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Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd was a runaway best seller when it was first published in 1960, and it became one of the defining texts of the New Left. Goodman was a writer and thinker who broke every mold and did it brilliantly—he was a novelist, poet, and a social theorist, among a host of other things—and the book’s surprise success established him as one of America’s most unusual and trenchant critics, combining vast learning, an astute mind, utopian sympathies, and a wonderfully hands-on way with words.
For Goodman, the unhappiness of young people was a concentrated form of the unhappiness of American society as a whole, run by corporations that provide employment (if and when they do) but not the kind of meaningful work that engages body and soul. Goodman saw the young as the first casualties of a humanly repressive social and economic system and, as such, the front line of potential resistance.
Noam Chomsky has said, “Paul Goodman’s impact is all about us,” and certainly it can be felt in the powerful localism of today’s renascent left. A classic of anarchist thought, Growing Up Absurd not only offers a penetrating indictment of the human costs of corporate capitalism but points the way forward. It is a tale of yesterday’s youth that speaks directly to our common future.
For Goodman, the unhappiness of young people was a concentrated form of the unhappiness of American society as a whole, run by corporations that provide employment (if and when they do) but not the kind of meaningful work that engages body and soul. Goodman saw the young as the first casualties of a humanly repressive social and economic system and, as such, the front line of potential resistance.
Noam Chomsky has said, “Paul Goodman’s impact is all about us,” and certainly it can be felt in the powerful localism of today’s renascent left. A classic of anarchist thought, Growing Up Absurd not only offers a penetrating indictment of the human costs of corporate capitalism but points the way forward. It is a tale of yesterday’s youth that speaks directly to our common future.
313 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1960
About the author
Paul Goodman
218 books120 followersPaul Goodman was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the arts, civil rights, decentralization, democracy, education, media, politics, psychology, technology, urban planning, and war. As a humanist and self-styled man of letters, his works often addressed a common theme of the individual citizen's duties in the larger society, and the responsibility to exercise autonomy, act creatively, and realize one's own human nature.
Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Goodman was raised by his aunts and sister and attended City College of New York. As an aspiring writer, he wrote and published poems and fiction before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He returned to writing in New York City and took sporadic magazine writing and teaching jobs, several of which he lost for his overt bisexuality and World War II draft resistance. Goodman discovered anarchism and wrote for libertarian journals. His radicalism was rooted in psychological theory. He co-wrote the theory behind Gestalt therapy based on Wilhelm Reich's radical Freudianism and held psychoanalytic sessions through the 1950s while continuing to write prolifically.
His 1960 book of social criticism, Growing Up Absurd, established his importance as a mainstream, antiestablishment cultural theorist. Goodman became known as "the philosopher of the New Left" and his anarchistic disposition was influential in 1960s counterculture and the free school movement. Despite being the foremost American intellectual of non-Marxist radicalism in his time, his celebrity did not endure far beyond his life. Goodman is remembered for his utopian proposals and principled belief in human potential.
Born to a Jewish family in New York City, Goodman was raised by his aunts and sister and attended City College of New York. As an aspiring writer, he wrote and published poems and fiction before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago. He returned to writing in New York City and took sporadic magazine writing and teaching jobs, several of which he lost for his overt bisexuality and World War II draft resistance. Goodman discovered anarchism and wrote for libertarian journals. His radicalism was rooted in psychological theory. He co-wrote the theory behind Gestalt therapy based on Wilhelm Reich's radical Freudianism and held psychoanalytic sessions through the 1950s while continuing to write prolifically.
His 1960 book of social criticism, Growing Up Absurd, established his importance as a mainstream, antiestablishment cultural theorist. Goodman became known as "the philosopher of the New Left" and his anarchistic disposition was influential in 1960s counterculture and the free school movement. Despite being the foremost American intellectual of non-Marxist radicalism in his time, his celebrity did not endure far beyond his life. Goodman is remembered for his utopian proposals and principled belief in human potential.
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January 4, 2025
VLADIMIR: Well, shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.
(They do not move.)
- WAITING FOR GODOT.
Alienation starts in seeing our Otherness. So we HAVE NO CHOICE: we MUST GROW into this Otherness.
It is the Only way we get to truly know Ourselves. And grow OUT of our Alienation.
Back when we were 16, my friend Ian and I knew we were surrounded by rhinoceroses.
We had sneaked a copy of a book by Eugene Ionesco backstage on the opening night of our high school Spring variety show.
I don't know if they heard us laughing uproariously in the front row of the audience, but we really didn't care.
For we had rediscovered the Absurd.
Ian had been a neighbour and friend since we were in Grade Five, and we later defended, together, the increasingly unpopular moral stand against Sunday shopping in a class debate in Grade Seven.
At that time we both still had our parents’ values!
Ian later went on to become a mainly unemployed artist. He passed away in a road accident several years ago - still struggling mightily against conformity, even though his ideals had long since vanished.
Sometimes actions committed in childhood innocence can have severe repercussions. Such is especially the case at that precarious Bridge Too Far we call coming of age.
The more sophisticated judgements of the adult world can throw young lives into a horrible tailspin, because of their non-intentional harm. That can later result in a Good - or a Bad - Life, depending on your reaction.
So the Absurd - in all its cruelty - is born.
That must have happened to Ian as well as to myself later on, as it does to so many.
But I remember so clearly the incident that made us fast childhood chums...
I was leaving my Grade Five classroom to walk home after a major snowstorm. Trudging through the drifts, I spotted Ian - an unfamiliar face then - sitting obediently in a snowbank. Over him there hulked the form of one of the school bullies.
Taking a positive tone, I asked the bully why he had done such a cowardly thing. He immediately grabbed me and threw me next to Ian...
Well, the bully said we would have to stay there till nightfall. No one would help us. But when he finally left, our outrage turned to laughter as we both found the other side of the Absurd - its hilarity.
The Absurd cemented our friendship.
I went on to a steady, pensionable career after graduation, working out what personal redemption I could find in my reading and my faith.
The difference between us?
I had found hope.
Ian had found "resistance, rebellion and death." I remembered him not long afterwards in a memorial Mass.
