals (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc.,

1968), p. 238.

llGoodman, Utopian Essays, p. .195.

 

CHAPTER VI

MAN, HUMAN SCALE, AND COMMUNITY

By relevance I mean concern for human scale,
the time, size, energy, need for space of
actual people, rather than with the calculat-
ing of efficiency in abstract units of time,
space, and energy.1

This chapter has three objectives. The first is
to illustrate how Goodman's concept of the nature of man
circumscribes, for him, the ethical size and complexity
of our man-made environment. That is, to every form of
potential progress he would have us ask, in addition to
"Can we do it?" the ethical question, "Ought we to do it?"
His psychological postulates commit him to a decentralist
position where the total life-style is in human scale.
The second is briefly to illustrate Goodman's conception
of institutions. Basically, Goodman believes that insti—
tutions tend to frustrate the normal function of the
self-regulating organism. Third, a short sketch of Good—
man's concept of community is presented. The community
is the natural outgrowth of his humanism and social

psychology. It is in the community that man as "a

 

lGoodman, Like a Conquered Province, p. 313.

 

126

127

playful, hunting, sexy, dreamy, combative, passionate,
artistic, manipulative and destructive, jealous and
magnanimous, selfish and disinterested animal"2 realizes

his potential and joins the one humanity.

Human Scale

 

The groups must be small, because mutual aid is

our common human nature mainly with respect to those

with whom we deal face to face.3

Goodman relentlessly argues for keeping economic,

social, and political institutions and affairs compatible
with the nature of man, i.e. in human scale. The environ-
ment is in human scale when these institutions are func-
tioning so as to maximize human growth and happiness.
Growth occurs only when the organism assimilates the
novel in the environment; and happiness is not a constant
goal that one consciously strives for, but, rather, is
the outcome of active utilization of one's capacities.
Therefore, institutions in human scale must provide for
meaningful participation, aggression, initiation, and
good contact.l This human scale requirement is ubiquitous
in Goodman's work. It influences his thinking in regard

to nation states, city—planning, multiversities, seating

arrangements, architecture, class size, home appliance

 

2Paul Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education,"

The New York Review of Books, April 10, 1969, p. 16.

3Goodman, Drawing the Line, p. 35.

 

128

design, social relationships, work organization and

ultimately leads him to his formulation of the community.

Politics
The fault is not with democracy, but that we have
not had enough of it. If our emphasis had been
on perfecting the town meeting and the neighbor-
hood commune, there would not be ignorant electors
and they would choose great officers.“

Goodman registers neither surprise nor indignation
when he is confronted with the apathy and ignorance
characteristic of all forms of government in a mass society.
For instance, on university campuses, where enrollments
frequently exceed twenty-five thousand, student leaders
habitually chide the student body for its disinterested
attitude toward the whole election process. In national,
state, and even local elections it is Often deemed
necessary by local groups to mount "get out the vote"
drives. Many school levies are lost because the voter
turn out is not large enough to meet legal requirements
(e.g., in the state of Washington a school levy vote must
be A0% of the previous general election in order to be
valid). [Goodman says that the apathy is natural and pre-
dictable. The situations are simply out of human scale.
Individual persons cannot comprehend the totality of the

process in which they are requested to be a part--albeit

a small one in the examples cited above. They (a) do

 

Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, p. 107.

 

129

not understand the issues involved, particularly the
far reaching consequences; (b) they do not see how their
involvement or non-involvement makes a difference——they
have an awesome sense of powerlessness; (c) they are
seldom exposed to all intelligent alternatives, as
winning elections generally requires a middle-of—the-
road appeal. Thus citizen reaction is indifference,
boredom, and self-admitted stupidity. The average voter
cannot contact the candidates or the issues. He there-
fore exercises little aggression or initiation, and as a
result he cannot assimilate and grow. He withdraws.
Therefore, Goodman, who has voted only once in a
presidential election-—for Norman Thomas-—champions the
town meeting and face to face politics. His critics charge
that he refuses to face the twentieth century, mass media,
megalopolis and the realities of international politics

and conflict.5

His reply would be that a pragmatic
humanist, first of all, must face the nature of man.

And it is simply not the nature of man to be animated,
excited, and spontaneously interested in regard to distant

candidates and obscure issues, especially when his common

sense tells him that his vote, his voice, or his letter

 

5A critic writing for Partisan Review made this
comment on Goodman's article The State of Nature: "To
go the whole way with him one has to be able to hate the
mere bigness of a ship lying in the Hudson almost as much
as one hates war." Elizabeth Hardwicke, "Fiction
Chronicle," Partisan Review, Vol. 1A (Spring, l9A7),
p. 19 .

 

 

 

130

is, by and large, unequivocally irrelevant to future
consequences. In Utopian Essays he writes:

For the system has sapped initiative and the
confidence to make fundamental changes. It has
sapped self—reliance and therefore has dried up
the spontaneous imagination of ends and the
capacity to invent ingenuous expedients. By
disintegrating communities and confronting
isolated persons with the overwhelming processes
of the whole society, it has destroyed human
scale and deprived people of manageable associa-
tions that can be experimented with.6

Therefore, politics, which he defines as "the con-

"7

stitutional relations of functional interests, must
be brought into human scale-—decentralized, made

functional, and built around face to face involvement.

Economic

. . . and at best, indeed, the conditions of
advancing civilized life seem to make important
powers of human nature not only neurotically
unused but rationally unusable.

Goodman makes it quite clear that his concern for
human scale does not preclude large numbers. That is,
the quantity of goods and services produced is not, per
se, detrimental to human growth. Rather, it is his
criticism that unless the gigantic interlocking system-—

corporate institutions, full capacity, investments, and

employment--is running at full capacity it is "also

 

6Goodman, Utopian Essays, p. 10.
7Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 66.

8Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
:3. 318.

131

impossible to buy bread." The interlocking super-
structure necessitates that decisions be based not on
human needs and capabilities, but on the requirements of
full production and maximum profits.

Goodman recommends that a dual economy is far more
compatible with the diversity of individual needs, and is
thus more in human scale. He proposes that the government
provide subsistance directly, and that the private economy
concern itself with non—subsistence production. He
judges that from 10 to 15 per cent of our economy is
geared toward subsistence goods.

This has the dual effect of eliminating the 20-A0
million poverty-bound people identified by Harrington in

The Other America, and allowing people more freedom to

 

regulate themselves. EWork beyond subsistence would be
voluntary, and leisure could be spent satisfying the
individual growth requirements of the organism, rather
than in maintaining the equilibrium of the interlocked
structure.

If the design and production of Objects were in
human scale they would be constructed so as to be at one
with the owner. "If possible, the operation of a machine

n9

should be Transparent and Comprehensible to its users.

 

9Goodman, Utopian Essays, p. 32.

 

132

He further urges that the machine be repairable by the
user.10

In order to grow, the manipulator of tools and
machines needs good contact with the environment. Good
contact requires aggression, excitement, initiation, and
assimilation. If we consider machines as extensions of
our appendages we are at one with them only to the extent
that they respond to our will--both in Operating them and
in repairing them. As, in the main, they do not, they
are not in human scale.

Goodman, like Marx and Weber, postulates an instinct
for workmanship. His model for working arrangements is
the guilds and craftsmen of the Middle Ages. He also
applauds syndicates and worker's management. He encour—

ages the contracting of jobs to groups of workers and

 

lOThis criticism, that the tools and processes in
our capitalistic society are beyond human comprehension
and are consequently a source of alienation, is one of
the main themes in Fromm's treatment of alienation in
The Sane Society. Fromm writes: "There is another aspect
of alienation from the things we consume which needs to
be mentioned. We are surrounded by things of whose
nature and origin we know nothing. The telephone, radio,
phonograph, and all other complicated machines are
almost as mysterious to us as they would be to a man from
a primitive culture; we know how to use them, that is,
we know which button to turn, but we do not know on what
principle they function, except in the vaguest terms of
something we once learned at school. And things which
do not rest upon difficult scientific principles are
almost equally alien to us. We do not know how bread is
made, how cloth is woven, how a table is manufactured,
how glass is made. We consume, as we produce, without
any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we
deal; we live in a world of things, and our only connec-
tion with them is that we know how to manipulate or to
consume them." Fromm, The Sane Society, p. 122.

 

 

133

letting them cooperatively organize the production. The
worker must be totally involved in the process; be able
to see his own contribution; and to see the inter-
relationship between his work and the total product or
process. Goodman acknowledges that this may be less
efficient economically, but he is concerned with the
whole, so economic efficiency is not an absolute.

Thus, his criticism of the structure of the American
economy is that both production and distribution are
subordinate to other than human needs. The interwoven
production structure results in subsistence goods
responding to the vicissitudes of the market which is
in large part dominated by non—subsistant goods. Pro-
duction, ignoring the psychological and physical needs of
the workers, is geared to maximum profits. The total
economy is out of human scale, and the result is manifest
uneasiness.

More than ever in history there are comforts,
luxuries, entertainments.

Psychologically the picture is more dubious.

There is little physical survival frustration
but little satisfaction, and there are signs
of acute anxiety. ’The general bewilderment
and insecurity of isolated individuals in a
too-big society destroy self-confidence and
initiative, and without these there cannot be
active enjoyment. Sports and entertainments
are passive and symbolic; the choices on the
market are passive and symbolic; people make
and do nothing for themselves, except
symbolically. The quantity of sexuality is
great, the de-sensitizing is extreme. It used

to be felt that science, technology, and the
new mores would bring on an age of happiness.

13A

This hope has been disappointed. Everywhere
people are disappointed.11
Social
At the road-stand I said, "Give me a black cow."
"We don't serve ice—cream sodas," said the big
washed-out blonde, "just cream in a dish or cone."
"O.K., give me a dish of vanilla and a bottle of
root beer. Can you give me a glass?" "Gee, you
Yankees are funny; why cancha drink outta a
bottle like everybody else:" I began to put the
ice cream in the glass. "No!" she said, "I know
what you're up to!" and she snatched away the
glass.12
Goodman speaks of paradise lost; we have not learned
to, or dared to, extract the pleasures and satisfactions
available in the organism/environment field. Goodman,
with Freud, sees advancing civilization being accompanied
by a host of discontents. But, as mentioned earlier,
unlike Freud, he is not convinced that this need be.
Goodman, who has said, "Perhaps it is because I am so
crazy with hOpe that I live in constant terror,"l3
believes that happiness has eluded us basically because
we have not accepted that man is self—regulating, and
that if left free he can grow and experience happiness
in that growth process.
No small part of man's restrictions on freedom and

self—regulation stem from social institutions, norms,

laws, and traditions. Formulated out of prejudice, fear,

 

 

 

11Perls, Hefferline and Goodman, Gestalt Therapy,
p. 3A7.
12 .
Goodman, Five Years, p. 31.
13 '

Ibid., 559.

135

special interests, jealousy, and stupidity, these
attempts to harness his animal nature have resulted in
his dehumanization.
. . For I see that all of us, not only I, are
treated like stepchildren of nature. Nobody
gets what he needs. And if you make the mistake
of asking directly for what you need, ha, you'll
find that you're the one that's moved, nobody
else, and you'll wish you hadn't mentioned it
because the truth is too hard to take. My
life-story is no worse than the rest, only more
obvious, more spectacular, so nobody can deny
the truth. (Yet surely there is a misunderstanding,
for indeed we are not the stepchildren of nature
but her children and rightful heirs.)l“
The reform needed is to alter our culture so that it is
compatible with human nature; that is, to bring it into
human scale.
This would result in the liberalization of laws
to make it legal for peOple to do what free, uncoerced
people do anyway. Therefore, he would simply eliminate
laws on homosexuality and all other sexual practices; as
well as on censorship and pornography. He would encourage
more tolerance in extra-marital sex relations, and
encourage and provide for the natural sexual exploration
among adolescents.
He would consider criminals as sick people and treat

them accordingly--aiming at rehabilitation and not punish-

ment.

 

l“Goodman, Adam and His Works, p. 168.

 

136

Punitive police laws that prohibit people from
doing what they want to do not only result in
inhibition, but they have a further and much more
disastrous results: they tend to aggravate and
create anew the very evils that they are supposed
to be deterring. I think that the entire history
of punitive police legislation has shown this.15

Goodman would abolish narcotics laws. He makes no

pretense of arguing that this would eliminate their
usage, but, rather, "All of the evils would not vanish,
but I think we'll have fewer than now."16 Again and
again Goodman implicitly invokes the anarchist principle
that the state cannot, without serious consequences,
eliminate practices that people find natural and con-
sistent with their personal constitutions: "I am a con-
servative by nature and am not ready to remake human

17

nature."

Institutions and Human Scale

 

Perhaps the concept of 'Normal Neurosis' is the
defining mark of an 'Institution.‘ It is the non-
rational system that seems to be, and is taken as,
a law of nature, and so it generates its own per-
sistence. If the permanence of an institution is
threatened, there is at once anxiety and a fear
of emptiness. It is believed that except in the
Institution, a particular social function could
not be carried on, though indeed it might be carried
on better. As if bridges could not exist without
tolls, or children be born and reared without
marriage licenses, or education occur without
schools. Wherever there is an Institution, like

 

l5

l6Ibid.

Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 8A.

 

l7Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 155.

 

137
Marriage or the School System or the State, look
for repression and transference.18
One of the central tenets common to all anarchists
is the postulated antagonism between institutions on the
one hand, and individual freedom and happiness on the
other. Institutions, by their very nature, assert
anarchists, have a propensity to grow out of human
scale. And once society's institutions and organizations
become more important than the individuals who comprise
them, then man must suppress his humanity to suit the
inhuman system. As this argument is crucial to Goodman's
educational thoughts, a short analysis of it is provided.
Institutions, although they may be initially organized

to serve a human function, soon become dysfunctional.
This phenomenon occurs for reasons inherent in the char-
acteristics of large bureaucracies, and, because of this,
institutions do not admit of reform and improvement as
planned for by suggestion boxes and steering committees.
Therefore, Goodman urges not mild reform, but radical
decentralization.

Throughout society, the centralizing style of

organization has been pushed so far as to

become ineffectual, economically wasteful,

humanly stultifying, and ruinous to democracy.

There are overcentralized systems in industry,

in government, in culture, and in agriculture.

The tight interlocking of these systems has

created a situation in which modest, direct,
and independent action has become extremely

 

18Goodman, Five Years, p. 156.

 

138

difficult in every field. The only remedy is
a strong admixture of decentralism. The problem
is where, how much, and how to go about it.19

Goodman's concern is that people have become power—
less, and to that extent they have become less human.
Aggression, instincts, and initiative run up against
insurmountable barriers. Man becomes frustrated, anxious,
guilty, compulsive, hostile, and stupid.

Subordinates tend to become stupider more
rapidly and directly, simply because they
cannot learn anything by exercising initiative
and taking responsibility.20

There is no test for performing a highly depart-
mentalized role except evidence of playing a

role and of ability at routine skills. Inevitably,
the negative criteria for selection become pre-
ponderant--the reasons why a man won't dO--and

so the whole enterprise becomes still stupider.

. . . In brief, as those who judge--colleagues,
consumers, the e1ectorate--become stupid,
management also becomes stupid. So after a while
we cannot maintain the assumption that in
established firms top-management pap be wise and
capable.21

What reasons does Goodman offer for his belief in the
natural malfunctioning of large institutions? The reasons
given below are summed in his statement: "In corporate
society—-no matter how good the goals, the style of execu-

tion is dehumanizing."22

 

19

20Ibid., p. 79.

2lIbid., p. 8A.

22Ibid., p. 125.

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 3.

 

139

Size
The limitation in size is essential to Kafka's
thought, and it is a true idea. In Kafka's terms,
there is no telling the amount of evil one sets
going outside the scope of one's comprehension
and responsibility; yet it is evil to be alone;
therefore a small comprehensible size.23
The first reason has to do with the limitations
imposed by size itself. Largeness requires a certain
amount of centralization. This results in major policy
decisions being made at high levels and superimposed on
those below--"tOp down authority." That is, the bureau-
cratic structure of large institutions-—universities,
governments, industries--necessitates the establishment
of rules and procedures that preclude individual persons
from effectuating their desires on the behavior of the
institution. This stifling of initiative and creativity
is not a by-product of centralization, rather it is the
end-in—view of centralization. That is why Goodman
shuns the "liberal" crusade for the election and appoint-
ment of benevolent and enlightened leaders. On election
days Goodman pickets the polls with "Don't Vote" signs.
It is said that governmental power has all
gravitated to the Executive, away from the
Congress who, like people, can only consent
or balk. Extreme liberals are now hot to stream-
line Congress so it cannot even balk. But in the
system we have been describing, the Executive
also is not a governing person nor group of
persons, any more than the baronial corporations

are persons except as a fiction. During the
activist Kennedy regime, frustration was

 

23Goodman, Kafka's Prayer, p. 118.

 

1A0

continually expressed because, somehow, the
Cabinet and the President himself were power-
less. Just so the heads of giant corporations
and of apparently autonomous universities claim
that they are powerless to alter policies that
they say they disapprove of. It is inherent in
centralization that powerlessness spreads from
the bottom to the top. There is certainly a
structure of power in the country, but it seems
to be a misnomer to call it a power elite.24

Yet, as demonstrated in Chapter III, a healthy
self—regulating organism requires that the environment
provide for spontaneity, aggression, and initiation. If
this provision is to be meaningful, in that it allows for
affecting consequences, it must enable individuals to
meaningfully impose themselves on their work. This is
precisely what centralization resolves to curtail;
bureaucratic procedures are virtually impervious to

individual interest, aggression, initiation, or nature.25

 

2“Goodman, People or Personnel, p. A7.

25Edgar Friedenberg, in Coming of Age in America;
offers an interesting observation as to why businessmefl
require high school diplomas even though the work can be
done easily by non-graduates. "In this context, the
attitude of the department-store manager who spoke at
the conference on school drOpouts becomes understandable.
He has good reason to avoid hiring people who are not
interested in advancement, even though they can do the
jobs they were hired for well enough. Such people are
likely to be relatively immune to external motivation,
and inclined to seek satisfaction from the job itself;
and from his point of View, no good can possibly come of
this. His low—level jobs really are repetitive, monoto-
nous, and highly rationalized; the people who hold them
are likely to become dissatisfied and quit, unless they
view the job as a step toward a better one. If they
actually like the job, they are probably either imposing
some personal style on it, expressing an idiosyncrasy of
their own in the way they do it that will confuse his

 

1A1

Preclusion of Alternatives

 

These correspondents, however, want me to
speculate and find 'alternatives' (e.g. contain-
ment, a Berlin policy) within the very framework of26
war-games and power-politics that itself is deadly.
Human beings have different needs and therefore
different requirements for growth. It is Goodman's
thinking that these can best be met by a multitude of
small independent bands of people working OOOperatively.
Small, independent units can go it their own way, at their
own speed, making their own creative adjustments. Indi-
vidual persons can select among the diverse units the one
which is most compatible with their own needs and nature.
One of Goodman's persistent criticisms of large institu—
tions is that they destroy competitors by "pre—empting
the means and channels" and then argue that the absence
of alternatives demonstrates that the public wants what
it has——e.g. TV programming, automobile design.

Closely tied to this argument is that, to a large

extent, large institutions foresake experimentalism.

 

system, or they are exaggerating its importance in rela-
tion to other things that go on in the mercantile process
and thereby making of themselves an irritating and com-
pulsive bottleneck. They are also likely to antagonize
their fellow workers by grossly exceeding the informal
work-norms that they have established among themselves
and thus putting them on the spot. The last thing
management needs, at almost any level, is a self-
generating enthusiast." Edgar Friedenberg, Coming of
Age in America, Vintage Books (New York: Random House,
1967), p. 176.

I am suggesting that the thoughts in this analysis
are shared by Goodman.

 

 

26Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p.66.

 

1A2

Being centralized they adher to one policy or process.
Also, no smaller units are available to try a new way
which might prove to be better.

In this view, political institutions are nothing
but deliberate social experiments. In a beautiful
passage, Madison explains the advantages of
decentralism: each autonomous unit can experiment;
if the experiment fails, only a small community
is hurt, and the others can help out; if the
experiment succeeds, it can be imitated to every-
body's advantage. (It 13 a misfortune that the
Federal system of States has not operated in this
way. I can think of only a few radical experi-
ments, in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Louisiana. If
Upton Sinclair's EPIC program in California had
come to power, it might have been the most inter-
esting.)27

And Goodman, a proponent of the social evolution
espoused by Kropotkin, insists that experimentalism in
social, economic, and political institutions is necessary
as a concomitant to the creative adjustment faculty in

28
man.

Dysfunctional

 

In the first place, as technology increases,
as there is a proliferation of goods, and civiliza-
tion becomes more complex, there is a change in
the scale on which things happen. Then, if we
continue to use the concepts that applied to a
smaller scale, we begin to think in deceptive

 

27

28Goodman does not argue simply that conspiracy

keeps dissent from a hearing. Rather massive communica—
tion is so pervasive that dissent is merely drowned out.
To counteract the effects of mass media Goodman has
proposed that we build into the system its own antidote.
He urges that we affix an excise tax on mass-media per
thousand audience; the revenue to be used to subsidize
small theaters and newspapers.

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 3A.

 

1A3

abstractions. There are certain functions of life

that we think we are carrying on, and that were

carried on, on a smaller scale, that are only

apparently being carried on. And sometimes, indeed,

because of the error in our thinking, the effects

are contrary to those we intended.29

Goodman reserves his most severe criticism for

what he finds as the most detrimental consequence of
large established institutions: they promote the very
evils they are initiated to remedy. Whereas institutions
are philOSOphically structured to serve a human need,
that is they have a function, they inevitably lose sight
of that function. Goodman argues, in good anarchist tra-
dition, that the functions necessary for happiness are
rather modest. However, empirical observation, he asserts,
will reveal that institutions fail to serve even these
modest functions. Thus, "In the case of schools, the
internal organization prevents the function, educating."3O
And, "The regulatory agencies, sponsored by the Older
liberalism, have become accommodations with the giant
monopolies, rather than means of pluralizing."31 Also,
he argues that sovereign nation states, conceived to

promote the general welfare, have evolved primarily as

instruments to wage war.

 

29Paul Goodman, "Two Issues on Planning," Com—
mentary, Vol. AA, August, 1967, p. 75.

3O

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 55.

 

3lIbid., p. 29.

1AA

The very futility of the States, however, commits
them rigidly to the Cold War. Without it, it is
doubtful if the great sovereignties could survive
with anything like their present personnel,
vested interest, motivations, and ideology.

Their one function seems to be to continue a
clinch and hinder the evolution of the world
community.32

The heart of Goodman's argument is simply that estab—
lished organizations do not have a social function as
their primary purpose. But, rather, growth, security, and
employee remuneration replace the social function.33
Vital to understanding Goodman is to recognize this fear
he holds for entrenched institutions: "The chief danger
to American society at present, and to the world from
American society, is our mindlessness, induced by empty
institutions."3u

The behavior of institutions raises a problem for

Goodman. He is not an out and out ascetic. The good

life for him is compatible with growth-fostering material

 

32Goodman, Drawing the Line, p. 93.

 

33John Kenneth Galbraith in The New Industrial State
puts forth the argument that the gigantic corporations
of the 1960's do not function according to the 'maximum
profits' theory of classical capitalism. But, rather,
that both growth and security rank above a satisfactory
level of profits. In short, large corporations are not
subject to the strict laws of supply and demand imposed
by a desire to 'maximize profits.‘ Therefore, neither
the social function nor the 'watch-dog' of the social
function, profits, is the principle guide for corporate
behavior. This is, I believe, consistent with Goodman's
contentions.

3A

Goodman, People or Personnel, p. 271.

 

1A5

production, technology, space exploration, city-life,
material progress and invention. Yet, he finds the

modern arrangements of people, tools, buildings, and
equipment as promoting evil ends by way of evil means.
Modern government, education, and industry are detrimental
to the growth needs Of individuals--they are out of human
scale. They coerce, stifle, frustrate, and dehumanize

man both as a producer and a consumer. Yet, he readily
contends, human beings need material production and social
arrangements--"it is not our nature to go it alone."
Therefore, Goodman, as anarchist, as decentralist, as

humanist urges the develOpment of communities.

Community

 

The happiest times I've had, the most exciting,
have been in community. Like at the progressive
school I taught at, or at Black Mountain. When
I was twenty I had a whole gang of friends, and
I still have them, and they'd come to our house
every Saturday and we'd play ball, bridge, and
read one another stories.35

Goodman's conception of community, as do all of his
major ideas, grows out of his social psychology and his
humanistic philOSOphy: "Fraternity is the opposite of

panic."36

He wants to promote the natural growth of
the natural man. Growth requires objects-—food, clothing,

shelter, recreation, and education facilities. These

 

35"Disturber of the Peace: Paul Goodman,"
Mademoiselle, Vol. 58, February, 196A, p. 105.

36

 

Goodman, Empire City, p. 271.

 

1A6

ends can be, and by and large are, efficiently manufactured
by modern techniques featuring vigorous divisions of labor
and large centralized facilities that are administered by

bureaucratic management.37 However, this, Goodman insists,

 

37Goodman insists that the efficiency of centraliza—
tion is greatly overrated, basically because of our system
of cost allocation. For instance, social costs are not
included in corporate accounting. Thus, it may be
cheaper for a corporation to centralize facilities because
they do not pay the cost of worker time spent in travel.
If they did, and if they considered the cost of automobiles,
roadways, and air pollution, they would, Goodman believes,
find that decentralizing and shipping materials is more
efficient. Goodman has addressed himself to this point
in 1962 in a letter to the Columbia University Forum.
As this argument is at the heart of his decentralist
position it is provided here in full.

 

August 28, 1962

Editor, Columbia University Forum

 

Dear Sir:

I must object to a line of argument in Dennis Wrong's
pious essay on Max Weber in your summer issue. When Weber
is accused of underestimating the clogging of initiative
and the bloated overhead of bureaucracies, Wrong says
this is 'irrelevant. . . . The point remains that most of
the activities of bureaucracies today could not under
modern conditions even be carried out badly by nonbureau-
cratic organization.’ But in principle, if inefficiencies
tend to accumulate, there could be a point at which they
outweigh efficiencies; and nevertheless the bureaucracies
will expand, perpetuate and solidify themselves. And
empirically, my rough judgment is that the point of in-
efficiency could be shown to be already far exceeded in
many areas, certainly in urbanism, communications, educa—
tion, much industrial production, and much trade in com-
modities, if the total social labor is taken into account
and if the standard of living is criticized.

The bother is that the style of bureaucracy itself
hampers such empirical investigation. It usurps the field
and dictates research; its 'narrow criteria of efficient
performance' are indeed narrow; its departmentalizing
defeats a holistic approach; its method of cash-bookkeeping

 

 

1A7

is incompatible with the end--human growth and happiness.
In short, man's total needs and nature, have been sub-
ordinated in the interest of efficient mass production.
The only solution, Goodman argues, is for men to live in
communities, where their material needs can be met
through processes which attend to their other needs,

such as social intercourse, love, the exercise of aggres—
sion and initiative, the opportunity to be creative, and,
in general, so that the organism can self-regulate.

I am, as is evident in these letters, a community
anarchist. I hold, for instance, that sovereign
power must be diminished because it is too dangerous
to live with; that people must be free of coercion

in order to grow and adventure; that administration
should be decentralized as much as possible, in

 

speciously prejudges some of the most essential costs and
gains by disregarding them. Bureaucracy itself is a
crucial factor in the 'modern conditions,‘ and indeed,
Professor Wrong's easy-going assumption that our tech-
nology, population, etc. 'could not be' organized other-
wise is precisely the nothing-can-be-done attitude of
bureaucracy.

Weber understood that rationalization is a moral
and religious style, and a rather lifeless one; neverthe—
less he was deeply hypnotized by it—-his politics never
transcended it. Therefore he lays undue emphasis on its
polar opposite, charisma. (It is grim how his disciple,
C. Wright Mills, forgot that rationalization was a style
at all, and began to think of it as the nature of things,
and so conceived his fantastic admiration for concentrated
'decision-making.') But Weber is wrong, the charismatic
leader is not ethically 'neutral.' In extreme degrees,
both rationalization and charisma are base, unworthy of
human communities. They are wasteful of man and
resources; they are slavish and superstitious; they
diminish the quality of life; they stand in the way of
the spirit. It is the course of a reasonable (practical)
sociology at present to de—energize any such polarity.

Yours,
(Goodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, pp. 16—17.)

 

1A8

order to multiply sources of initiative and
experiment; and that there is a creative and
secure-making virtue in face-to-face association
in urban and scientific societies. Yet, although
an anarchist on principle, I write letters to
governors, I serve on a municipal school board,

I visit colossal universities, etc. In my
Opinion, there is no inconsistency.38

Subsequently, a community is a process aimed at harmon-
izing the means and ends into an ethical whole so as to
maximize human growth. Such a community has several

features.

Face to Face Relations

 

It is not unusual, it is the kind of under-
the-skin intimacy that develops among any group
that lives and eats together day by day, whether
soldiers, or collegians at school, or kids at a
summer-camp; yet if in this intimacy there is
also taken for granted an excellent common purpose
and a shared ethics that makes for living well,
what further justification is required? We have
a good in itself.39

Goodman's notion that mutual aid works best in

face to face relationships is reminiscent of David Hume's
claim that human sympathy applies to one's family, and
gradually extends outward only to one's friends and
acquaintances. That is, man is a social being when he
can directly see the humanistic consequences of his
behavior. In these relationships——built on trust,

empathy, function--he lives according to the naturalistic

ethics described in Chapter IV.

 

38Ibid., pp. ix-x.

39Ibid., p. 125.

1A9

What Goodman is saying is that person to institu-
tion or institution to institution relationships are not
person to person contacts. Institutions are not persons
and the employees of an institution are fulfilling a
role, they are personnel. The social nature of man does
not embrace a brotherhood with personnel. Contractual
relationships provide an excellent contrast which illu-
minates this distinction. Contracts between people
and institutions are formal, legal, distrustful, protective,
and frequently designed to mislead. Whereas, Goodman
asserts, contracts or "agreements" between intimate
members of a community are informal, positive, based on
trust, common sense, and mutual aid. The first breeds
cynicism, hostility, insecurity, withdrawal, and reactive
stupidity. The second encourages faith, confidence,
initiative, security, and good contact. Institutions,
by their very nature, are incapable of fostering the

human benefits inherent in face to face interaction.

Functional

 

The community action always revolves around a
function. It is Goodman's claim that when a free, un-
coerced gathering of people live together they will
cooperatively and voluntarily come together to perform
necessary functions. One of the reasons, he says, that
Americans have abdicated their natural community powers

to institutions is because they have been led to believe

150

that only institutions can get things done. In a chapter

on "power" in People or Personnel he chides:

 

. . . There is a certain amount of normal function
surviving or reviving--bread is baked, arts and
sciences are pursued by a few, etc.; mostly we

see the abortions of lively social functioning
saddled, exploited, prevented, perverted, drained
dry, paternalized by an imposed system of power
and management that preempts the means and makes
decisions ab extra. And the damnable thing is
that, of course, everybody believes that except

in this pattern nothing could possibly be accom-
plished: if there were no marriage license and

no tax, none could properly mate and no children be
born and raised; if there were no tolls there
would be no bridges; if there were no university
charters, there would be no higher learning; if
there were no usury and no Iron Law of Wages,
there would be no capital; if there were no markup
of drug prices, there would be no scientific
research. Once a society has this style of thought,
that every activity requires licensing, under-
writing, deciding by abstract power, it becomes
inevitably desirable for an ambitious man to seek
power and for a vigorous nation to try to be a
Great Power. The more some have the power drive,
the more it seems to be necessary to the others

to compete, or submit, just in order to survive.
(And importantly they are right.) Many are
ruthless and most live in fear.AO

But, he believes, the empirical evidence suggests
otherwise.

The principle of decentralism is that peOple
are engaged in a function and the organization
is how they cooperate. . . . Historically, this
system of voluntary association has yielded most
of the values of civilization, but it is thought
to be entirely unworkable under modern condi-
tions and the very sound of it is strange.”1

 

quoodman, People or Personnel, pp. 183—18A.
Al

 

Ibid., p. A.