You can't fight the rhinoceroses of conformity by fighting the Absurd. The existentialist playwrights were wrong on that count.
Those rhinoceroses wear heavy body armour and have some pretty tough customers working as enforcers for them, and we don't.
On our road to personal peace - as well as a wider, more pervasive humanity - if we don't have some kind of transcendent hope, we may not make it to our journey's end.
We need to keep our dreams intact.
Paul Goodman wrote this symptomatic classic in 1960, and it is still valid - though it's now a vapid, well-worn theme.
But Goodman shared the secret with us kids back then. Alienation was not a valid expression for our parents, but...
Alienation is a part of OUR lives.
Transcend it, or be buried by it. Discover and nourish the life that still lives within you, or be swallowed alive by the long and vacuous disquiet of a living death.
But alienation happens only to the moral remnant of humanity - it happens only when the glowing coals of the spirit refuse to be conquered by the blind and amoral majority...
Paul Goodman, to us boomer kids, was someone we could trust.
But you know, nowadays when my wife and I walk through our familiar neighbourhood, we no longer see the old, familiar rhinoceroses.
No - they have been replaced by beautiful, fallible, wounded and broken human beings like the rest of us.
And what Goodman couldn’t give us, Faith did...
A wonderfully clear Vision of redeemed humanity.
ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.
(They do not move.)
- WAITING FOR GODOT.
Alienation starts in seeing our Otherness. So we HAVE NO CHOICE: we MUST GROW into this Otherness.
It is the Only way we get to truly know Ourselves. And grow OUT of our Alienation.
Back when we were 16, my friend Ian and I knew we were surrounded by rhinoceroses.
We had sneaked a copy of a book by Eugene Ionesco backstage on the opening night of our high school Spring variety show.
I don't know if they heard us laughing uproariously in the front row of the audience, but we really didn't care.
For we had rediscovered the Absurd.
Ian had been a neighbour and friend since we were in Grade Five, and we later defended, together, the increasingly unpopular moral stand against Sunday shopping in a class debate in Grade Seven.
At that time we both still had our parents’ values!
Ian later went on to become a mainly unemployed artist. He passed away in a road accident several years ago - still struggling mightily against conformity, even though his ideals had long since vanished.
Sometimes actions committed in childhood innocence can have severe repercussions. Such is especially the case at that precarious Bridge Too Far we call coming of age.
The more sophisticated judgements of the adult world can throw young lives into a horrible tailspin, because of their non-intentional harm. That can later result in a Good - or a Bad - Life, depending on your reaction.
So the Absurd - in all its cruelty - is born.
That must have happened to Ian as well as to myself later on, as it does to so many.
But I remember so clearly the incident that made us fast childhood chums...
I was leaving my Grade Five classroom to walk home after a major snowstorm. Trudging through the drifts, I spotted Ian - an unfamiliar face then - sitting obediently in a snowbank. Over him there hulked the form of one of the school bullies.
Taking a positive tone, I asked the bully why he had done such a cowardly thing. He immediately grabbed me and threw me next to Ian...
Well, the bully said we would have to stay there till nightfall. No one would help us. But when he finally left, our outrage turned to laughter as we both found the other side of the Absurd - its hilarity.
The Absurd cemented our friendship.
I went on to a steady, pensionable career after graduation, working out what personal redemption I could find in my reading and my faith.
The difference between us?
I had found hope.
Ian had found "resistance, rebellion and death." I remembered him not long afterwards in a memorial Mass.
You can't fight the rhinoceroses of conformity by fighting the Absurd. The existentialist playwrights were wrong on that count.
Those rhinoceroses wear heavy body armour and have some pretty tough customers working as enforcers for them, and we don't.
On our road to personal peace - as well as a wider, more pervasive humanity - if we don't have some kind of transcendent hope, we may not make it to our journey's end.
We need to keep our dreams intact.
Paul Goodman wrote this symptomatic classic in 1960, and it is still valid - though it's now a vapid, well-worn theme.
But Goodman shared the secret with us kids back then. Alienation was not a valid expression for our parents, but...
Alienation is a part of OUR lives.
Transcend it, or be buried by it. Discover and nourish the life that still lives within you, or be swallowed alive by the long and vacuous disquiet of a living death.
But alienation happens only to the moral remnant of humanity - it happens only when the glowing coals of the spirit refuse to be conquered by the blind and amoral majority...
Paul Goodman, to us boomer kids, was someone we could trust.
But you know, nowadays when my wife and I walk through our familiar neighbourhood, we no longer see the old, familiar rhinoceroses.
No - they have been replaced by beautiful, fallible, wounded and broken human beings like the rest of us.
And what Goodman couldn’t give us, Faith did...
A wonderfully clear Vision of redeemed humanity.
January 11, 2026
I never read the artist's aim so clearly (and, in my mind, accurately) stated:
"All men are creative but few are artists. Art making requires a peculiar psychotic disposition. Let me formulate the artistic disposition as follows: it is reacting with one's ideal to the flaw in oneself and in the world, and somehow making that reaction formation solid enough in the medium so that it indeed becomes an improved bit of real world for others. This is an unusual combination of psychological machinery and talents, and those who, having it, go on to appoint themselves to such a thankless vocation, are rarer still." (p. 160, new nyrb edition)
"All men are creative but few are artists. Art making requires a peculiar psychotic disposition. Let me formulate the artistic disposition as follows: it is reacting with one's ideal to the flaw in oneself and in the world, and somehow making that reaction formation solid enough in the medium so that it indeed becomes an improved bit of real world for others. This is an unusual combination of psychological machinery and talents, and those who, having it, go on to appoint themselves to such a thankless vocation, are rarer still." (p. 160, new nyrb edition)
September 8, 2007
Parts of this are still compelling -- and still apply! -- but other bits are really marred by Goodman's major blind spot, his sexism. Nonetheless -- as an interpretation of why America is such a weird, sad, difficult place to grow up, sometimes, despite all the good things we have going for us, this is worth reading.
May 22, 2024
It is the missed revolutions of modern times--the fallings-short and the compromises--that add up to the conditions that make it hard for the young to grow up in our society.