151

Goodman clearly does not oppose organization. What
he does oppose is the creation of non-functional institu—
tions beyond human scale. He envisages a community of
manageable associations, "intermediary between the individ-
uals and families and the metropolis; it is to counteract

"”2 These

the isolation of the individual in mass society.
associations are to be designed, not merely to "protect"
or to "serve" a passive people, nor to provide for a
superficial "participation." Rather, they are geared to
be flexible so as to be affected by individual spontaneity,
aggression, and initiation. Only in this way can they
expend their efforts on the function, and modify their
behavior as the function changes--or quit when the function
disappears.

The ability of voluntary associations to quit when
the function ceases to exist is significant. An institu-

tion which outlives its function is a source of unmitigated

evil in anarchist thought.

Process Oriented

 

One of Goodman's mOre poetic definitions of community

is the one found in MakingiDo. Here he defines community
A3

 

"as people using one another as resources." In short,

 

2Goodman, Utopian Essays, p. 151.

”3Paul Goodman, Making DO, Signet Books (New York:
The American Library of World Literature, Inc., 196A),
p. 108.

 

 

152

persons in a meaningful community are not interested
merely in the efficient accumulation and consumption of
objects, but they find happiness in the interaction these
processes provide. For instance, objects can be produced
in assembly-lines using men as uncommunicative inter-
changeable parts, or they can be produced by a group of
workers who decide their own procedures.

Except for unusual circumstances, there is

not much need for dictators, deans, police,
pre-arranged curricula, imposed schedules,
conscription, concise laws. Free people easily
agree among themselves on plausible working
rules; they listen to expert direction when
necessary; they wisely choose pro tem leaders.
Remove authority and there will be self-
regulation not chaos.“

Likewise, other necessary functions can be under-
taken by attending to the process. Small ugly towns can
be renewed by extrinsically motivated commercial enter-
prises, or they can be beautified by the efforts of the
local citizens——the elderly who need work and a social
life; or by teenagers who are being dehumanized in a high
school contemptuously ill-suited to their needs; or by
the unemployed who surely have skills needed in making
run-down towns more pleasant. In short, if we produce,
labor, and expend energy for human happiness, why should

we not avail ourselves to the potential happiness found

in the process? It is this sense of wholeness, of

 

uuGoodman, Black Flag, p. 16.

 

153

attending to all the needs of the community members,
through cooperative, voluntary active involvement in
work and play that constitutes Goodman's community. The
emphasis is on the activity, not the location or the
Objects.

But to make neighborhood planning work, the
physical planning is only trivially important
compared to the really important thing: neigh-
borhood function. And in order to make any .
community—function work as community, you must j
give the community authority, power to make .
decisions. The only way you will ever get any
neighborhood planning that amounts to anything
is to dare to decentralize the administration and
allow local initiative. Of course you can't give
initiative; but you can give people the right
to exercise initiative and make crucial decisions.
(It is said that one person in ten is a '1eader.‘
That is enough, if the others have face-to-face
access to him.)

1“ .

 

4fu.—.+_‘ -

Goodman is quick to point out that his conception
of community does not restrict itself to small rural
communities. He believes that cities like New York can
be "wisely administered, in important respects, like
3500 neighborhoods of 2000.”6

A community then, is characterized by face-to-face
cooperative efforts in functional endeavors. It features
small, manageable associations and institutions that ,

are organized and Operated by those involved. It is

Goodman's position that only in this way can we build

 

uSGoodman, The Society I Live In Is Mine, p.132.

u6Ibid., p. 127.

 

15A

into our systems the psychological requirements for the
health and happiness of man.

It is not Goodman's contention that community
involvement and cooperative planning and choosing will
result in the pttt architecture, the pgtt method, or the
pott anything, he simply wants to say that, on the whole,
it is the best way to live. This point is made explicitly
in a talk he gave to a sociology class at Carleton
College in 1962. In part, he said:

Even more important, perhaps, are housing and
urban renewal. They too could be localized. A
reasonable method would be to invite people from
a university to make alternative sets of plans
for a neighborhood. Perhaps by competition, with
a board of architects, etc., to rule out the plans
that are just impossible. Perhaps six workable
plans will remain. Then you educate people by
inviting them to the school. You have a party
or bazaar; you explain the plans, and point up
the features of this one and that one. You carry
on communication for six months, a year. Perhaps
the plans become a local political issue.
Finally, a vote-~whatever they choose they get.
No faking. Usually they won't choose the best.
How could they possibly? But they'll choose
something that will almost surely be better, more
fitting their local needs, than what some
bureaucrat in the City Planning Commission of
New York City will give them. By giving the
neighborhoods the power to decide, I think you
will eventually get real neighborhoods, and you
might even get good plans.“

But this decentralist scheme requires active citizens
who are willing to make decisions, trust one another,

assert their aggression in positive ways, and become a

 

u7Ibid., p. 136.

155

meaningful part of the lives of persons and institutions
in their community. They must regain the power they

have abdicated and which has passed to our centralized

and bureaucratic institutions. How can individual persons
develop this attitude? It is definitely Goodman's
contention that persons have become powerless, reactively
stupid, hostile, apathetic, and have come to identify

with the powers that be. SO Goodman, like many anarchists
before him, addresses himself exhaustively to the education
of our youth. If we are to regain a portion of paradise
lost, we must fan the internal sparks of animal spirit,
social nature, creativity, native intelligence, and allow

the self—regulating organism to function.

CHAPTER VII

HUMAN NATURE AND EDUCATION

We can, I believe, educate the young entirely in
terms of their free choice with no processing
whatever. . . a Freedom is the only way toward
authentic citizenship and real, rather than
verbal, philosophy.l

Goodman has written that "The philosophic aim of
education must be to get each one out of his isolated
class and into the one humanity."2 In this endeavor he
urges us toward more education-—in terms of both
activities for youth and money spent for education. How-
ever, he makes a clear distinction between education and
schooling. In April, 1969, he offered this concept of
schooling.

Yet with trivial exceptions, what we mean by
Sohool—-namely, curriculum generalized from the
activities of life, and divided into departments,
texts, lessons, scheduled periods marked by bells,
specialist teachers, examinations, and graded
promotion to the next step--is a sociological

invention of some Irish monks in the seventh century
to bring a bit of Rome to wild shepherds.3

 

JPaul Goodman, "Freedom and Learning: The Need
for Choice," Saturday Review, May 18, 1969, p. 73.

 

2Goodman, Compulsory Mis—education, p. 21.

 

3Paul Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education,"
New York Review of Books, April 10, 1969, p. 15.

 

156

 

Olnwfih -‘ R ’2. t
t
\

157

His flagrant attacks on modern schooling grow out of
his concern that contemporary schools are custodial social
institutions characterized by irrelevant non-educational
activities. They serve to keep youth off the labor market”
and out of the streets, and frequently as training;

establishments for industry; particularly in the sense of

training in conformity and teaching respect for established-

authority.” He challenges that since we do not know what

 

“This theme of conflict between the growth needs of
adolescents and the requirements and expectations of a mass
culture is given empirical validity by Edgar Friedenberg in
Coming of Age in America. Friedenberg, drawing on the
data of his own research, argues that the schools are more
concerned with efficiency of Operation and in obtaining
conforming behavior from its students, than in fostering
growth. He writes: "In the process, the school affects
society in two complementary ways. It alters individuals:
their values, their sense of personal worth, their patterns
of anxiety and sense of mastery and ease in the world on
which so much of what we think of as our fate depends.

But it also performs a Darwinian function. The school
endorses and supports the values and patterns of behavior
of certain segments of the population, providing their
members with the credentials and shibboleths needed for
the next stages of their journey, while instilling in
others a sense of inferiority and warning the rest of
society against them as troublesome and untrustworthy. In
this way, the school contributes simultaneously to social
mobility and social stratification. It helps to see to it
that the kinds of people who get ahead are those who will
support the social system it represents; while those who
might, through intent or merely by their being, subvert it
are left behind as a salutary moral lesson" (Coming of Age
in America, p. A9).

"Self-conscious non-conformity, for the time, has
become quite fashionable, and schools rather encourage its
more conventional manifestations as evidence that they
favor creativity. They cannot, however, favor genuine
diversity of response among students without jeopardizing
the underlying institutional assumptions and arrangements
on which a mass society depends; and they do not favor it"
(Coming of Age in America, p. 190).

 

 

 

 

(YT—'7‘ W!

158

is right education—-e.g. school grades have no relationship
with life achievements--we simply have everybody go to school:
more.

The academic school establishment, Goodman admits,
had a function in 1900 when only six per cent went through
high school. (He accepts an academic education for the
academically talented, and he tenuously accepts Conant's
opinion that about 15 per cent of our populace is aca-
demically inclined.) Now, however, the educational institu-
tion has aggrandized itself, "hoaxed the public," and
operates as if it were an essential institution for all
youths. Consequently it has tried to make each student
adjust to the requirements of a large interlocking
institution—~e.g. grades, course requirements, educational
TV, lectures, tests—~rather than adjust the institutions
to fit the needs of the youth. The result is boredom,
introjection, stupidity, hostility, and a destruction of
youthful spirit. Ultimately some drop out, others picket;
there is a generation gap. Goodman wants to say that by
mis-reading human nature we have erected a false god. Now
when the exalted edifice shows signs of cracking--this
month the universities are under seige and policemen
patrol the halls of the high schools-~the response has
been to intensify the very processes that produced the

cracks. Goodman writes:

 

159

Predictably, the response of school administrators

is to refine the processing, to make the curriculum

still more relevant, to enrich the curriculum, to

add remedial steps, to study developmental psychology

for points of manipulation, to start earlier, to

use new teaching technology, to eliminate friction

by admitting students to administrative functions.

But social engineering is uneducational in

principle. It pre-structures behavior and can

become discriminating, graceful, and energetic only

if the organism creates its own structures as it

goes along.5

He suggests many reforms. He argues vociferously

for the utilization of enterprises other than the present
school institution for the education of the young. He
scoffs at the notion that the growth of children can best
be done in large boxes with thirty seats facing front.
Rather, he suggests that the on-going city and country is
a prOper educational environment. And since he believes
that socially useful work is an indispensable element in
the education of most adolescents, he finds a natural
cohesion between societal needs and educational needs.
He has faith that by multiplying options it is possible
to plan an interesting educational course for each
individual youth in the same manner that some of the
better schools have done for the emotionally disturbed.
He applauds progressive education which, he asserts, has
never been tried.

Goodman would have us eliminate compulsory atten-

dance, grades, required courses, and the use of tests for

 

5

Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education," p. 16.

my

3.‘

qvmwng; up! — T~ 'D' ‘

160

other than pedagogic purposes. He would have us maintain
an Open campus--whether it be college or grade school-—so
that kids can come and go as they please. They need both
the physical freedom of movement and the psychological
freedom of being able to seek their own satisfactions.
Goodman heartily concurs with Dewey's statement that the
idea that education is a "preparation" for life is
monstrous. That is, children as children have a life of

their own to live.

 

He would allow for and provide for far more sexual

ii:l‘d~a:n—' I...“ -'..
I

expression at all ages. He is somewhat ambivalent, however,
as to just how much sexual education he would offer. He
argues that sex loses some of its spontaneous joy and
excitement if made routine, clinical, and bookish. He

has suggested that sex should be learned in the streets,

yet in Compulsory Mis-education he has written, "Therefore,

 

sexual expression should be approved in and out of season,
also in school, and where necessary made the subject of

instruction."6 One might conclude that he would be rather
conservative in his judgment of when it is "necessary."

Sexual desire is a spontaneous interest, and the organism
can suppress it only at a loss of grace, force, and vigor
to whatever it turns its deliberate attention and concen-

tration. (Goodman fondly quotes Bertrand Russell who

 

6Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education, p. 28.

 

161

said, "Let them copulate so we can get on with mathe-
matics.")

As we have seen, Goodman considers intrinsic motiva- J
tion as the ground for self-regulation. Therefore, grades,
credits, and other extrinsic rewards are anathema to
growth and development of the individual nature. Only
spontaneous interest admits of good contact, so students
ought to be allowed to choose courses and teachers.

Forced courses result in divided attention, boredom,

inhibited aggression, and learned stupidity. And since

 

T -3...‘ ‘ D

education is essentially an interchange between persons,
learners should be able to select teachers with whom they
can establish good contact.

He believes that the current reliance on various
kinds of testing encourages the students to introject
required facts and to spew them forth on the examination;
they fail to assimilate material because assimilation is
not rewarded, and the necessary time and effort to
assimilate would have to be taken from studying for
examinations, which can be passed equally well with

introjected knowledge.7 ’

 

7This position may be contrasted with that of B. F.
Skinner. In Technology of Teaching, where Skinner puts
forth his appeal for deliberate "contingencies of rein-
forcement" he argues that the teacher who uses natural
contingencies of reinforcement really abdicates his role
as a teacher. Skinner writes: "Natural contingencies of
reinforcement, moreover, are not actually very good.

They are more likely to generate idleness than industry.
Trivial, useless, exhausting, and harmful behaviors are

 

162

The thesis of this paper is that Goodman's educa-
tional proposals stem directly from his concept of human
nature, and that to fully understand his proposals one
must understand his views on the nature of man. In this
chapter we shall examine the central principles of his
proposals and demonstrate how those proposals emanate F
from his theories on contact, spontaneity, aggression, g
assimilation, and the self—regulating organism in general. !

Goodman's educational recommendations are both a

numerous and diversified. (A listing of his proposals is

 

provided in Appendix A.) His ideas range from store front
mini-schools for elementary children to the secession of
bands of teachers and students from the major colleges

and universities. He opts for using as an educational
environment the sparse farmlands of northern Wisconsin, as

well as the crowded streets of New York City. He urges us

 

learned in the real world. The human organism pays for
its great speed in learning by being susceptible to
accidental contingencies which breed superstitions. Many
natural reinforcers are too long deferred to be effective.
No child really learns to plant seed because he is
reinforced by the resulting harvest, or to read because

he enjoys interesting books, or to write because he

passes notes to his neighbor, or not to break windows
because the room would then grow cold. The behavior which
satisfies these terminal contingencies is not taught by
the contingencies themselves, and programs are by no

means always naturally available. The deferred conse-
quences of precurrent responses of self—management are
particularly unlikely to shape the behavior they eventually
sustain. For example, natural consequences seldom if

ever induce a student to study, either in nature or in
school. B. F. Skinner, The Technology of Teaching (New
York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1968), p. 15A.

 

163

to spend more money on education and to "dismantle the
present school machinery." Yet, if he is consistent, and
I conclude that he is, underlying each of these ideas is
Goodman's concept of human nature; especially how man
grows by using his natural creativity in adjusting to new
situations.

One of his more provocative proposals, and certainly
one which encompasses virtually all of his concepts on the
nature of man, is his experimental plan for the creation

of mini-schools in New York City. In this chapter we will

 

examine the mini-school formulation to ascertain
specifically how this educational arrangement anticipates
the natural development capacities of children, and in so
doing provides an effective means of "getting each one out
of his isolated class and into the one humanity."

It is my contention that this analysis is preferable
to a systematic treatment of all his proposals, as I hold
that each of his recommendations is grounded in the same
cluster of concepts, and the mini-school plan embraces

nearly all of them.

The Mini-School

 

A mini-school is a decentralized neighborhood
elementary school (ages 6-12), supported by the public,
and administered entirely by the students, parents, and
teachers of that neighborhood. The building to be used

is selected on the basis of accessibility, safety,

16A

flexibility, and cost. Potential facilities would include
vacant store fronts, church basements, settlement houses,
and housing projects. The school is to be located near
the homes of the children so they can "escape from it to
home, and from home to it."8 Attendance at the school

is not compulsory, but Goodman explicitly believes that

.... IT! I
I.

intelligently managed schools will attract nearly all
students.
Each mini-school houses 28 children and A adults.

The adults include a licensed teacher, a housewife who can

 

1 "J"; Linn"! n '
..-

cook, a college senior, and a teen-age school drop—out.
The mini—school concept is a natural outgrowth of
Goodman's anarchistic posture. He argues, much as John

Dewey does in the early chapters of Democracy and Educa—

 

tion, that education has been traditionally a normal
function of the community. Goodman stresses this point

in Compulsory Mis-education.

 

Education is a natural community function and
occurs inevitably, since the young grow up on the
old, toward their activities, and unto (or against)
their institutions; and the old foster, teach,
train, exploit and abuse the young. Even neglect
of the young, expect physical neglect has an
educational effect--not the worst possible.9 ’

However, Goodman recognizes, as did Dewey, that a
complex industrial society can no longer correct the bad

and preserve the good merely by allowing the young to

 

8Goodman, "Freedom and Learning: . . .", p. 7A

9Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education, p. 16.

 

165

wander about the city talking with adults and exploring
aimlessly. Dewey hoped that the schools could be a com-
munity superior to society and serve as a change agent,
but Goodman, who says that Dewey was naive on that point,
claims that empirical evidence will not substantiate that
ideal. Rather, says Goodman:
Our schools reflect our society closely, except
that they emphasize many of its worst features,

as well as having the characteristic defects of
academic institutions of all times and places.10

 

Education, he believes, even in modern society, need
not be academic schooling, although he concedes that formal
schooling is a reasonable "auxiliary of the inevitable
process, whenever an activity is best learned by singling
it out for Special attention with a special person to

11

teach it." In April, 1969, he wrote an extensive

article for the New York Review of Books. The theme of the

 

article is that contemporary schools are non-educational
because they attend to schooling, which is deliberate and
unnatural; and that quality education is "incidental
learning."

To be educated well or badly, to learn by a long
process how to COpe with the physical environment
and the culture of one's society, is part of the
human condition. In every society the education
of the children is of the first importance. But in
all societies, both primitive and highly civilized,
until quite recently most education of most children

 

lOIbid., p. 2A.

llIbid., p. 16.

166

has occurred incidentally. Adults do their work
and other social tasks; children are not excluded,
are paid attention to, and learn to be included.
The children are not "taught." In many adult
institutions, incidental education is taken for
granted as part of the function: families and age-
statuses, community labor, master-apprentice
arrangements, games and plays, prostitution and
other sexual initiation, religious rites and
churches. In Greek paideia, the entire network
of institutions, the polis, was thought of as
importantly an educator.12

Subsequently, Goodman finds himself in a dilemma.
He agrees with Dewey that education must now be a conscious
and deliberate process, but, true to his undergraduate
anarchistic influences, he applauds incidental learning and
fears the establishment of any educational means which
hints of bureaucracy, standardization, centralization, or
complexity which precludes face to face communication.
His mini-school, grounded in anarchistic social psychology,

is his solution to the dilemma.

Self-Regulation

 

Freedom.—-Clearly at the heart of Goodman's educa-
tional proposals is his concept of positive freedom. If
the child is to self-regulate he must be freed of external
coercion and restraint. The child must have the psycho-
logical freedom that comes with knowing he can seek his
own satisfactions, and the physical freedom to enable him

to follow through.

 

12Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education," p. 1A.

167

The mini—school is structured around self-regulation.
Attendance is voluntary, and the child is free to leave
the school at his own discretion. Thus, he need not feel
trapped or constrained against his will.

Goodman intends the 7 to l pupil-teacher ratio to
allow for far more physical freedom than is permissable
in contemporary classrooms where ratios of 30 to l are
not uncommon. An imaginative mind can conceive of
numerous combinations of adults and children that a 7 to
1 ratio permits. Virtually none of the activity of the
mini—school will require the passivity that the conventional
classroom does. This is especially true in light of Good—
man's notion that the building serving as the classroom
can be, and ought to be, left frequently. He foresees
small groups of children moving about their community
gaining first-hand experiences of the place in which they
live; although he fears the dangers of our poorly planned
cities.

The mini—school setting drastically reduces the
need for rules, regulations, schedules, and rigidity.
There are no buses to necessitate inflexible scheduling;
the building can take abuse; there is no intra-scheduling
of library time, band time, patrol time, or lunch time;
the class need not meet a standardized requirement in
reading, writing, or mathematics. Thus, student projects

need not be worn out "taking them out and putting them

168

away" as the children can attend to what they want for

as long as they want. In short, when Goodman says that

we can "educate the young in terms of their free choice"
he presupposes an arrangement where freedom is pervasive.
The child is free to leave, to work at what he chooses, as
intensely as his interests dictate, and to travel where
and when he wants within the limits imposed by a 7 to l
pupil—teacher ratio and the dangers of city movement.

Hierarchy of Values.--According to Goodman's

 

hierarchy of values as soon as one need is satisfied another
quickly rises to take its place. Implicit in this formu-
lation is a hierarchy whereby a lower need must be satiated
before the organism can give full attention to a higher one.
Clearly life sustaining needs are the lowest ones. Good-
man's housewife who can cook is a recognition of the
hierarchy. Hungry children are poor learners.

The mini-school is planned, also, to provide security
for the children so they are free to attend to higher

13

needs. It has no letter grading, no threats of failure,

 

13One of the dominant themes in Maslow's Toward a
Psychology of Being is that growth and security are both
needs, but that security, which is a deterrent to growth,
is a lower need and must be satisfied first. "But we
know also that curiosity and exploration are 'higher'
needs than safety, which is to say that the need to feel
safe, secure, unanxious, unafraid is prepotent, stronger
over curiosity." Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of
Bein , Insight Book (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc.,
19 2 , p. 61.

John Holt, in Why Children Fail, tells us that his
experience has been that children are scared much of

 

 

 

169

no coercion or external standards, no extrinsic rewards,
and has absolutely no concern in measuring the child's
growth by a quantitative measurement contrasted against
others in his class. The child need not fear being in
the lower quarter or in getting a C-. Properly con-
ceived the mini-school should provide the child the
security he needs to enable him to respond to his innate
desires for creativity, learning, and exploring in order
to understand both himself and his environment. If this
seems like a very simplistic purpose for the mini-school,
it is because that is the intention. Goodman, who has

I“

said, "my bias is that 'teaching' is largely a delusion,"

has no grandiose plans for elementary education.

 

the time they are in school. "What is most surprising of
all is how much fear there is in school. Why is so little
said about it? Perhaps most people do not recognize fear
in children when they see it. They can read the grossest
signs of fear; they know what the trouble is when a
child clings howling to his mother; but the subtler signs
of fear escape them. It is these signs, in children's
faces, voices, and gestures, in their movements and ways
of working, that tell me plainly that most children in
school are scared most of the time, many of them very
scared. Like good soldiers, they control their fears,
live with them, and adjust themselves to them. But the
trouble is, andrmnweis a vital difference between school
and war, that the adjustments children make to their
fears are almost wholly bad, destructive of their intelli-
gence and capacity. The scared fighter may be the best
fighter, but the scared learner is always a poor learnerf'
John Holt, Why Children Fail, Delta Book (New York: Dell
Publishing Co., l96fl), p. Hg.

To the extent that Maslow and Holt are correct, the
present school set-up does not maximize growth activities.

I“

 

Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education," p. 15.

170

The goal of elementary pedagogy is a very modest
one: it is for a small child, under his own steam,
to poke interestedly into whatever goes on and to
be able, by observation, questions, and practical
imitation, to get something out of it in his own
terms. In our society this happens pretty well at
home up to age four, but after that it becomes
forbiddingly difficult.15

Spontaneity

 

Intrinsic Motivation.--The inherent flexibility of
the mini-school allows the adult staff to respond much
more effectively to what the children find interesting and
challenging. Again, of course, the 7 to 1 ratio permits
the child to engage in different endeavors and/or at dif-
ferent times than his classmates.

Goodman adheres to Dewey's belief that anything is
educational that results in the child wanting to learn
something more.

Dewey's maxim is a good one: there is no need to
bother about curriculum, for whatever a child turns
to is potentially educative and with good manage-
ment, one thing leads to another. Even skills that
are considered essential prerequisites, like
reading, will be learned spontaneously in a normal
urban and suburban condition.l
And of course he wants to argue that children will want to
learn only when the desire to learn stems from organismic
felt needs, or spontaneous awarenesses. The flexibility

and lack of a prescribed course of study is geared toward

the spontaneous interests of the students.

 

15

16Ibid., p. 21.

Ibid., p. 20.

171

Full Concentration.--In Chapter IV we analyzed

 

Goodman's distinction between spontaneous attention and
deliberate attention. During deliberate attention the
energy of the organism undergoes the three-way division:
energy is expended on the task, to the resister, and in
fighting the resister. Consequently, during deliberate
attention the organism is utilizing only a fraction of

its potential. This waste of energy is one of the reasons
Goodman says that given their potential human beings don't
accomplish very much; they have given too much to repressing
spontaneous interests. Goodman is talking about out-of-
school activities as well as formal schooling, but he
believes that habits and attitudes are significantly
affected during the 12 years of lessons, assignments,
manipulation, and coercion. The child grows up with the

H

attitude that normalcy is doing "enough to get by, playing
thegfinm, staying cool, looking to outside sources for what
one ought to do, to identify with those in authority, to
introject the notion that his life is regulated by the
institutions and roles prescribed, and to sense guilt if
his spontaneous self tells him that this is not in his
best interest. The mini-school aims at encouraging the
child to forego the three—way division of energy. Hope-
fully, he can learn to devote all his energy to his self-

chosen task, and to drop that task as soon as he finds

it no longer meets his needs.

172

Assimilation

 

Aggression.——Aggression is the step toward the

 

object of appetite or hostility, and is absolutely
essential for assimilation. Recalling the three com-
ponents of aggression-—annihilation, destroying, and
initiative-—we should expect the mini-school to provide
for each.

Annihilation is making into nothing, typified most
commonly in the school setting by flight. Goodman provides
for this. His liberal attendance policy enables the child
to assert his aggression by escape whenever he deems it
desirable.

Destroying in order to destructure means the organism
must exercise its appetite in the interest of its own need
or satisfaction. This opportunity is severely restricted
when individual appetites are circumscribed by the
inflexibility imposed by predetermined course content,
materials, schedules, and a class ratio of 30 to l. The
mini-school, being decentralized and a unit unto itself,
has no district—wide curriculum or comprehensive plan
that locks the teachers and students into a planned week
by week progression. The adults are able to respond to
spontaneously expressed interests and desires. Goodman
has written that lesson plans should not be written more

than one day in advance, and the mini-school, where the

173

adults are responsible to no one save those they meet
face to face, is consistent with that belief.17

It is difficult to assess what the removal or
reduction of threat from authority will have on the
attitude of the children, but Goodman emphatically
believes it will be both positive and significant. That
is, according to the experiences of Friedenberg and Holt,
with whom Goodman allies himself, the modern school is a
repository of fear, anxiety, and tension. Holt argues
that this stems from the teachers obsession with correct
answers. The children have reacted by subordinating their

school behavior and responses to their estimation of the

 

17In 1959 in Croton Falls, a teacher, James Worley,
was punished for his refusal to prepare advanced lesson
plans. Goodman wrote a letter to the Commissioner of Educa—
tion in defense of Worley's insubordination. The letter,
in part, read:

"I am told that the case of James Worley of Croton
Falls has come to you for review. Allow me to say something
on his behalf.

"In content his original protesting action seems to
me beyond doubt correct. I myself have taught every age
from ten—year—olds through Ph.D. candidates and older
adults; it has been my universal experience that formal
preparation of a lesson-plan beyond the next hour or two
is not only unrealistic but can be positively harmful and
rigidifying, for it interferes with the main thing: the
teaching—contact between the teacher and his class.
Worley's disagreement with the administrative order is,
to me, simply presumptive evidence that he is a good
teacher and knows what the right teaching relation is.

A teacher who would seriously comply with the order would
likely be a poor teacher. (Our model must always be the
Socratic dialogue, for the aim is not to convey some infor-
mation but to get across the information as part of the
student's nature and second-nature, so he can make an
individual and creative use of it.) On the other hand, if
the compliance is not serious it is a waste of time, and,
as you know, teachers are burdened with paper-work, much

of which is absolutely necessary." The Society I Live In
Is Mine, p. 10

 

 

174

likelihood of their being wrong. The more chance a given
action has of being wrong the less likely they are to
initiate it. Their natural curiosity, propensity for
experimentation, and their desires to learn are suppressed
in the interests of security. This is implicitly Goodman's
contention; that this unnatural passivity of school child-
ren is generated out of the overpowering influence of
rules, regulations, grades, threats, boredom, and psycho-
logical domination inherent in the authoritarian structure
of the schools. In defense of his conception of "incidental
learning" he has written:
Generally speaking, this incidental process

suits the nature of learning better than direct

teaching. The young see real causes and effects,

rather than pedagogic exercises. Reality is often

complex, but the young can take it by their own

handle, at their own times, according to their own

interest and initiative. Most important, they can

imitate, identify, be approved or disapproved,

cooperate and compete, without the anxiety of

being the center of attention; there is socializa-

tion with less resentment, fear, or submission.18

His mini-school is, in no small part, aimed at the

removal of external coercion. His intent is to encourage
the children to give way to their natural appetites,
aggressions; to challenge, to question, to defy, and to

de-structure their environment so that in reassembling it

they can assimilate and take it on as their own.

 

8Goodman, "The Present Moment in Education," p. 14.

175

Initiation is the passing of the impulse and the
acceptance of the motor execution as one's own. Goodman
intends for the adults in the mini-school to respond to
the aggressive appetites of the children by encouraging
them to follow—up their spontaneous interests. Again,
the class ratio, the flexibility, and the mobility afforded
allows for initiating activity on the part of the learner.

Good Contact.--Permeating all of Goodman's work on

 

education is his insistence that under present conditions
education is characterized by poor contact. Teachers do
not contact students, and students do not contact relevant
subject matter.

Upon reflection, we can see that good contact in an
educational setting has two components. First, as good
contact requires animation, excitement, a stretching
toward what is interesting, it is necessary for the
learning situation to flow out of organismic felt needs.
We have seen how the mini-school is organized around
freedom so those felt needs are expressable. Secondly,
however, good contact in a school setting requires a
response to the student's aggressive actions. The teacher
must act upon the child's aggression and manipulate him-
self and the environment so that the child is able to
destructure the unassimilable parts. This is why Goodman
claims that the proper model for education must always be

the Socratic dialogue. The teacher must be willing to

176

identify and tear down the barriers to assimilation, to
interact with the child in an open face to face situation.
Surely this meaningful interaction was on Goodman's mind
when he elected not to staff his mini-school with four
professionally certified instructors. He is critical of
the interferences to honest communication brought about

by the requirements for certification. So Goodman, who
has said that any benevolent adult has a lot to teach an
eight year old, was not being haphazard when he selected
as co-workers for the licensed instructor a high school
drop—out, a college senior, and a housewife who can cook.
He was thinking of contacting students and enabling
students to contact the environment. His notion that non-
professionals might be able to contact elementary kids is

no longer a "radical" idea.19

 

1

‘9For instance, Kenneth Clark, who addresses himself
to New York City as does Goodman, expresses a bias toward
the ghetto community drawing on its own human resources.
In Dark Ghetto he asks:

"Who are the most effective workers in such programs?
As catalysts in this enterprise, Haryou found during its
planning explorations that it could make use of artists
and ex—delinquents as well as trained social workers. The
advisability of recruiting large numbers of professionally
trained social workers and teachers has been seriously
questioned. Often it appears that professional training
itself enhances the "flight from the client." Furthermore,
large numbers of trained personnel are not available. The
best recruits for these jobs may be residents of the com-
munity themselves who stand to benefit not only financially
but also by gaining status, self-esteem and the new satis-
faction of "meaningful" work. With such workers there is
less of a possibility, also, that the communication barrier
will be a factor, since they are literally part of the world
of their clients. They will probably be more willing to
endure the long hours which some of the programs require,

 

177

Human Scale

 

As to Organization.--The mini-school is comprehensible

 

to those involved. There is no central bureaucracy with
coordinators, consultants, standard procedures, directors,
assistant and deputy superintendents, and standing com-
mittees to form a rigid hierarchy of command that is not
well understood by those on the outside. The organizational

setting is simple, functional, anarchistic. J

 

Due to the lack of outside authority the mini-school

can be effectively managed by those involved--teachers,

yum» r A

students, and parents. Each school can take advantage of
local events, sites, and personalities. Parents, if they
wish to involve themselves in the affairs of the local
school, need not fear the complexity and depersonalization

characteristic of large institutions.20 The reader is urged

 

since they have not developed a working tradition which
shies away from sustained relationship with clients, from
week-end and night work. They have not yet develOped
professional ennui. Kenneth B. Clark, Dark Ghetto, Harper
Torchbooks (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 50—51.
20The Report of the National Advisory Commission on
Civil Disorders (1965) included a criticism of the community-
school relationship in the riot torn cities.