Goodman defines tour de force with this masterful analysis of late 1950s U.S. society as perceived through the eyes of the youth of his day. His question: what are the roots of juvenile delinquency as defined in the State of New York. His answer (this book) went wider and deeper than the governor expected...
A note: Writing when he did, Goodman'sessay analysis exposition plain language deconstruction reflects the patriarchal view that girls and women should aspire only to motherhood and the like. An opinion that would be lamentable today. But it's an easy fix to program one's opticals to translate 'boys' and other masculine identifiers as 'youth' or any other suitably inclusive term you like. Nearly every observation here is just as applicable to us all--then and now--regardless of one's chromosome and/or inclination situation, so I find it ridiculous that any serious reader would dismiss or downgrade a work of such great value to society simply because Paul thought the patriarchal nuclear family of his childhood was perhaps best-suited to raise mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy young people. We now know the patriarchy bit does unfathomable harm, as does other abuse of power. Paul may have had a difficult time imagining things organized differently. Move on.
If we look for perfection in our social prophets (for lack of a better term for folks like Goodman; morons know them only as 'cranks') we will go no where, right where the 1% want us. Goodman was full of flaws but was widely read while still alive. A popular social critic who espoused basically the anarchist ideal. In 1959.
What happened!? How did we go from there to 2024 when private equity controls the water, the trains, and the very atmosphere; when bribery is legal everywhere; when democracy has never been more of a farce, worse even than what our parents knew as a corrupt, exploitative, commerce-driven model? We're waiting for the perfect spokesperson?
Disregarding foundational, apolitical, norm-shattering, humanist, and widely-appealing anarchist critiques because of the flaws of those who brought them to light... the intellectual equivalent of selling the rights to spare room in one's cranium for a library card. Goodman should be studied carefully as we work towards rebuilding after the inevitable final capitalist meltdown. We've not even begun to address the problems that gave us 2007-8, and the dickheads in finance have trebled their (our) total risk since. It's almost like it was planned this way, but there's never been any conspiracy required when the worst behavior is rewarded richly while the best is marginalized and made homeless.
We find ourselves with an imposed system that funnels the most ruthless, corruptible, and rapacious people right to the top of the socio-economic-political pyramid. We (they) have achieved the point where $1 is exactly equivalent to 1x the power of an individual voice in society--before leverage, of course. The marginal expected return in socio-economic-political power from an additional $1 invested in an elected government official or the industrial ecosystem built off the crumbs will of course always yield more power than an additional $1 in the things we think SHOULD give one purpose, belonging and standing in society, such as public service, mutual aid and productive activity of any kind.
Goodman calls this funnelling, which has largely replaced rational human social relations, the "Rat Race", a term which endures today I believe but anecdotally would say is under-used. Youth are, through schooling, shown the Rat Race and told that it's being held in a locked room: there is no alternative to the Rat Race if you want to succeed/progress/rise/improve your lot in life, etc. The only other option is to join the bums.
Facing this impossible choice--run the Rat Race or live on the streets with the rats' namesakes--what rational person wouldn't choose a life of petty non-crime such as sleeping on the street and seeking human kindness on street corners? Or worse, of course, if so inclined or desperate enough. This is Goodman's reasoned response to the question of why some youth chose 'delinquency'.
We need an entirely new deal for our children and grandchildren. The room is not locked and the Rat Race need not be run.
Notes:
- A synthesis of anarchist utopianism with unabashed cultural conservatism. Goodman was humanist intellectual left, espoused communitarian anarchism, decried the elevation of consumption over satisfying work. Basically my 1932-born pops, if he had done more than a semester of university before dropping out to build swimming pools and houses.
8. We live increasingly, then, in a system in which little direct attention is paid to the object, the function, the program, the task, the need; but immense attention to the role, procedure, prestige, and profit. We don't get the shelter and education because not enough mind is paid to those things.
26. American society has tried so hard and so ably to defend the practice and theory of production for profit and not primarily for use that now it has succeeded in making its jobs and products profitable and useless. (like insurance...)
31. Teaching: Naturally the pay is low--for the work is hard, useful, and of public concern, all three of which qualities tend to bring lower pay. (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
The best teachers are not wanted by the system, for they are not safe.
- Bright youth who are not drawn to the arts of sciences--go into sales, advertising, entertainment, business management, banking, finance. None of these have utility or honor to begin with, leaving these youth to think: During my productive years I will spend eight (12) hours a day doing what is no good.
39. Most youth are faced with this reality: Either 1. Society is a benevolently frivolous racket in which they'll manage to boondoggle, or 2. Society is serious but they (youth) are useless and hopelessly out.
41. ...to want a job that exercises a [person]'s capacities in an enterprise useful to society is utopian anarcho-syndicalism. ;->
53. Delinquent behavior asks for manly opportunities to work, make a little money, and have self esteem; to have space to bang around in, that is not always somebody's property; to have better schools to open for them horizons of interest; to have more and better sex without fear or shame; to share somehow in the symbolic goods (like the cars) that are made so much of; to have a community and a country to be loyal to; to claim attention and have a voice. These are not outlandish demands.
57. Angry Middle-Aged Man, disappointed but not resigned.
84. The Hipster and the Confidence Man - roles and behaviors defined.
92. A [person] has only one life and if during it [they have] no great environment, no community, [they have] been irreparably robbed of a human right.
98. What is the effect on our people when they are told that our chief newspaper does not print the news?
106. more pride of country is engendered by a single good decision or powerful dissenting opinion than by billions of repetitions of the pledge of allegiance.
116. (I am writing this equably and satirically, but the stupidity of these people is outrageous)
134. ...it is the essence of the organized system to sit on its behind and take no risks, and let the tabulator do the work, and strengthen its own position by incestuously staffing itself, and THEN fostering the lie that outside of the system nothing exists.
We are so out of touch with real work that, in America, a dean is superior to a professor and a board of trustees or regents is superior to a faculty. The editor knows more than the author, the publisher knows better than both. Everything naturally sounds alike.
139. Very few great men could pass personnel.
the public schools are, effectually, to be used as apprentice training grounds for the monopolies and the armed forces.
Two broad groups of bright young people:
1. Those wasted in the Rat Race.
147. So the Rat Race is run desperately by bright fellows who do not believe in it.(Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
2. Those increasingly unused and thwarted as independents.
a. the Early Resigned - e.g. the Beats
b. the Early Fatalistic - juvenile delinquents
The group in society who most believes in the rat race as a source of value is the other underprivileged: the ignorant and resentful boys who form the delinquent gangs.
155. Goodman is brutally critical of the Beats. Ignorant and thin literature and religion. Childish poetry.
179. Must distinguish between forbidden-and-defiant-acts from behavior-to-get-caught.
194. a successful revolution establishes a new community. A missed revolution makes irrelevant the community that persists. And a compromised revolution tends to shatter the community that was, without an adequate substitute.
195. We have confused and useless overproduction, gadgetry, and new tribes of middlemen, promoters, and advertisers. Expanding production is corporate boondoggling.
197-202. the missed and co-opted revolutions outlined.
Goodman defines tour de force with this masterful analysis of late 1950s U.S. society as perceived through the eyes of the youth of his day. His question: what are the roots of juvenile delinquency as defined in the State of New York. His answer (this book) went wider and deeper than the governor expected...
A note: Writing when he did, Goodman's
If we look for perfection in our social prophets (for lack of a better term for folks like Goodman; morons know them only as 'cranks') we will go no where, right where the 1% want us. Goodman was full of flaws but was widely read while still alive. A popular social critic who espoused basically the anarchist ideal. In 1959.
What happened!? How did we go from there to 2024 when private equity controls the water, the trains, and the very atmosphere; when bribery is legal everywhere; when democracy has never been more of a farce, worse even than what our parents knew as a corrupt, exploitative, commerce-driven model? We're waiting for the perfect spokesperson?
Disregarding foundational, apolitical, norm-shattering, humanist, and widely-appealing anarchist critiques because of the flaws of those who brought them to light... the intellectual equivalent of selling the rights to spare room in one's cranium for a library card. Goodman should be studied carefully as we work towards rebuilding after the inevitable final capitalist meltdown. We've not even begun to address the problems that gave us 2007-8, and the dickheads in finance have trebled their (our) total risk since. It's almost like it was planned this way, but there's never been any conspiracy required when the worst behavior is rewarded richly while the best is marginalized and made homeless.
We find ourselves with an imposed system that funnels the most ruthless, corruptible, and rapacious people right to the top of the socio-economic-political pyramid. We (they) have achieved the point where $1 is exactly equivalent to 1x the power of an individual voice in society--before leverage, of course. The marginal expected return in socio-economic-political power from an additional $1 invested in an elected government official or the industrial ecosystem built off the crumbs will of course always yield more power than an additional $1 in the things we think SHOULD give one purpose, belonging and standing in society, such as public service, mutual aid and productive activity of any kind.
Goodman calls this funnelling, which has largely replaced rational human social relations, the "Rat Race", a term which endures today I believe but anecdotally would say is under-used. Youth are, through schooling, shown the Rat Race and told that it's being held in a locked room: there is no alternative to the Rat Race if you want to succeed/progress/rise/improve your lot in life, etc. The only other option is to join the bums.
Facing this impossible choice--run the Rat Race or live on the streets with the rats' namesakes--what rational person wouldn't choose a life of petty non-crime such as sleeping on the street and seeking human kindness on street corners? Or worse, of course, if so inclined or desperate enough. This is Goodman's reasoned response to the question of why some youth chose 'delinquency'.
We need an entirely new deal for our children and grandchildren. The room is not locked and the Rat Race need not be run.
Notes:
- A synthesis of anarchist utopianism with unabashed cultural conservatism. Goodman was humanist intellectual left, espoused communitarian anarchism, decried the elevation of consumption over satisfying work. Basically my 1932-born pops, if he had done more than a semester of university before dropping out to build swimming pools and houses.
8. We live increasingly, then, in a system in which little direct attention is paid to the object, the function, the program, the task, the need; but immense attention to the role, procedure, prestige, and profit. We don't get the shelter and education because not enough mind is paid to those things.
26. American society has tried so hard and so ably to defend the practice and theory of production for profit and not primarily for use that now it has succeeded in making its jobs and products profitable and useless. (like insurance...)
31. Teaching: Naturally the pay is low--for the work is hard, useful, and of public concern, all three of which qualities tend to bring lower pay. (Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
The best teachers are not wanted by the system, for they are not safe.
- Bright youth who are not drawn to the arts of sciences--go into sales, advertising, entertainment, business management, banking, finance. None of these have utility or honor to begin with, leaving these youth to think: During my productive years I will spend eight (12) hours a day doing what is no good.
39. Most youth are faced with this reality: Either 1. Society is a benevolently frivolous racket in which they'll manage to boondoggle, or 2. Society is serious but they (youth) are useless and hopelessly out.
41. ...to want a job that exercises a [person]'s capacities in an enterprise useful to society is utopian anarcho-syndicalism. ;->
53. Delinquent behavior asks for manly opportunities to work, make a little money, and have self esteem; to have space to bang around in, that is not always somebody's property; to have better schools to open for them horizons of interest; to have more and better sex without fear or shame; to share somehow in the symbolic goods (like the cars) that are made so much of; to have a community and a country to be loyal to; to claim attention and have a voice. These are not outlandish demands.
57. Angry Middle-Aged Man, disappointed but not resigned.
84. The Hipster and the Confidence Man - roles and behaviors defined.
92. A [person] has only one life and if during it [they have] no great environment, no community, [they have] been irreparably robbed of a human right.
98. What is the effect on our people when they are told that our chief newspaper does not print the news?
106. more pride of country is engendered by a single good decision or powerful dissenting opinion than by billions of repetitions of the pledge of allegiance.
116. (I am writing this equably and satirically, but the stupidity of these people is outrageous)
134. ...it is the essence of the organized system to sit on its behind and take no risks, and let the tabulator do the work, and strengthen its own position by incestuously staffing itself, and THEN fostering the lie that outside of the system nothing exists.
We are so out of touch with real work that, in America, a dean is superior to a professor and a board of trustees or regents is superior to a faculty. The editor knows more than the author, the publisher knows better than both. Everything naturally sounds alike.