"Teachers of the poor rarely live in the community
where they work and sometimes have little sympathy for the
life styles of their students. Moreover, the growth and
complexity of the administration of large urban school
systems has compromised the accountability of the local
schools to'the communities which they serve, and reduced
the ability of parents to influence decisions affecting
the education of their children. Ghetto schools often
appear to be unresponsive to the community, communication
has broken down, and parents are distrustful of officials
responsible for formulating educational policy.

 

 

 

178

to keep in mind Goodman's concept of community. He con-
siders education a natural community function, and he
anticipates that the adults of the community enrich their
lives through intimate contact with the activities and
personalities of the school. The operation of the mini-
schocl is not something the community does, but, rather,
part of being a community is the democratic operation of
the school.

Psychological Freedom for Teachers.-—Goodman has

 

written that a teacher can only teach skillfully what he
considers important. Also, he has implicitly said that
each teacher must use his natural talents and capacities
and that methods courses are degrading and psychologically
indefensible. He says, "The only profitable training for
teachers is a group therapy, and perhaps, a course in

child development."21 I am of the opinion that Goodman

 

"The consequences for the education of students
attending these schools are serious. Parental hostility
to the schools is reflected in the attitudes of their
children. Since the needs and concerns of the ghetto
community are rarely reflected in educational policy for—
mulated on a citywide basis, the schools are often seen
by ghetto youth as being irrelevant. . . . The absence of
effective community-school relations has deprived the
public education system of the communication required to
overcome this divergence of goals. In the schools, as
in the larger society, the isolation of ghetto residents
from the policy-making institutions of local government
is adding to the polarization of the community and depriv-
ing the system of its self—rectifying potential. "Report
of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders,"
Otto Kerner, Chairman (New York: Bantam Books, Inc.,
1968), pp. A36-A37.

21Goodman, "Freedom and Learning: . . . , p. 73.

179

would be receptive to the ideas of Arthur Combs as set

forth in his The Professional Education of Teachers.

 

Combs argues that teacher preparation, beyond the
academic education, is essentially teaching the indi-
vidual to understand and utilize his own unique per-
sonality in the classroom. Combs writes:

As we have seen, research on competencies has
been unable to isolate any common trait or practice
of good teachers. But this unanimous failure in
itself demonstrates an important fact: a good
teacher is primarily a unique personality. If
good teachers are unique individuals, we can
predict from the start that the attempt to find

common uniqueness would be unlikely to get results.22

 

If we adapt this "self as an instrument" concept
of the professional worker to teaching, it means
that teacher-education programs must concern them-
selves with persons rather than with competencies.
It means that the individualization of instruction
we have sought for the public schools must be
applied to these programs as well. It calls for
the production of creative individuals, capable of
shifting and changing to meet the demands and
opportunities afforded in daily tasks. Such a
teacher will not behave in a set way. His behavior
will change moment to moment, from day to day,
adjusting continually and smoothly to the needs of
his students, the situations he is in, the purposes
he seeks to fulfill, and the methods and materials
at his command.

The good teacher is no carbon copy but possesses
something intensely and personally his own. Artists
sometimes call this "the discovery of one's personal
idiom." The good teacher has found ways of using
himself, his talents, and his surroundings in a
fashion that aids both his students and himself to
achieve satisfaction--their own and society's too.
We may define the effective teacher formally as a
unique human being who has learned to use himself
effectively and efficiently to carry out his own and
society's purposes in the education of others.23

 

22Arthur W. Combs, The Professional Education of

Teachers (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 19657, p. 6:

 

 

23Ibid., p. 9.

180

I hold the opinion that teachers trained by Arthur
Combs would be the ones Goodman would choose to staff his
mini-schools.

It is Goodman's position, in line with anarchistic
tradition, that free, intelligent, secure, and interested
adults can work together voluntarily and cooperatively to
develop the natural capacities of the community's young.
The mini—school arrangement affords the freedom for the
staff as well as the children. It is indeterminable how
much good teaching remains only in the potential of
teachers because of the fear of a distant and omnipotent
bureaucracy. It takes no great insight to realize that
traditional, conservative, methodical, and non-controversial
teaching is far safer than that which flows from the
spontaneous interaction between students and teachers.

The mini-school is so structured that the teachers need to
justify their actions only to those persons who are face

to face with them--colleagues, students, and parents who

are concerned enough to contact the school itself. The
students and staff of the mini—school need not feel stupid
or awed by layers of authority over them. Goodman blames
most apparent stupidity on some form of defensive technique,
frequently chronic boredom, but he also says, "Another

large part of stupidity is stubbornness, unconsciously

,"2U

saying 'I won't. You can't make me. It is this type

 

”Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, p. 72.

 

181

of stupidity and hostility that he attempts to eliminate.
Inherent in this view is that we hold less fear of the
known and the familiar than of the unknown and the alien.

Experimental Education.--Implicit in the human

 

scale concept is flexibility. That is, when people co-
operate intelligently in a functional way they can
immediately adjust to new circumstances and consequences.
They are free to create, experiment, retreat, and to
admit that certain attempts were miserable failures.
Goodman insists that large institutions do not have

these virtues. Rather, by their very natures they pre-
clude small-scale experimentation, particularly if the
success of the experiment hangs on a unique personality.
Large institutions and centralized systems function

best with quantifiable data and detailed preplanning.
They do not, cannot, make allowances for "finishing
business," for spontaneous behavior, for trial and error,
for momentary flight to escape, for the multitude of
variables that occur every day in every classroom. This
is the intended virtue of the mini-school. No two mini—
schools need be alike. No two days in one school need be

alike.25 The students and parents and teachers are free

 

25Based on the recommendations of the Plowden Com-
mittee in 1966 a number of the English elementary schools
have experimented with a flexible and non—structured
approach. These schools are, I believe, quite compatible
with Goodman's recommendations. Appendix B offers excerpts
from Joseph Featherstone's observations of these schools.
The three Featherstone articles appeared in the New Republic

 

in September and August, 1967.

182

to adjust to the daily developments of their own com-
prehensible educational setting.

Goodman is an intellectual, a lover of books,
dedicated to the development of our reasoning faculties.
He sincerely wishes each of us could enjoy and learn from
Kant, Milton, Kafka, Freud, Aristotle, and Tao. Surely
he believes that a better world might result if all
citizens could assimilate the contents of the one hundred
great books. But, he is a pragmatist. He makes every
attempt not to let his ideals interfere with what his
empirical evidence tells him is true. His starting point
is what he thinks is true of the nature of man. From his
observations he concludes that "incidental education" is
the only way, compatible with human nature, to increase
the world's happiness.

To those critics who fear that his proposals will
result in a degeneration of standards, loss of rigor,
student apathy to the sciences and humanities, and a
disrespect for the intellect, Goodman would ask, What
has the present educational establishment wrought? Are
we pleased? Have we educated a society where love,
community, affection, curiosity, peace, reason, and happi-
ness abound? Or do we weep at these ideals, and at

Goodman's proposals, in acknowledgment of paradise lost?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

183

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Paul Goodman: Literary Works

 

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Five Years. New York: Brussel and Brussel, 1966.

 

Hawkweed. Vintage Books. New York: Random House, 1967.

Kafka's Prayer. New York: Vanguard Press, Inc., 1947.

 

Making Do. Signet Books. New York: The New American
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Stop-Light. Harrington Park, New Jersey: 5 x 8 Press,
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18A

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"A Few Questions to Mr. Minow." New Republic, March 2,
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"Between the Flash and the Thunderstroke." Poetry, 87
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"Chance for POpular Culture." Poetry, 74 (June, 19A9),
"Children of Birmingham." Commentapy, September, 1963,
"Choral Odes of Dr. Sitwell." Review of The Song of
the Cold by Edith Sitwell. Poetry, 7H’(Ju1y, 1949),
239-251.

"Cold Violence of the Self-Righteous is the Worst Kind."
New York Times Magazine, April 28, 1968, pp. 25-29.

 

"Columbia's Unorthodox Seminars." Harper's, January, 196A,
pp. 72-82.
"Community of Scholars." Commentapy, March, 1962, pp.

 

205—217.

186

"Cutting Back." Atlantic, June, 1968, p. 9A.

"Don't Disturb the Children." New Republic, March 16,
1963, p. 29.

 

"Empty Society: Excerpts from Massey Lectures."
Commentary, March, 1967, p. 30.

 

"Extreme Situation." New Republic, October 19, 1963, p. 7.

 

"For a Reactionary Experiment In Education." Harper's,
November, 1962, pp. 61-70.

"Freedom and Learning: The Need for Choice." Saturday
Review, May 18, 1968, pp. 73-75.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"How the School Establishment Hoaxes the Public." Phi
Delta Kappan, 49 (September, 1968), 18-19.

"Human Uses of Science." Commentapy, December, 1960,
pp. A6l-A72.

"Ineffectuality of Some Intelligent People." Commentary,
June, 1962, p. 4&7.

"In Praise of Populism." Commentary, June, 1968,
pp. 25-260

"Is Little TV Possible?" New Republic, May 18, 1963,
pp. 26-28.

"Is Anarchism Distinct from Liberalism?" Patterns of
Anarchy. Edited by Leonard I. Krimerman and
Lewis Perry. Anchor Books. Garden City, New York:

Doubleday and Company, 1966.

"Liberal Anti-Communism Revisited." Commentary, September,
1967, pp. 41—43.

 

"Louis Sullivan, Artist in America." Commentary,
October, 1960, pp. 335-339.

 

 

"New Deal for the Arts." Commentary, January, 1964,
pp. 68-710

"Non—Commercial Channels." New Republic, April 13, 1963,
pp ° 32"3Ll 0

"Notes on the Underworld." Nation, March 11, 1961,

pp. 215-217.

187

"Not Forgotten Genius." New Republic, December 11, 19M“,
p. 806.

 

"Pornography and Censorship." Commentary, August, 1961,

 

"Pornography, Art, and Censorship." Commentary, March,
1961, pp. 203-212.

 

"Sarnoff Fights Back." New Republic, April 20, 1963,

 

 

 

 

 

pp. 25—27.
"Saving the Liberal Arts." Commonweal, June 12, 196“,
pp. 359-361.
"Schools Videotica." New Republic, March 30, 1963,
pp. 26—28.
"Susskind and Sevareid." New Republic, February 23, 1963,
pp. 2u—26.
"The Camera's Glass Eye." New Republic, May 25, 1963,
pp. 2u-26.
"The Present Moment in Education." The New York Review

 

of Books, April 10, 1969, pp. lu—2U.

"The Resisters Support U.S. Traditions and Interests."
New York Times Magazine, November 26, 1967,
pp. 122-1250

 

"Two Issues in Planning." Commentary, August, 1967,

pp. 75-77.

 

"Utopian Thinking: Excerpt from Utopian Essays and
Practical Proposals." Commentary, July, 1961,

 

 

 

pp. 19—26.

"Why Can't We Be Great?" Madamoiselle, July, 1960,
pp. [414-147.

"Why Go to School?" New Republic, October 5, 1963,
pp. 13-14.

Goodman, Paul, and Goodman, Percival. "A Master Plan

for New York." New Republic, November 20, 19AA,
pp. 656-659.

 

188

Other Sources

 

Abel, Lionel. "Seven Heroes of the New Left." New York
Times Magazine, May 5, 1968, pp. 30—31.

 

Aiken, Henry D. "Inductive Criticism." Kenyon Review,
XIII (Winter, 1955), 309-311.

 

Barrett, William. "Man Without Superego." Partisan
Review, XIII (Summer, 1996), 393-394.

Brinkley, David. "Goodman and the TV Networks." New
Republic, March 23, 1963, p. 39.

Carruth, Hayden. "Intelligence, Rebellion, Interest."
Poetry, lOA (April, 196A), HA-US.

Clark, Kenneth B. Dark Ghetto. Harper Torchbooks.
New York: Harper and Row, 1965.

 

Combs, Arthur W. The Professional Education of Teachers.
Boston: Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1965.

 

 

 

Cowan, Paul. "Public and Private." Review of Five Years
by Paul Goodman. Commentary, 44 (July, 1967), 89-
92.

Dennison, George. "The Tetralogy Concluded." Review of

Empire City by Paul Goodman. Kenyon Review, 21
(Summer, 1959), u98-5OH.

 

 

Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan
Company, 1916.

 

. Individualism Old and New. New York: Capricorn
Books, 1962.

 

. Liberalism and Social Action. New York:
Capricorn Books, 1963.

 

"Disturber of the Peace: Paul Goodman." Madamoiselle,
February, 196A, pp. 104-150.

 

Featherstone, Joseph. "How Children Learn." New
Republic, September 2, 1967, pp. l7-2l.

. "Schools for Children: What's Happening in
British Classrooms." New Republic, August 19,
1967, pp. 17-20.

 

. "Teaching Children to Think." New Republic,
September 9, 1967, pp. 15-19.

 

189
Freud, Sigmund. A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis.
New York: Washington Square Press, 1952.

. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. New York: Bantam
Books, 1967.

 

Civilization and Its Discontents. New York:
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1962.

 

. The Future of an Illusion. Anchor Books. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1964.

 

Friedenberg, Edgar Z. Coming of Age in America. Vintage
Books. New York: Random House, 1967.

 

Fromm, Erich. The Sane Society. Fawcett Premier Book.
Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications,
Inc., 1955.

 

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.

 

Hamilton, William. "Exile from Paradise, A Garland for
Paul Goodman." Christian Centugy, August 16, 1967,
pp. lOA6—lOA8.

 

Hardwick, Elizabeth. "Fiction Chronicle." Review of The
State of Nature by Paul Goodman. Partisan Review,
13 (Spring, I§H7), 196-197.

 

 

Harrington, Michael. "On Paul Goodman." Atlantic,
August, 1965, pp. 81-91.

. The Other America. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

 

Havighurst, Robert J. "Requirements for a Valid 'New
Criticism.'" Phi Delta Kappan, 49 (September,
1968), 20-26.

 

Hentoff, Nat. "Village Anarchist." Review of The
Society I Live In Is Mine by Paul Goodman.

Reporter, July 18, 1963, pp. 54-55.

 

Holt, John. How Children Fail. Delta Books. New York:
Dell Publishing Co., 1964.

 

Horowitz, Irving L., ed. The Anarchists. Laurel Edition.
New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 196“.

 

Jacker, Corinne. The Black Flag of Anarchy. New York:
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1968}

 

190

James, illiam. Talks to Teachers. New York: W. W.
Norton and Company, Inc., 1958.

 

Jordan, Elijah. The Good Life. Chicago: University
Press, 19A9.

 

Justice, Donald. "Occasional Poetry." Review of
Copernican Revolution by Paul Goodman. Poetry, 89
(November, 1956), 120-122.

 

Keniston, Kenneth. Young Radicals. Harvest Books.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1968.

 

. The Uncommitted. Delta Books. New York:
Dell Publishing Company, 1960.

 

Kostelanetz, Richard C. "Haphazard Collection." Review
of Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals by Paul
Goodman. Kenyon Review, 2U (Summer, 1962), 573-575.

 

 

 

"Prevalence of Paul Goodman." New York Times
Magazine, April 3, 1966, pp. 70—100.

 

Krimerman, Leonard I., and Perry, Lewis, ed. Patterns
of Anarchy. Anchor Books. Garden City, New York:
Doubleday and Company, 1966.

 

Kropotkin, Peter. "A Scientific Approach to Communist
Anarchism." Patterns of Anarchy. Edited by
Leonard I. Krimerman and Lewis Perry. Anchor
Books. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and
Company, 1966.

 

. Mutual Aid. Boston: Extending Horizons Books,
1955.