139. Very few great men could pass personnel.
the public schools are, effectually, to be used as apprentice training grounds for the monopolies and the armed forces.
Two broad groups of bright young people:
1. Those wasted in the Rat Race.
147. So the Rat Race is run desperately by bright fellows who do not believe in it.(Bullshit Jobs: A Theory)
2. Those increasingly unused and thwarted as independents.
a. the Early Resigned - e.g. the Beats
b. the Early Fatalistic - juvenile delinquents
The group in society who most believes in the rat race as a source of value is the other underprivileged: the ignorant and resentful boys who form the delinquent gangs.
155. Goodman is brutally critical of the Beats. Ignorant and thin literature and religion. Childish poetry.
179. Must distinguish between forbidden-and-defiant-acts from behavior-to-get-caught.
194. a successful revolution establishes a new community. A missed revolution makes irrelevant the community that persists. And a compromised revolution tends to shatter the community that was, without an adequate substitute.
195. We have confused and useless overproduction, gadgetry, and new tribes of middlemen, promoters, and advertisers. Expanding production is corporate boondoggling.
197-202. the missed and co-opted revolutions outlined.
August 16, 2017
This is a book that helped galvanize a lot of the 60s youth movement in the states and probably galvanized a lot of other people around the world also. Goodman essentially talks about how to try to solve the problem of youth as it was in use 60s. I thought this was excellent and tied into some of the things skinner had written in walden 2. The books talks about class structure, the aptitude of youth, use of leisure, capitalism, growing up of course, society, the labour market, city lifer vs country life, the responsible man, the rat race. It's marginally sexist in places and I don't agree with goodman views on sexual stuff but I have to admit this is one of the best books I have read in a while. "The organisation butts in everywhere, and sets the high style of how things are done. It dominates big enterprise, politics, popular culture and it's influence is moulding enough to man the future with a new generation of dependent and conformist young men without high aims and with little sense of natural or moral community." wow.
October 3, 2019
I read this the year before I entered the University of Georgia (1962). It was the single most work that most influenced my take on college. It was a soul saver.
March 1, 2018
Probably the first personally significant non-fiction book I read. Goodman's question, "What's worth doing?" paired with Mother's philosophy, "Lifelong, put more in the pot than you take out," and tri-podded with "Where you live will be more important than the income work you do."
Star 5 for being a lifelong, rooting, decision making associate. Not a book I'd be willing to reread, but a signpost always remembered.
Here be some quotes copied from a Kirkus Review:
"It is a tribute to ... Paul Goodman's impressive verbal facility that he is capable of expanding into a book a theme which could be dealt with sufficiently in an essay of not inordinate length.
"The thesis of Growing Up Absurd ... that there is a disaffection for modern society on the part of the young because our organized system -- its conformity, its irrelevant competitiveness, its role-playing, its avoidance of risk, its phony culture, its public-relations attitude, its basic meaninglessness -- ... in short, the things our society honors are not worth growing up to.
"He deals mainly with the problems of young men ... He divides young men into two great groups: the Bright Young Men wasted in the Rat Race; and the bright young men unused and thwarted as Independents. Then there are the Problems: the Early Resigned (among whom he places the Beat Generation) who are qualified but who have quit the game; and the Early Fatalistic, the underprivileged who will never have a chance. He discusses the plight of these groups in a job market where there is very little serious man's work; in a class structure that is becoming more rigid; in a physical and social environment that has grown out of human scale; and in an atmosphere that generally does not encourage and certainly doesn't reward, the concept of Service.
" ... in spite of the pessimistic tone of the book, Goodman is encouraged and heartened by the expression of ""fraternity, animality and sexuality"" he sees in delinquent behavior, the Beat and the Angry Young Men. ..."
Star 5 for being a lifelong, rooting, decision making associate. Not a book I'd be willing to reread, but a signpost always remembered.
Here be some quotes copied from a Kirkus Review:
"It is a tribute to ... Paul Goodman's impressive verbal facility that he is capable of expanding into a book a theme which could be dealt with sufficiently in an essay of not inordinate length.
"The thesis of Growing Up Absurd ... that there is a disaffection for modern society on the part of the young because our organized system -- its conformity, its irrelevant competitiveness, its role-playing, its avoidance of risk, its phony culture, its public-relations attitude, its basic meaninglessness -- ... in short, the things our society honors are not worth growing up to.
"He deals mainly with the problems of young men ... He divides young men into two great groups: the Bright Young Men wasted in the Rat Race; and the bright young men unused and thwarted as Independents. Then there are the Problems: the Early Resigned (among whom he places the Beat Generation) who are qualified but who have quit the game; and the Early Fatalistic, the underprivileged who will never have a chance. He discusses the plight of these groups in a job market where there is very little serious man's work; in a class structure that is becoming more rigid; in a physical and social environment that has grown out of human scale; and in an atmosphere that generally does not encourage and certainly doesn't reward, the concept of Service.
" ... in spite of the pessimistic tone of the book, Goodman is encouraged and heartened by the expression of ""fraternity, animality and sexuality"" he sees in delinquent behavior, the Beat and the Angry Young Men. ..."
March 8, 2018
Goodman had some interesting quasi-anarchist political ideas, but his anecdotal/speculative approach leaves a lot to be desired, and the pervasive patronizing misogyny is appalling even by last century’s standards.
November 8, 2025
Like, dig it, man! Paul Goodman, one of the prophets of the Sixties upheaval, wrote this book on juvenile delinquency as a metaphor for an America consumed by consumerism and conformity. Young punks (Goodman was an anarchist himself) might be part of the solution, not the problem. Classifying young people as a problem for society creates that very problem. GROWING UP ABSURD has much in common with Norman Mailer's classic essay, "The White Negro". In an age of conformity made twice bitter by the atom bomb, might not young rebels, even criminals, be better called dissidents? Goodman has no patience with liberal pablum on crime and its causes. The problems of youth in our society are the problems of society, and those problems are existential. Why live, and why live in these fearful times? This is a classic that has stayed news. The prose gets dry at times but never the subject matter.
May 4, 2017
This book, originally published in 1960, became a "bible" of the Counterculture and the New Left. It stands precisely at the crossroads of the "conformist" 50s and the "rebellious" 60s. Basically, Goodman was commissioned to write a study of "juvenile delinquency," and used it as an occasion for indicting American society's failure to provide anything better for youth to grow up into. He essentially sided with the disaffected youth, telling them they were right, the society was morally and culturally bankrupt. His term for the new form of American life in the 50s is "the organized system." His critique of its failure to provide meaningful activity, some compelling role for young people to grow into, also serve him as a framework for interpreting the Beat movement -- on p. 114 of the edition I read, in a chapter titled "Social Animal," he says, "where now there are thousands of these young men, there will be hundreds of thousands. [The next sentence is italicized.] The organized system is the breeding ground of a Beat Generation." It is a great book, prescient in 1960 and yet still relevant today. The New York Review of Books edition I read also has a preface by Casey Blake and an afterword by Susan Sontag, both marvelous. Interestingly, both Blake and Sontag take Goodman to task for his sexism, but are both perfectly serene about forgiving him for it, because in other respects they find his thought so compelling. It is a blind spot, and not a minor one, but somehow they find the fact that he just does not seem to be taking women into account at all easy to set aside, I suppose because they both feel his argument is equally applicable to women. But it bears thinking about, because the Beat movement has a misogynist side, and it is not clear that the Counterculture on the whole -- free love, anti-war, Civil Rights -- was always committed to feminism -- though of course what was at the time called the Women's Movement was part of it, too. Anyway, this is an important book everyone living in the United States should peruse at some point in his/her life, both because of its vast influence, and because Paul Goodman's perspective is still valuable today.
April 2, 2018
He has some interesting and possibly good ideas on many things; how to approach the problem of juvenile delinquency, how to keep kids from growing up afraid of their own sexuality, how to keep workers feeling fulfilled in their jobs, how to attack poverty without attacking the poor. The writing is sometimes beautiful, there are several quotes that stuck out to me. Other times the wording comes out pompous, and Goodman makes a point to apologize for coming off as angry or aggressive in the writing. I also can’t get over that almost immediately when you start this book, Goodman tells you the problems he is writing about pertain to men specifically. He doesn’t seem to think it’s possible for women to want fulfillment in the same way, because, as he says, women get all the fulfillment they need by having children. *Face palm*
So yeah, 3/5 for being sexist but also trying to give it some credit for the ideas and writing style.
So yeah, 3/5 for being sexist but also trying to give it some credit for the ideas and writing style.
Read
July 28, 2008On the whole, the argument is annoyingly reactionary, but Goodman makes a number of critical points about the repressive nature of mass culture in America. Despite the, at the core of it, weirdly conservative origins, there was enough truth and valid commentary to keep me wrapped up, and indeed entertained over the course of the book.
December 6, 2017
This was a weird one. Goodman was an anarchist, a Ph.D. in the humanities, openly bisexual in a sexually Puritanical culture, and a self-taught renegade psychologist. In this book, published in 1960, Goodman argues that juvenile delinquents deserve sympathy and support, but not pity. The urban kids who join gangs in a desperate attempt to survive; the sad young office drones trapped in the corporate "rat race"; the Angry Young Men of Great Britain; the Beat artists who are alienated from mass culture, leave the rat race, and choose to slum it among the poor — all of these youths grasp that the corporate-liberal social order is stale. It grinds people down. The schools don't foster creativity or independence, only the rat race, and those kids who don't conform are shunned or labeled delinquent. Meanwhile, the promises of political liberalism go unfulfilled, income inequality swells, and the big TV networks (remember, this is 1960) churn out monotonous programming instead of real art.
Goodman expresses his desire for politicians who fulfill liberalism and redirect resources to help the needy, but he does not spell out how such programs would work. He is not a big-state Marxist. If anything, Goodman, like James Agee, is an individual-minded Marxist. Goodman's ideal state would give money to teachers but reduce guidelines, so that teachers can get on with teaching, instead of dealing with bureaucracy. He does not spell out what should happen in such classrooms to foster independence. Similarly, Goodman wants the networks to stop producing TV and only distribute independent artists' work, but he does not explain how this revamped market would operate. In my reading, Goodman prefers highlighting moral problems and needs to spelling out policy.
This lack of concrete solutions, along with Goodman's surprisingly overt sexism, is disappointing. I do think Goodman is onto something when he challenges parents to attack corporate and political b.s., teach their kids to value idealistic politics, and give their kids independence, instead of policing kids' every move. Goodman makes an incisive claim that urban gangs don't want to be outcasts, but rather they want to belong and survive at all cost. The passages on income inequality, particularly how inequality affects minority populations in cities, and what would be called white flight in later years are spot-on. The critique of the networks is timely, given the FCC's looming attack on net neutrality. Like any iconic primary document from a past decade, "Growing Up Absurd" is partly stuck in its own time, and partly relevant to the present day (for me, December 2017). Goodman was sui generis.
Goodman expresses his desire for politicians who fulfill liberalism and redirect resources to help the needy, but he does not spell out how such programs would work. He is not a big-state Marxist. If anything, Goodman, like James Agee, is an individual-minded Marxist. Goodman's ideal state would give money to teachers but reduce guidelines, so that teachers can get on with teaching, instead of dealing with bureaucracy. He does not spell out what should happen in such classrooms to foster independence. Similarly, Goodman wants the networks to stop producing TV and only distribute independent artists' work, but he does not explain how this revamped market would operate. In my reading, Goodman prefers highlighting moral problems and needs to spelling out policy.
This lack of concrete solutions, along with Goodman's surprisingly overt sexism, is disappointing. I do think Goodman is onto something when he challenges parents to attack corporate and political b.s., teach their kids to value idealistic politics, and give their kids independence, instead of policing kids' every move. Goodman makes an incisive claim that urban gangs don't want to be outcasts, but rather they want to belong and survive at all cost. The passages on income inequality, particularly how inequality affects minority populations in cities, and what would be called white flight in later years are spot-on. The critique of the networks is timely, given the FCC's looming attack on net neutrality. Like any iconic primary document from a past decade, "Growing Up Absurd" is partly stuck in its own time, and partly relevant to the present day (for me, December 2017). Goodman was sui generis.