 

Leverton, Denise. "One of the Lucky." Review of The
Lordly Hudson by Paul Goodman. Nation, April 13,

1963, p. 310.

 

Levine, Daniel U. "Views Shared by Max Rafferty and Paul
Goodman." Phi Delta Kappan, VII (March, 1966),
387-389.

 

Lovejoy, Arthur O. Reflections on Human Nature.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1961.

 

McCaslin, Walter. "Absurdities of an Addled Society."
Review of Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals
by Paul Goodman. Saturday Review, February 17,
1962, pp. 23-24.

 

 

 

Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. Vintage Books.
New York: Random House, 1955.

 

191

Maslow, Abraham H. Toward a Psychology of Being.
Insight Book. Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van
Nostrand Company, Inc., 1962.

 

Oliver, Edith. "Jonah. Criticism." Review of Jonah by
Paul Goodman. Nam_lank&n, February 26, 1966,
pp. 71—72.

Report of the National Adviso;y_Commission on Civil
Disorders. Otto Kerner, Chairman. New York
Bantam Books, Inc., 1968.

 

 

Rokeach, Milton. The Open and Closed Mind. New York:
Basic Books, Inc., 1960.

 

Rosenberg, Harold. "An Hypothetical Tale." Review of
Empire City by Paul Goodman. Partisan Review, 3
'(Summer, 1959), 493—499.

 

 

Rosenfield, Isaac. "Stories With Infinite Interiors."
Review of The Facts of Life by Paul Goodman.
Kenyon Review, 7 (Winter, 1945), 709-712.

 

 

Roskalenko, Harry. "Question of Governance." Poetry, 89
(November, 1956), 118-119.

Schrag, Peter. "Education's Romantic Critics."
Saturday Review, February 18, 1967, pp. 80-82.

 

Schroth, Raymond A. "Paul Goodman's Pain." Review of
Five Years by Paul Goodman. America, July 22,
1967, p. 86.

 

Sheed, Wilfred. "Jonah. Criticism." Review of Jonah
by Paul Goodman. Commonweal, March 18, 1966,

p0 699.

 

Skinner, B. F. The Technology of Teaching. New York:
Appleton—Century—Crofts, 1968.

 

 

Sugrue, Thomas. "Portrait." Review of Facts of Life
by Paul Goodman. Saturday Review, August 11, 1945,
p. 10. ,

Woodcock, George. Anarchism. Meridian Books. New
York: World Publishing Company, 1961.

 

APPENDICES

192

 

APPENDIX A

GOODMAN‘S PROPOSALS AND

RECOMMENDATIONS

193

APPENDIX A

The following list of proposals and recommendations
has been selected from Goodman's books and articles.
They constitute the primary proposals that he has put

forth since the publication of Growing Up Absurd in 1956.

 

l. Abolish Grades and Testing*

 

Let half a dozen of the prestigious Universities--
Chicago, Stanford, the Ivy League-—abolish grading, and
use testing only and entirely for pedagogic purposes as
teachers see fit.

It is really necessary to remind our academics of
the ancient history of Examination. In the medieval
university, the whole point of the gruelling trial of the
candidate was whether or not to accept him as a peer.
His disputation and lecture for the Masters was just that,
a master—piece to enter the guild. It was not to make
comparative evaluations. It was not to weed out and
select for an extra-mural licensor or employer. It was
certainly not to pit one young fellow against another in
an ugly competition. My philosophic impression is the
medievals thought they knew what a good job of work was
and that we are competitive because we do not know. But
the more status is achieved by largely irrelevant com-
petitive evaluation, the less will we ever know.

A miserable effect of grading is to nullify the
various uses of testing. Testing, for both student and
teacher, is a means of structuring, and also of finding
out what is blank or wrong and what has been assimilated
and can be taken for granted. Review--including high-
pressure review--is a means of bringing together the
fragments, so that there are flashes of synoptic insight.

There are several good reasons for testing, and
kinds of tests. But if the aim is to discover weakness,

 

*
Titles mine.

194

:‘l—H '_ .I: m-r’un‘xm - .5. m. 1‘

. ,l n , .

1~ '7
, .
‘_ a

195

what is the point of down-grading and punishing it, and
thereby inviting the student to conceal his weakness, by
faking and bulling, if not cheating? The natural con-
clusion of synthesis is the insight itself, not a grade
for having had it. For the important purpose of placement,
if one can establish in the student the belief that one is
testing n23 to grade and make invidious comparisons but
for his own advantage, the student should normally seek
his own level, where he is challenged and yet capable,
rather than trying to get by. If the student dares to
accept himself as he is, a teacher's grade is a crude
instrument compared with a student's self-awareness.

But it is rare in our universities that students are
encouraged to notice objectively their vast confusion.
Unlike Socrates, our teachers rely on power-drives rather
than shame and ingenuous idealism.l

2. Students and Professors Secede
from Large Universities

 

 

Now, in the sixties, a small secession from about
twenty colleges and universities would be immensely
profitable for American education. I propose that a core
faculty of about five professors secede from a school,
taking some of their students with them; attach to them—
selves an equal number of like-minded professionals in
the region; collect a few more students; and set up a
small unchartered university that would be nothing but
an association for teaching-and-learning. Ten teachers
would constitute a sufficient faculty for such a studium
generale. (For comparison, Jefferson's University of
Virginia had eight teachers; Joseph Priestley's Warring-
ton had a maximum of thirteen.) Instead of five pro-
fessionals, there could be a few more, some teaching
part—time. With a class size of twelve to fifteen for
ten teachers, there would be 120 to 150 students.

I choose the class size of twelve to fifteen as a
mean in my own not untypical experience. It gives a
sufficient weight of thoughts, objections, and questions
to oppose and activate the teacher. When the number
falls below this, to seven or eight, I begin to feel that
I am leading a group therapy; I am overly conscious of
the individual personalities coping with the subject,
rather than teaching the objective subject. When the
number rises to between twenty and thirty, I begin to
feel I am lecturing the subject, with a question-and-
answer period, and perhaps leading a "discussion." But

 

lCompulsory Mis—education, pp. 127-129.

 

196

of course the mean number varies with the subject, the
character of the persons, and how the subject is handled.
E.g., in teaching a course in writing, I combine several
approaches: structural analyses of classical texts, and
these are largely lectures, with questions, that could
be given to a group of thirty-five; psychological
unblocking exercises, and exercises on points of style
and technique, for both of which I like the class of
twelve to fifteen; reading and criticism of the students'
own writing, which I prefer in groups of five or six

and £33 in a classroom. There are similar variations in
anything else I would teach; and I presume it is the same
for other teachers.

Throughout this book I have explained the advantages
of a strong weight of professionals on a faculty. It is
especially important in a small school composed entirely
of teachers and students in close relation and without
administrative rules, for otherwise it can become clubby,
like excellent progressive schools or like Black
Mountain College. These are lovely intentional communi-
ties, but they are not small universities; they do not
sharply turn to the world. Furthermore, if a small
school purports to be a studium generale it must have
resources available outside itself. Suppose that a
teacher teaches an elementary and a more advanced course,
taking two years; then he will want to take his students
nearer to real practice in the city, and the professionals
have access to such practice.

 

It is evident, I hope, that I am not thinking of
any particular educational experiment or ideology, like
Goddard, Antioch, Sarah Lawrence, etc., aiming at
democracy, communal living, community service, individual
development, creativity and so forth. These are fine
things. But I am proposing simply to take teaching-and-
learning in its own terms, for the students and teachers
to associate in the traditional way and according to their
existing interest, but entirely dispensing with the
external control, administration, bureaucratic machinery,
and other excrescenses that have swamped our communities
of scholars. I have no doubt that many such faculties,
of dissatisfied academics and professionals who would
like to teach, are ready in existence. At present there
is no dearth of students; but of course such academic
and professional faculties would choose the students
very strictly, perhaps unduly so.

Three problems immediately arise: (l) the
economics of the community; (2) its plant, library, and
equipment; and (3) its relation to the chartered academic
world and the rest of society, that is, the need for
accredited degrees.

 

 

 

197

(1) We are not thinking of a social experiment,
so let us pitch our prices according to the current
inflated national scale of living. This is psycho—
logically quite unrealistic (and perhaps any merely
economic discussion would be), for teachers who would
engage in such an experiment would also be less inter-
ested in the current standards; and of course, psycho—
logically committed to it, they would have to make the
experiment succeed, even if it cost them heavily
financially. The professionals would be the doctors,
lawyers, reform politicians, etc., who work too hard for
too little reward anyway. And such a faculty would find
it hard to exclude serious youngsters who could not
foot the inflated bill.

Nevertheless, since we are thinking precisely of
acting in society and or preparing professionals, we
have to take the world as it is. This is the irony of
actuality: those who want to transform a system of
society, rather than to withdraw from it or destroy it,
must operate practically within it. Our economy is
administrative and venal through and through, and there-
fore inflated; but it is only the academic administration
that we propose withdrawing from!

The relevant comparative figures are:

Median College Salaries, 1961

Professor $10,250
Associate Professor 8,200
Assistant Professor 6,900
Instructor 5,600
(Assistant Instructor,

Preceptor, etc.) 2,000-3,000

Typical College Tuition (plus fees), 1961

Cornell $ 1,600 plus 260
Dartmouth 1,550

Harvard 1,520

Columbia 1,450 plus 10

New York University 1,280 plus 100
Swarthmore 1,250 plus 150
Oberlin 1,150 plus 80

University of Chicago 1,140

Amherst 1,150 plus 110

State Colleges for Out-of-State Students, 1961

Michigan $750
Rutgers 500
California 500

North Carolina 500

 

198

Let us fix the salaries for teachers in two Opposite
ways: as a guild of teachers, and as a guild of students.
For the first, we can adOpt the national median for full
professor, $10,000. (This is, of course, lower than the
top at the great Eastern schools.) Then, the expenses
are:

Salaries $100,000
Rent (10 rooms, urban
middle-class) A 000

$10" 14", "db” ”"0

Divided among 150 students, this comes to tuition of
$685. Among 120 students, $850. This is $300-500 less
than the good liberal arts colleges, and half of the Ivy
League. It includes, of course, no extras whatever,
importantly no Medical; and there are no endowed library,
laboratories, gymnasium, stadium, which are usually,
however, paid for by the special "fees," not as "tuition."
No school provides books.

Conversely, we might assume that the students as a
guild would be satisfied to pay the tuition of an
average State university, $500 plus fees. Then,

Income from 150 students $75,000
- U 000
$471,606

Income from 120 students $60,000

Rent - A 000

This would pay each teacher $7,100, a little more than the
median for Assistant Professor, or $5,600, the median
for an Instructor.

Perhaps the teachers and students might compromise
on the median for Associate Professor, $8,200! This is
for forty weeks. And we must remember that especially
the professionals would have subsidiary income.

(2) With regard to plant and equipment, let us
envisage several possibilities. But we must keep in mind
that this is a community of scholars. It would immediately
have available for its use 10,000 to 20,000 carefully
selected books and some apparatus. Its professional
associations would give it some access to the laboratories
and equipment that the teaching professionals would happen
to be interested in.

It is simplest to think of such a little community
as located in a large city, with a municipal library, a Y,
and many available part-time professionals. On the other
hand, there are obvious charms and advantages to location
in a town and its region; nor need such places be lacking

 

199

in excellent professionals with a lively local practice.
(I do not much picture a school of this kind as isolated
in the country.)

But another possibility for providing books and
plant is to consider the small university as next to,
and unofficially adjunct to, some great university which
extends to it friendly services because it is a necessary
experiment and a source of good graduate students. The
economic independence of the community dissociates it
from the great school; the administration of the great
school has no responsibility for it whatever; yet the
secession of a small faculty need ESE mean a rupture of
friendly relations. That is, we can conceive of a free
academy set up in the neighborhood of a great university
to their mutual advantage.

Historically, this is almost familiar. In Germany,
our teachers paid directly by the students would be
recognized as Private-Docents of the University, officially
associated with it and teaching in its classrooms. What
we propose is simply the secession and association of
these Independents, so that they become again, what they
were in the beginning, regent masters of their own guild.

(3) Finally, a major difficulty of any unchartered
ad_hgc association of scholars is that it cannot grant

egrees leading to licenses. It is not to be expected,

a d it is not desirable, that young people spend their
years and money in study that does not lead to careers in
society.

An obvious possible solution is the European plan:
to have the graduates matriculate for a term in an
accredited school and pass the comprehensives. (E.g.,
the University of Chicago used to accept candidates for
comprehensives after one Quarter, three months, of
residence.) To my mind this solution has a theoretical
drawback. The comprehensives of an accredited school
must necessarily follow the curriculum of that school;
and this cannot, of course, be a determining "goal" for
the community of scholars which has been teaching—and—
1earning according to its implicit goals, without
extrinsic "motivation." But it is likely-—and perhaps
I am sanguine—-that for many of the students it would not
be difficult, after several years of good education, to
make up the usual requirements with a semester's cramming.

Far more attractive, however, would be a friendly
arrangement whereby graduate and professional schools,
that compete for good students, would accept these
students on their merits. In this case their first
accredited degree would be a master's or doctor's.2

 

 

2Community of Scholars, pp. 330—336.

 

200

3. Board Slum Kids on Farms

 

Proposal:

To board three to six slum kids of ages ten to eleven
with a marginal farmer in a depopulating area (e.g.
northern Wisconsin, northern New York, Vermont, northern
New Hampshire.)

The kids will go to a country school for an entire
year, with an option to repeat. The program is voluntary.
The farmer has no responsibility except to feed them and
not beat them. (In fact, they would take part in farm
work in most cases.) Inspection by the County Agent.

If there are five or six kids, a job could be provided
for an aged woman or man——from the city or rural locality-—
as housekeeper.

The immediate advantages are manifold:

1. To give farmers a source of cash by growing

people.

2. To cut down overcrowding in city schools and
avoid the need for building new schools for
which there is no space. (A new school for
twelve hundred in New York City costs
$2,500,000.)

3. To save the now under—used country schools in
depopulating areas. And also upgrade them.

A. Radical improvement in the education of slum
children. At present, a child of thirteen will
not have been half a mile from home in his
entire life. A radical change of environment
is far more liberating than "upgrading" the
curriculum.

5. A—H has expressed interest in the chance of
doing an exciting useful job in giving these
children a social life and introducing them to
a new world. It enables 4-H to play a vital
role in the problems of urban life.

6. Racial integration. (Preferably the kids would
be mixed Negro, Spanish, white.)

I choose ages ten and eleven in order to avoid too
early separation from even bad homes, and on the other
hand, to avoid the problems of puberty. At this age,
further, the receiving localities would have a chance to
do something for integration without having to cope with
difficult cases or emotional opposition in the community.

The program must be entirely voluntary. It should
be possible to make it clear to Negro or Puerto Rican
leaders that it is advantageous.

The hope, in the long run, is that a certain number
of children will take to the new environment, perhaps opt
for another year of it. And ultimately, that as many as
2 or 3 per cent will decide for the country as life career.

201

Rural reconstruction is possible on the basis of
helping to solve urban problems.

Costs:

Such a prOgram could really be covered by city
school systems alone. E.g. this year in New York City
it takes $700 (excluding capital costs) to keep one child
in school. Such a sum, divided between farmer and local
school, could give the farmer $1,600 for four kids (at
$A00), and the under—used school one teacher (at $6,000)
for twenty kids (at $300).

Evidently the city schools will not give up the
money, especially the State aid. Here the poverty pro-
gram—-or perhaps HEW-—can provide the difference.3

A. Mini—Schools

 

Proposal:

A demonstration of radically decentralized primary
schools (ages six to twelve), to tiny units of thirty
children and three adults.”

These can be located in store fronts on the child's
own street, or in settlement houses unused from 9 A.M. to
3 P.M. What is essential is easy passage in and out.
Given this high teacher-student ratio, there can be con-
tinuous use of the city itself as the educational back-
ground, its transit, its museums, homes, colleges,
restaurants, business offices, etc. This exposure to the
going life of middle—class society was the chief principle
of Higher Horizons during its early successful period.

By radical decentralization, we can dispense almost
entirely with administration costs and sharply diminish
capital costs. Thus available money can be spent on
teachers.

The need for many new teachers (or teaching
assistants) can be met by recruiting in the graduating
class of any university those who "like children, will
pay attention to them, show them things, and answer their
questions." Nothing more is required for primary educa-
tion. Thousands of young college graduates are eager for
such a job for a couple of years, and they are among the
most vital; but these same young people are unlikely to
take "education courses" or be willing to work in
bureaucratic school structures.

3

 

People or Personnel, pp. 199-200.

 

“In a later article Goodman altered some of the
details of this prOposal--e.g. teacher-student ratio of
7 to l. The details outlined in Chapter 7 were taken from
the Saturday Review, May 18, 1968.

 

Model:

The First Street School in the Lower East Side in
New York City is run on these principles--population one
third Negro, one third Puerto Rican, one third "white."
Teacher-pupil ratio is at present about one to seven,
yet the total cost per pupil is about equivalent to that
in the New York City public system. (This school is an
offshoot of the Sollaberg Summerhill School in Stony
Point, New York, the thought being that this free form
of education is even more desirable for the poor.)

Remarks:

Such little street schools allow for close contact
with the parents, who can be used as helpers (e.g. cook).
Also with well-disposed knowledgeable adults in the
neighborhood—-e.g. the pharmacist-—who can give special
teaching and information. It is just this interpenetra-
tion of city and school that is difficult in the official
big schools, and that makes it hard for the young to grow
up into the adult world.

Such little schools can be used to provide for the
overflow in the present system, instead of continually
building big new buildings.

For purposes of general assembly-—bringing together
several hundred children for a collective event-~the
small schools can use the auditoria of the present big
schools.

To regularize and control the small schools, each
school can have one official teacher on the usual license
(at $6,000 for forty weeks), plus two assistants (at
$4,000).5

5. Non-Scholastic Educational
Experiences

 

 

Proposal:

Instead of putting all the new capital and operating
money into new schools, I propose supporting or under-
writing existing or new non-scholastic educational environ—
ments for bright under-achieving youth. E.g. community
radio stations, local newspapers, little theaters, design
offices.

These would provide real social needs now not
economically feasible, instead of passed (or failed)
examinations by those who are not suited for the academic
environment.

 

5People or Personnel, pp. 205—206.

 

203

I am thinking of enterprises run by about six
professional and twenty to twenty-five apprentices of
ages sixteen to twenty. The apprenticeship is to serve
as an alternative to the last two years of high school
(and perhaps first year of college).

Apprentices to be paid $20 a week, in lieu of the
$1,000 a year for schooling. Enterprises to be further
helped out of the capital costs saved from new school
construction.

 

Remarks:

What is needed for such a program is an earnest
search around the country for existing small independent
enterprises that warrant supporting, e.g. country papers
that could provide a more valuable service than they do
(they are mainly Social Notes) if they had the staff.

Halleck Hoffman, the president of Pacifica radio
federation, has expressed eagerness to provide or
suggest professionals.

The program could be, in one way, regarded as a
means of upgrading the present Job Training Corps pro—
gram, providing educational opportunity for intellectually
superior youth (and being a means of desegregation).

A preferable way of looking at the program is as
aid to small businesses-~giving seed-money as part of an
educational function.

Finally, after two or three years, many such
apprentices will want to continue in college. I do not
think it would be difficult to arrange for their
admission.6

6. College for the Non—Bookish

 

Finally, to fill a bad gap in our present framework
of higher education, we need colleges for the altogether
non-bookish, who nevertheless want to be informed and
cultured citizens and to share in the experience of a
college community. A model is on hand in the remarkable
Danish Folk-Schools, where youngsters who have left
school to go to work can return between the ages of 18
and 25, to learn oral history, current events, practical
science and the politics of science, and to act plays
and play music.7

 

61bid., pp. 202—203.

7Compulsory Mis-education, p. 153.

 

209

7. Class Attendance Voluntary

 

Make class attendance not compulsory (A.S. Neill).
If the teachers are good and the subjects worthwhile,
this should soon eliminate absence. The justified reason
for the compulsory law is to get the children from the
parents, but it must not serve as a trap for the children.
A modification might be permission to spend a week or
month in any other worthwhile enterprise or environment
(Frank Brown).8

8. No School for Some

 

Have "no school at all" for a few classes. These
children should be selected from tolerable, though not
necessarily cultured, homes. They should be numerous
and neighborly enough to be a peer-society for one
another. Will they learn the rudiments anyway? The
experiment could not harm them, since there is evidence
(from Sloan Wayland of Teachers College) that normal
children can make up the first six or seven years with
a few months' good intensive teaching.9

9. Professional Schools Working
With Practitioners

 

 

The original purpose of the State universities and
the land-grant colleges was to lead their communities,
especially in the medhanical and agricultural arts. In
this function, they would be admirable centers of
administration and design of the public enterprises men-
tioned above: town improvement, broadcasting station,
rural culture, health and community service. The value
of any youth work camp depends on the worth of the project;
the departments of the University could design the pro-
jects and give university-level guidance. Conversely,
the students who come to the State universities would
have been already working in the field on these projects,
and the State universities could soft-pedal the present
compulsory academic program that wastefully leads to 50%
flunking.

By the same reasoning, the professional and
graduate schools could work far more closely with the
working professionals and industries in society, with
whom their students would already have served apprentice-
ships as adolescents. This would avoid the present

 

8The Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 24.

9Ibid., p. 23.

205

absurdity of teaching a curriculum abstracted from the
work in the field, and then licensing the graduates to
return to the field and relearn everything in terms of
the actual work. And there would be less tendency for
the contracted research that is appropriate to these
institutes and professionals to dominate the curricula
in all schools.

The liberal arts colleges, in turn, could resume
their authentic intellectual tradition of natural
philosophy, scholarship, and the humanities, without
having to flirt with either narrowly technical research
or hotel management. Academic high schools would, in
effect, be prep schools for these colleges.10

10. Useful Activities Rather Than
High School

 

 

At the high school level, directly useful real
activities would be more cultural than the average class—
room for the average youth.

The liberal economists who propose using a larger
share of production in the public sector are precisely
not thinking of employing 15—year—olds; on the contrary,

a chief motive of their plans is to diminish the unemploy—
ment of adults. But suppose, for a change, we think of
the matter directly, without political overtones: on the
one hand, there is a great amount of work that needs
doing and has been shamefully neglected; on the other
hand, there are millions of young people who could do a
lot of it and are otherwise not well occupied. Further,
it costs about $1000 a year to keep a youth in high
school (and more than $2000 in reform school); suppose

we paid this money directly to the youth as he worked on
an educative job.

Here are four great classes of youth jobs: con—
struction—-e.g. improving the scores of thousands of
ugly small towns; community service and social work--
like the Friends' Service, or working in understaffed
hospitals or as school—aides, or janitoring public housing;
assisting in the thousands of little theaters, independent
broadcasters, and local newspapers, that we need to
countervail the mass—media; and rural rehabilitation and
conservation. For educational value for a majority of
the young, I would match that curriculum against any four-
year high school.ll

 

loCompulsoryMis-education, pp. 152-153.

llIbid., p. 150.

 

206

11. Vocational Training in Industry

 

Vocational training, including much laboratory
scientific training, ought to be carried on as technical
apprenticeships within the relevant industries. Cer-
tainly the big corporations have a direct responsibility
for the future of their young, rather than simply skim-
ming off the cream of those schooled, tested, and graded
at the public expense.l2

12. Sex Education

Again, one has to be blind not to see that, from the
onset of puberty, the dissidence from school is importantly
sexual. Theoretically, the junior high school was intro—
duced to fit this change of life; yet astoundingly, it is
sexless. My own View, for what it's worth, is that
sexuality is lovely, there cannot be too much of it, it
is self—limiting it is satisfactory, and satisfaction
diminishes tension and clears the mind for attention and
learning. Therefore, sexual expression should be approved
in and out of season, also in school, and where necessary
made the subject of instruction. But whether or not this
View is correct, it certainly is more practical than the
apparent attempt of the schools to operate as if sexual
drives simply did not exist. When, on so crucial an
issue, the schools act a hundred years out of date, they
are crucially irrelevant.l3

13. Use Community Adults
in Classrooms

 

 

Along the same lines, but both outside and inside
the school building, use the adults of the community who
know something or have some other attractive virtue to
be the proper educators of the young into the grown-up
world; the druggist, the storekeeper, the mechanic, so
as to overcome the separation of the young from the grown—
up world in our urban life, and to diminish the
omnivorous authority of school teachers and school
buildings. This experience would be useful and animating
for the whole community.1u

 

12Ibid., p. 151.

13Ibid., p. 27.

luThe Society I Live In Is Mine, p. 24.

 

207

14. GI Bill for High School Students

 

Also, it is reasonable to extend the idea of the GI
Bill to the high schools: to give the school money
directly to the student to pursue any course he chooses
that is plausibly educational. This would have the
advantage of multiplying experimental schools, sorely
needed in our present monolithic system.15

15. Two Years of Some Maturing
Activity After High School
Before BeingyAdmitted to

College

First, suppose that half a dozen of the most presti—
gious liberal arts colleges-—say Amherst, Swarthmore,
Connecticut, Weslyan, Carleton, etc.-—would announce that,
beginning in 1966, they required for admission a two-
year period, after high school, spent in some maturing
activity. These colleges are at present five times
oversubscribed; they would not want for applicants on apy
conditions that they set; and they are explicitly com-
mitted to limiting their expansion.

By "maturing activity" could be meant: working for
a living, especially if the jobs are gotten without too
heavy reliance on connections; community service, such
as the Northern Student Movement, volunteer service in
hospital or settlement house, domestic Peace Corps; the
army-though I am a pacifist and would urge a youngster
to keep out of the army; a course of purposeful travel
that met required standards; independent enterprise in
art, business, or science, away from home, with something
to show for the time spent.

The purpose of this proposal is twofold; to get
students with enough life—experience to be educable on
the college level, expecially in the social sciences
and humanities; and to break the lockstep of twelve
years of doing assigned lessons for grades, so that the
student may approach his college studies with some
intrinsic motivation, and therefore perhaps assimilate
something that might change him. Many teachers remember
with nostalgia the maturer students who came under the
GI—bill, though to be sure a large number of them were
pretty shell-shocked.

A subsidiary advantage of the plan would be to
relieve the colleges of the doomed, and hypocritical,
effort to serve 13 loco parentis on matters of morality.

 

 

 

 

15PeOple or Personnel, p. 162.

 

208

If young persons have been out working for a living, or
have traveled in foreign parts, or have been in the army,
a college can assume that they can take care of them-
selves.l6

16. Support of Travel, Apprenticeships,
etc. as Educational

 

 

Most of the money now Spent for high schools and
colleges should be devoted to the support of apprentice—
ships; travel subsidized browsing in libraries and self-
directed study and research; programs such as VISTA, the
Peace Corp, Students for a Democratic Society, to the
Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee; rural
reconstruction; and work camps for projects in conserva-
tion and urban renewal. It is a vast sum of money—~but
costs almost $1,500 a year to keep a youth in a black-
board jungle in New York; the schools have become one
of our major industries. Consider one kind of opportunity.
Since it is important for the very existence of the
republic to countervail the now overwhelming national
corporate style of information, entertainment, and
research, we need scores of thousands of small independent
televisibn stations, community radio stations, local
newspapers that are more than gossip notes and ads,
community theaters, highbrow or dissenting magazines,
small design offices for neighborhood renewal that is not
bureaucratized, small laboratories for science and inven—
tion that are not centrally directed. Such enterprises '
could present admirable opportunities for bright but
unacademic young peOple to serve as apprentices.

Ideally, the polis itself is the educational environ-
ment; a good community consists of worthwhile, attractive,
and fulfilling callings and things to do, to grow up
into. The policy I am proposing tends in this direction
rather than fitted into an institutional system. I
don't know if this tailor-made approach would be harder
or easier to administer than standardization that in
fact fits nobody and results in an increasing number of
recalcitrants. On the other hand, as the Civilian
Conservation Corps showed in the Thirties, the products
of willing youth labor can be valuable even economically,
whereas accumulating Regents blue—books is worth nothing
except to the school itself.

(By and large, it is not in the adolescent years
but in later years that, in all walks of life, there is
need for academic withdrawal, periods of study and
reflection, synoptic review of the texts. The Greeks

 

l6Compulsory,Mis-Education, pp. 124—125.

 

209

understood this and regarded most of our present college
curricula as apprOpriate for only those over the age of
thirty or thirty-five. To some extent, the churches
used to provide a studious environment. We do these
things miserably in hurried conferences.)l7

l7. Reversing the Goal in Vocational
Guidance

 

Right proportion requires reversing the goal in
vocational guidance, from fitting the man to the machine
and chopping him down to fit, to finding the opportunity
in the economy that brings out the man, and if you can't
find such an opportunity, make it. This involves
encouraging new small enterprises and unblocking and
perhaps underwriting invention. Again, if at present
production is inhuman and stupid, it is that too few
minds are put to it: this can be remedied by giving
the workmen more voice in production and the kind of
training to make that voice wise.l8

 

17Saturday Review, May 18, 1968, pp. 74—75.

 

18GrowingUp Absurd, p. 232.

 

APPENDIX B

JOSEPH FEATHERSTONE'S REPORTS ON ENGLISH

EXPERIMENTAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

210

APPENDIX B

Schools for Children: What's Happening
in British Classrooms*

 

 

by Joseph Featherstone

My wife and I have just spent a month in England
visiting classes in primary schools, talking to children
and teachers. Friends told us about good things happen-
ing in British classrooms, but we were scarcely prepared
for what we found; in recent decades there has been a
profound and sweeping revolution in English primary
education, involving new ways of thinking about how
young children learn, classroom organization, the cur-
riculum and the role of the teacher. We saw schools in
some good local educational authorities: Bristol,
Nottingham, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire and a few serving
immigrant areas in cities like London.

Primary schools divide into "infant" and "junior"
schools. Much of this report will focus on the infant
schools, which take children from the age of five to seven,
and in some authorities eight. (As in Israel, children
begin compulsory schooling at the early age of five in
England.) It is in the infant schools that people learn
to read and write and to work with numbers. Junior
schools take children from seven or eight to 11, when
they go on to secondary school. Infant and junior
schools sometimes occupy the same building, and some
authorities——Oxfordshire, for example—~have a policy of
putting them together in one unit, like an American
elementary school.

It is important to understand that what goes on in
the good infant schools is much the same. The approach
is similar, though the quality of teaching and children's
work varies greatly.

Westfield Infant School is a one—story structure,
like any of a thousand American buildings, on a working-
class housing estate in Leicestershire. If you arrive

 

*
New Republic, August 19, 1967.

 

211

212

early, you find a number of children already inside,
reading, writing, painting, playing music, tending to
pets. Teachers sift in slowly, and begin working with
students. Apart from a religious assembly (required by
English law) it's hard to say just when school actually
begins, because there is very little organized activity
for a whole class to do together. The puzzled visitor
sees some small group work in mathematics ("maths")

or reading, but mostly children are on their own, moving
aboUt and talking quite freely. The teacher sometimes
sits at her desk,and the children flock to her for con-
sultations, but more often she moves about the room,
advising on projects, listening to children read,
asking questions, giving words, talking, sometimes
prodding.

The hallways, which are about the size of those in
our schools, are filled with busy children, displays of
paintings and graphs, a play grocery store where children
use play money and learn to count, easels, tables for
collections of shells and plants, workbenches on which
to pound and hammer nails and boards, big wooden boxes
full of building blocks.

Classrooms Open out onto the playground, which is
also much in use. A contingent of children is kneeling
on the grass, clocking the speed of a tortoise, which
they want to graph against the speeds of other pets and
people. Nearby are five-year-olds, finishing an intricate,
tall tower of blocks, triumphantly counting as they add
the last one, "23, 24." A solitary boy is mixing powders
for paint; on a large piece of paper attached to an easel,
with very big strokes, he makes an ominous, stylized
building that seems largely to consist of black shutters
framing deep red windows. "It's the hospital where my
brother is," he explains, and pulls the visitor over to
the class-library corner, where a picture book discusses
hospitals. He can't read it yet (he's five), but says
he is trying. And he is; he can make out a number of
words, some pretty hard, on different pages, and it is
clear that he has been studying the book, because he
wants badly to know about hospitals. At another end of
the hall there is a quieter library nook for the whole
school. Here two small boys are reading aloud; the
better reader is, with indifferent grace, correcting the
grateful slower boy as he stumbles over words.