February 8, 2020
This review of American life in 1960 was probably opinionated and interesting then, but is now very dated.
We are no longer obsessed with juvenile delinquents as a group worthy of sociological consideration, and the delinquents of that time are now dead or dying, having left no mark. The Beat Generation or Beats is an archaic term for people whose commitment to art, craft, music, or intellect defines their life choices, but who live in relative poverty. We all know such people, but I don't know how they are described today.
And the large group of people who work in organizations, large and small, commercial and non-profit, are described as Organization Men (after the the book The Organization Man by William H. Whyte). The author Paul Goodman compares them to IBM employees, and seems to regard them with a mixture of pity and contempt for the oppression they must suffer and the consequences to their souls.
We are no longer obsessed with juvenile delinquents as a group worthy of sociological consideration, and the delinquents of that time are now dead or dying, having left no mark. The Beat Generation or Beats is an archaic term for people whose commitment to art, craft, music, or intellect defines their life choices, but who live in relative poverty. We all know such people, but I don't know how they are described today.
And the large group of people who work in organizations, large and small, commercial and non-profit, are described as Organization Men (after the the book The Organization Man by William H. Whyte). The author Paul Goodman compares them to IBM employees, and seems to regard them with a mixture of pity and contempt for the oppression they must suffer and the consequences to their souls.
August 29, 2020
When one considers Paul Goodman was transformed from an obscure academic to an essential national luminary - guru of all adolescent angst - with this one book, one can guess it must have been a revolutionary masterpiece. Guess no more. It sliced through early Sixties' orthodoxies about juvenile delinquency, gangs (think "West Side Story") and youth "adjustment" problems like a startled trout in a brook. While some adults have always been able to relate to young people, Goodman's enduring genius was to transform his gift of connecting into a broadside exploding age-old thinking about "finding oneself." In a nutshell, the problem lies largely with society - not the young. Finally, the author's compelling assault on the "Organized System" today - how it maims and stymies, remains eerily relevant. As the French once observed, "The more things change, the more they remain the same." Hence, it remains an exceptional book - especially if one wants to grasp what the young and the alienated confront - and endure.
July 24, 2010
This book was a big deal by the time I entered high school, but I only got around to it while visiting an older friend in Chicago during the senior year. I read his copy while staying at his apartment and wasn't much impressed as Goodman seemed to be stating the obvious with a rather condescending attitude.
January 2, 2013
I found this book to be very powerful. In it, Goodman lays out his argument explaining youth delinquency as a direct product of society's "organized" control of the individual's life. Rather than rejecting society, however, Goodman thinks that really the juvenile delinquent is calling out for inclusion. The destruction, violence, unconventional behavior is really a call for attention and demand to be included in society and given valuable opportunities. Goodman then goes on to list the problems of society, the main ones being work that is not useful, meaningful, or in any way appealing to its workers, no real opportunities to be heard or work how one wants, various levels of status anxiety, and many other such flaws. All of which is pretty convincing to me. And Goodman is not just the traditional critic/rebel of society, he really has unique things to say and he aims to solve big problems, not simply going after issues prevalent at the time. He is not a Marxist attacking capitalism and a government that helps it and its beneficiaries (though he kind of its), he is in the old of a traditional reformer going after the problems in modern society, the media and pop culture being strong examples of this.
The problem, as most people have noticed who read the book today, is that Goodman explicitly only addresses young men. He admits to thinking the problem is with them, because women at the last resort always having meaningful work and purpose, giving birth. More than this Goodman's critique often comes out as "Kids these days aren't allowed to grow up to be men," either because of the jobs they take, opportunities given, etc. Reading this nowdays is laughable, and I tended to ignore these parts and assume his reforms are meant for, and will help, all people. But still it does give the entire argument an undertone that makes one wince.
The other thing that should be said about Goodman is his writing. I have rarely read a political/sociology/cultural book like this that has so much passion and force. Goodman is not so interested in analyzing current society, though he is, as fixing it. He's not so concerned with consistency and accuracy and making a difference. And in reading his prose one could never doubt he means it. Susan Sontag says similar in her little afterword. Goodman is far from a cynic, in fact he sees cynicism as a major flaw in modern society, and a connection between the "hipsters" and the "organized men" who keep society working in their office jobs and role in the "rat race."
There is a real problem with this book, sexism, and many of Goodman's reforms seem impossible to implement, some would come up with serious freedom of speech issues, other may be having too much faith in basic human nature and the desire for individuality, nonetheless I really enjoyed this book, think it is still relevant despite a few issues, and is worth a read for anyone interested in OWS, political reform, revolutions and radicalism, group psychology, or merely a history of politics in the 60s.
The problem, as most people have noticed who read the book today, is that Goodman explicitly only addresses young men. He admits to thinking the problem is with them, because women at the last resort always having meaningful work and purpose, giving birth. More than this Goodman's critique often comes out as "Kids these days aren't allowed to grow up to be men," either because of the jobs they take, opportunities given, etc. Reading this nowdays is laughable, and I tended to ignore these parts and assume his reforms are meant for, and will help, all people. But still it does give the entire argument an undertone that makes one wince.
The other thing that should be said about Goodman is his writing. I have rarely read a political/sociology/cultural book like this that has so much passion and force. Goodman is not so interested in analyzing current society, though he is, as fixing it. He's not so concerned with consistency and accuracy and making a difference. And in reading his prose one could never doubt he means it. Susan Sontag says similar in her little afterword. Goodman is far from a cynic, in fact he sees cynicism as a major flaw in modern society, and a connection between the "hipsters" and the "organized men" who keep society working in their office jobs and role in the "rat race."
There is a real problem with this book, sexism, and many of Goodman's reforms seem impossible to implement, some would come up with serious freedom of speech issues, other may be having too much faith in basic human nature and the desire for individuality, nonetheless I really enjoyed this book, think it is still relevant despite a few issues, and is worth a read for anyone interested in OWS, political reform, revolutions and radicalism, group psychology, or merely a history of politics in the 60s.
January 4, 2015
Goodman was writing about juvenile delinquency in 1959. His argument boils down to the idea that American society has become so weird and organized, that stupid and futile rejection of the ready-made options that young people have is only a reasonable reaction. All this was written when the Beats were delinquents, yeah, the Beat Generation.