The rooms are fairly noisy-~more noisy than many
American teachers or principals would allow--because
children can talk freely. Sometimes the teacher has to
ask for quiet. With as many as 40 in some classes,
rooms are crowded and accidents happen. Paint spills,

a tub overflows, there are recriminations. Usually the
children mop up and work resumes.

213

The visitor is dazed by the amount and variety and
fluency of the free writing produced: stories, free-verse
poems, with intricate images, precise accounts of experi-
ments in "maths" and, finally, looking over a tiny little
girl's shoulder, he finds: "Today we had visitors from
America. . . ."

After a time, you overcome your confusion at the
sheer variety of it all, and you begin making more definite
observations. The physical layout of the classrooms is
markedly different from ours. American teachers are coming
to appreciate the importance of a flexible room, but even
in good elementary schools this usually means having
movable, rather than fixed, desks. In these classes
there are no individual desks, and assigned places.

Around the room (which is about the size of one of ours)
there are different tables for different kinds of
activities: art, water and sand play, number work. (The
number tables have all kinds of number lines--strips of
paper with numbers marked on them in sequence on which
children learn to count and reason mathematically--beads,
buttons and odd things to count; weights and balances;
dry and liquid measures; and a rich variety of apparatus
for learning basic mathematical concepts, some of it home-
made, some ready—made. The best of the commercial
materials were familiar: Cuisenaire rods, the Dienes
multibase material, Stern rods and attribute or logical
blocks. This sort of thing is stressed much more than
formal arithmetic.)

Gradually it becomes clear how the day proceeds in
one of these rooms. In many infant and some junior
schools the choice of the day's routine is left completely
up to the teacher, and the teacher, in turn, leaves options
open to the children. Classes for young children, the
visitor learns, are reaching a point in many schools where
there is no real difference between one subject in the
curriculum and another, or even between work and play. A
school day run on these lines is called, variously, the
"free day," the "integrated curriculum," or the "integrated
day." The term scarcely matters.

In a school that operates with a free day, the
teacher usually starts in the morning by listing the dif-
ferent activities available. A lot of rich material is
needed, according to the teachers, but the best stuff is
often homemade; and, in any case, it isn't necessary to
have 30 or 40 sets of everything, because most activities
are for a limited number of people. "Six children can
play in the Wendy House," says a sign in one classroom.
The ground rules are that they must clean up when they
finish, and they mustn't bother others.

214

A child might spend the day on his first choice,
or he might not. Many teachers confess they get nervous
if everybody doesn't do some reading and writing every
day; others are committed in principle to letting children
choose freely. In practice, a lot of teachers give work
when they think its‘needed. In this, as in any other way
of doing things, teachers tailor their styles to their
own temperament and the kind of children they have. But
the extent to which children really have a choice and
really work purposefully is astonishing.

How they learn reading offers a clear example of
the kind of individual learning and teaching going on in
these classrooms, even in quite large ones. (The mathe-
matics work shows this even better, but I'll talk of math
in another context.) Reading is not particularly
emphasized, and my purpose in singling it out is purely
illustrative, though the contrast between English classes
and most American ones, where reading is a formidable
matter, is vivid and depressing.

At first it is hard to say just how they do learn
reading, since there are no separate subjects. A part
of the answer slowly becomes clear, and it surprises
American visitors used to thinking of the teacher as the
generating force of education: children learn from each
other. They hang around the library corners long before
they can read, handling the books, looking at pictures,
trying to find words they do know, listening and watching
as the teacher hears other children's reading. It is
common to see nonreaders Studying people as they read,
and they imitating them, monkey doing what monkey sees.
Nobody makes fun of their grave parodies; and for good
reasons.

A very small number of schools in two or three
authorities have adopted what they call "family," or
"vertical," grouping, which further promotes the idea of
children teaching children. In these schools, each class
is a cross-section of the whole school's population, all
ages mixed together. This seems particularly successful
in the early school years, when newcomers are easily ab-
sorbed, and older children help teach the young ones to
clean up and take first steps in reading. Family grouping
needs smaller classes, teachers say, because it requires
close supervision to make sure small children don't get
overshadowed and big ones are still challenged. Teachers
using it swear by the flexibility it provides.

Teachers use a range of reading schemes, sight
reading, phonics, and so forth, whatever seems to work
with a child. (Only about five percent of English schools
use the Initial Teaching Alphabet, an improved alphabet,
not a method of reading, that has proved successful with
poor readers and adults both in England and in this
country; heads of good schools we visited thought that ITA

215

was unnecessary with a truly flexible reading program,
but that in a rigid scheme, it gave the slow reader
another chance, and thus a break.) . . .

Increasingly, in the good infant schools, there are
no textbooks and no class readers. There are just books,
in profusion. Instead of spending their scanty book
money on 40 sets of everything, wise schools have pur-
chased different sets of reading series, as well as a
great many single books, at all levels of difficulty.
Teachers arrange their classroom libraries so they can
direct students of different abilities to appropriate
books, but in most classes a child can tackle anything
he wants. As a check, cautious teachers ask them to go
on their own through a graded reading series-~which one
doesn't matter.

As a rule, teachers don't pay much attention to
accuracy or neatness until a child is well on in his
writing. They introduce grammar and spelling after a time,
but not as separate subjects or ends in themselves: they
are simply ways to say what you want better and more
efficiently. Under these methods, where the children
choose the content of their writing, there seems in fact
to be more attention paid to content than externals, such
as punctuation, spelling and grammar. In the good schools,
these are presented as what they are, living ways to get
a meaning across, to be understood. Even some unimaginative
teachers, who quibble with children about other work, can
respect the content of the free writing books and take it
seriously. This emphasis on self—chosen content has pro—
duced a flowering of young children's literature in
schools working with many kinds of teachers and children.
There is growing recognition that different people
flourish on different kinds of writing; storytellers and
poets are not necessarily the same as those who can do
elegant and graceful writing about matehmatics. Impres—
sive examples of free writing and poetry similar to what
we saw are contained in the West Riding Education Com-
mittee's anthology, The Excitement of Writing. Samples
of "maths" writing are included in the Schools Council's
Mathematics in the Primary Schools, a wonderfully
instructive book on many accounts. Books made and illus-
trated by the children are coming to be a regular part of
the curriculum in some schools.

 

 

But my purpose was to show not reading, but the
changed role of the classroom teacher. Formal classroom
teaching--the instructor standing up front, talking to the
group, or even the first-grade room divided up into
reading groups which the teacher listens to separately
as she tries desperately to keep order--has disappeared

216

from many infant and a number of junior schools. It has
disappeared because it is inflexible, because it imposes

a single pattern of learning on a whole group of children--
thus forcing the schools to "track," or to group classes

by ability--because it ignores the extent to which children
teach each other, and because in many workaday schools
other methods are working better. Ordinary teachers,
trained formally, take to the new role when they can

see with their own eyes that the result is not chaos. . . .

These methods mean more work for the teacher, not
less. In informal conditions, it is essential for the
teacher to keep detailed and accurate accounts of what
a child is learning, even though at any given moment she
might not know what he's up to. Children help by keeping
their own records: in some schools, they have private
shelves where they store writing books, accounts of
experiments and work in "maths," lists of the books they've
read, and dates when they checked in with the teacher to
read aloud. If American parents could ever see some of
the detailed histories kept of each child's separate path,
including his art work, they would feel, quite rightly,
that a report card is a swindle.

When the class seldom meets as a unit, when children
work independently, discipline is less of a problem. It
does not disappear as a problem, but it becomes less
paramount. The purposeful self-discipline of these
children is, we were told, just as surprising to middle-
aged Englishmen as it is to Americans. It is a recent
development, and by no means the product of luck: much
hard work and thought go into the arrangement of these
classrooms and their rich materials. When they work at
it, teachers find they can make time during the day for
children who need it. "I can give all my attention to
a child for five minutes, and that's worth more to him
than being part of a sea of faces all day," said a teacher
in an East London School overlooking the docks. Other
teachers say they can watch children as they work and
ask them questions; there is a better chance of finding
out what children really understand.

What we saw is no statistical sample. The practices
of the good schools we visited in different kinds of com-
munities are not universal; but there are reasons for
thinking that they are no longer strikingly exceptional.
The schools we saw are, for the most part, staffed by
ordinary teachers; they are not isolated experiments,
run by cranks and geniuses. A government advisory
body--the Plowden Committee--published a massive, and to
American eyes, a radical report early this year, in which
it indicated that about a third of England's 23,000 pri-
mary schools have been deeply influenced by the new
ideas and methods, that another third are stirring under

217

their impact, and that the remaining third are still
teaching along the formal lines of British schools in
the thirties, and of American schools now.

0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

How Children Learn*

 

by Joseph Featherstone

There is no doubt that this remarkable report cele-
brates a fairly recent change. Until not long ago, heads
of many schools could point to a chart in their office
showing what each class was doing every minute of the week,
and the number of minutes spent on each subject. (English,
for example, being divided up into periods for spelling,
grammar, exercises, composition, recitation, reading,
handwriting, and so on.) It is obvious, as the Plowden
Report tartly points out, "that this arrangement was not
suited to what was known of the nature of children,of the
classification of subject matter, or of the art of
teaching."

The characteristic innovations of the primary school
revolution were first worked out by a number of infant
schools much influenced by practices in progressive nursery
schools, whose teachers, in turn, had been absorbing the
ideas of thinkers like Montessori, Susan Isaacs, Dewey

and Piaget.

Another element in the reform was a different empha-
sis in the work of the HMI's (government inspectors). As
long as the inspectors acted as educational policemen,
making the schools toe the mark, their effect over the
years was to dampen innovation. But as their role took
on more and more of an advisory character, they became
important agents for disseminating new ideas. There is
a clear moral here: external rules enforced from without
not only have little positive effect on schools, but they
tend to make their practices rigidify through fear.

Where government and local inspectors have ceased inspect—
ing and taken up advising, the results have been excellent.
Some of the lively authorities, such as Leicestershire,

set up distinct advisory offices, with no administrative
responsibilities except to spread ideas and train teachers
in new methods.

 

*
New Republic, September 2, 1967.

 

 

218

Some of the most important assumptions are that a
great majority of primary school children can't just be
told things, that they learn basic mathematical concepts
much more slowly than adults realize, and that the patterns
of abstract thought used in mathematics must be built up
from layer after layer of direct experience--seeing,
hearing, feeling, smelling.

And yet there is a growing respect for Piaget's general out-
line of the stages of a child's development, based on
experience in teaching mathematics. Whether or not his
theories are ultimately accepted as true, it is clear that
he and other developmental theorists have pushed British
schools in directions that are pedagogically sound,
toward an understanding that abstract concepts and words
are hard for children, that children learn best from their
own activity, and that they need time in which to grow.
Hence the belief of the good infant schools that what
adults call play is a principal means of learning in child-
hood, a belief that seems more plausible when you consider
how much children learn without formal instruction in the
years before they come to school. Hence the sand and
water tables, the rich variety of number apparatus, the
clay, the wood, the geometric shapes to play with, the
weights and balances, the Wendy Houses, and the dress-up
clothes (to explore adult roles, as well as the materials
that make up the world); hence, too, the conviction that
a classroom should offer myriads of rich activities to
choose from, that allowing children to repeat activities
is often good, and that language and experience should
link together in conversations among children and with
the teacher.

0 O O O O C O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

The approach is mathematical--stressing learning to
think--rather than arithmetical, stressing mechanical com—
putation. Rote learning and memorizing have been abandoned
by good British primary schools, partly because they are
dull, but more because they are poor ways to learn. It
is assumed as a matter of course that children will pro-
ceed each at a different pace, doing different things.

The idea of readiness is seldom used as a justification
for holding a child back——a sure sign that Piaget's influ—
ence has been creative, rather than restrictive, since

his theories could be used that way. The results of

these practices—-in perfectly measurable or in less
tangible terms--are striking. By giving children an
opportunity to explore and experiment--play if you will--
and by putting teachers in a position where they can

watch children and talk to them about what puzzles or
intrigues them, good British primary schools are producing

219

classes where mathematics is a pleasure, and where, each
year, there are fewer and fewer mathematical illiterates.

Teaching Children to Think*

 

by Joseph Featherstone

As samples of the kind of learning that goes on, I've
described how children learn to read and write, and the
careful way in which they are introduced to mathematics.
These methods, I've indicated, are successful in fairly
measurable, as well as other, terms. They are not
guaranteed to make bad teachers, or people who dislike
children, into good teachers. But they are more suited
than formal methods to the nature of small children and
to the kinds of subjects that should be taught in primary
school; and they encourage many ordinary teachers, who
find that they are happier using them and less likely to
spend all their time worrying about keeping order. Such
methods assume that children can respond to courteous
treatment by adults, and that to a great extent they
can be trained to take the initiative in learning, if
choices are real, and if a rich variety of material is
offered them. As the Plowden Report concedes, these
assumptions are not true for all children (some will
probably always benefit more from formal teaching) or
for every child all of the time. But the Plowden Report
is itself testimony to a growing conviction in Britain
that they can be a workable basis for an entire nation's
schools.

Some American teachers who have seen the spectacle
of children in British classes working diligently on their
own have raised another question: they have wondered
whether British children are fundamentally different from
American children. Certainly British grown-ups are
different from Americans, and there may well be important
differences in national character. Yet middle-aged
English visitors to the informal schools often react with
the same disbelief as Americans: they find it hard to
credit British children with so much initiative and so
much responsibility. Also, formal schools in Britain
suffer from discipline problems, so it is hard to know
how to speculate intelligently on the question. American
teachers working on their own—-and how lonely they seem--

 

*
New Rppublic, September 9, 1967.

 

 

220

have often succeeded with methods similar to those of
the good British primary schools: a forthcoming book
by Herbert Kohl describes a sixth-grade class in Harlem
run along fairly free lines——he includes some extra-
ordinarily powerful samples of the children's free
writing. A British teacher from one of the good local
authorities recently came over to a large American city
to teach a demonstration class of 8 to ll-year-olds in
a slum: school. Before he went, he was assured--by
Americans—-he would find American children as different
from British as day is from night. Yet, he reported,
the children reacted exactly as English children to a
classroom thoughtfully laid out to permit choices. At
first, the American children couldn't believe he meant
what he said. After a timid start, they began rushing
around the room, trying to sample everything fast, as
though time were going to run out on them. Then they
"settled remarkably quickly to study in more depth and
to explore their environment with interest and enthusiasm.‘
The teacher noticed that for the first two weeks no one
did any written English or math, and when he asked them
why, they said they hated those subjects. Eventually
he got more and more of the class interested in free
writing, but he never could get them interested in
mathematics.

0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O C O

'

Thus in American public schools, with a few notable
exceptions, what we call progressive education was never
tried. Progressive education in practice meant secondary
education for all, and, perhaps, more educational oppor-
tunity; more courses, especially in high school, of the
life-adjustment variety; more emphasis on extracurricular
activities; more grouping by ability and emphasis on
testing; some "project work" that was no doubt a welcome
relief from the textbooks; some more or less important
changes in the textbooks themselves; reform in the manage—
ment of the schools, often based on the inappropriate
models from the world of business.

This is the point: we lack convincing alternatives,
actual classrooms that people could go and see, that
teachers could work in, functioning schools that would
demonstrate to the public and to educators the kind of
learning I've described in this series. They must be
institutions that can develop and grow over time, not
just demonstration classes. (New York City has tried
out every good idea in educational history: once.) To
make any impact, these schools will have to be very dif-
ferent from private experiments of the 20's and the 30's,
with their ideological confusions and their indifference
to public education. The temptation is to say we need

 

221

many such schools, and we probably do. But a tiny number
of infant schools pioneered the changes in the British
schools, and it is probable that careful work on a small
scale is the way to start a reform worth having, whatever
our grandiose educational reformers might say. In the
end, you always return to a teacher in a classroom full
of children. That is the proper locus of a revolution

in the primary schools.

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