This makes for fun reading. First of all, it is a time capsule, where you have to try to remember what was going on in America in 1959, an interesting exercise in itself.
Secondly, it is bizarre by today's standards, to imagine a book that sees Allen Ginsburg as a ridiculous example of the rejection of American culture and an example of how boys do not have the opportunity to grow into men anymore, not to mention, the idea of writing a book about education which concerns itself about white boys and not really anyone else as the inheritors of American society.
Thirdly, this book serves as an awesome antidote to all those people who say that everything worked well in the olden days; because Goodman argues that things worked better when schools had a limited impact on society and society was less organized and less classed; and because this was more than half a century ago.
Finally, it is awesome to see how many of his arguments were prescient and can be applied to those who reject schools today.
A lot of fun.
This makes for fun reading. First of all, it is a time capsule, where you have to try to remember what was going on in America in 1959, an interesting exercise in itself.
Secondly, it is bizarre by today's standards, to imagine a book that sees Allen Ginsburg as a ridiculous example of the rejection of American culture and an example of how boys do not have the opportunity to grow into men anymore, not to mention, the idea of writing a book about education which concerns itself about white boys and not really anyone else as the inheritors of American society.
Thirdly, this book serves as an awesome antidote to all those people who say that everything worked well in the olden days; because Goodman argues that things worked better when schools had a limited impact on society and society was less organized and less classed; and because this was more than half a century ago.
Finally, it is awesome to see how many of his arguments were prescient and can be applied to those who reject schools today.
A lot of fun.
December 6, 2017
Goodman's seriousness and energy still sparkle from underneath the book's layers of anachronism, some of which go all the way to the bone (the most egregious example is the consistent use of the word "manly" as a lazy-even-for-then, reactionary-now synonym for multiple human potentials and positives that have little or nothing to do with gender-- the book was written in the late '50s and published in 1960). Extra 1/2 for good context by Casey Nelson Blake and Susan Sontag.
January 14, 2010
Even in the late 90s/early 00s this book helped me make sense of my relation to (and at odds with) the larger world. I wanted to give this book to everyone I cared about, and copied long passages of it out in a notebook so that I could better remember the things I had leaned. A tremendous book.
March 19, 2016
Paul Goodman is a "disappointed, but not resigned Angry Middle-Age Man" (as he himself admits) who critiques the organized system of living that is damaging to everyone in it, be it those copywriters who have offices in Madison Avenue, those Beatniks who frequented jazz bars listening to Miles Davis, or the juvenile delinquents who stole Cadillacs for one hell of a joyride. Despite their different stations in life, they are all united in being the victims of a damaging system of life that impede authentic human growth.
Remember that this book is written during the 1950s. Therefore, one who is not thoroughly familiar with the cultural scene of America in those days (like myself) might have trouble in understanding his examples. Being a Malaysian in the early 21st century, however, I can relate to some of the points illustrated by Goodman.
In Malaysia, the Bumiputeras (a rough equivalent of WASPs in America, but that's debatable, of course) have been given ample political and economic opportunities as a result of government policies, especially after the 1969 riots. Some of them managed to study overseas under government sponsorship, come back to work in cushy jobs in the government or multinational Government-Linked Companies (think Sime Darby), settled in a comfortably suburban life in Shah Alam, Ampang, Bangi and eventually producing offsprings that will continue this cycle of success (thanks largely to ample social, cultural and economic capital attained by their parents).
With the rise of the Malay middle class, there are those who are left behind in the 'rat race'. Those are the Malays that lacks the necessary capitals to win scholarships or business grants, the rural Indians who eventually inhabited the city slums, the migrant workers who now form the backbone of the proletariat, the ever-neglected Orang Asli (the aborigines) and other marginal groups not favored by the official policy, or simply ignored/oppressed due to blatant corruption.
Like 1950s America, Malaysia's economic growth indeed increases the standard of living for many of its citizens, but at the cost of solidifying structural imbalances. Those who benefit, possibly a majority of the people, will defend this structure. While those who are marginalized loses more and more of their bargaining power. In the end, those who benefit sees no reason to change anything, while those are marginalized simply loses the power to imagine a better life. Everyone belief that the current system is a divinely ordained, instead of an objective reality changeable through human agency.
For Goodman, the losers here are not only those who live in the fringe of the society. Even those who 'make it' suffered in doing mundane, unimportant jobs for the sake of high salary. Those 'Organization Man' becomes cynical and resigned. He finds solace in consumption of material goods, not in enjoying his job or doing something worthwhile in his spare time.
Again, returning to the Malaysian example, these executives play golfs with their bosses not because they enjoy it, but to play the role sycophants for career advancement. Also, contracts are signed without proper tender, and everyone, from the department director to the lowly clerks, seem resigned and cynical about it all. In short, men are separated from their worthwhile vocation, and whose main purpose of life is to accumulate more wealth for the sake of consumption. No longer we do a job and be proud of it.
Goodman's America and my Malaysia might be separated in space and time, but I notice similarities in the direction both those countries are (or were) heading. We live in times of peace and prosperity, albeit with increasing subtle marginalization that solidifies the status quo. And sadly men become objects, not subjects, of history.
Goodman's remedies are so simple that critics are shocked by his seeming naivety. He called for the return to old traditional values such as Honesty, Honor, Shame, Patriotism and the reinstatement of the communal spirit. Cities should be built in a way that is friendly for interaction between its citizens. Schools should be swarmed by earnest professionals who are not resigned in the face of it all. And education should be liberal, instead of streamlined to give importance to Science subjects.
In the same way, Malaysia could do better with the return to the old 'kampung' (village) spirit that shaped the Malays way of life, instead of this half-baked urbanization that drives Malaysians to crazed consumerism. And words like 'Sahsiah' (personality), 'Jati Diri' (integrity), 'Maruah' (Honor) should be given a deeper respect, instead of being meaningless slogans in government letters, typed down by cynical personnel.
What is needed is a complete revolution in our way of life. And please, as Goodman himself insists, no more half-baked revolutions (as in the case of most revolutions in human history), for an unfinished revolution is more damaging than a failed one. Because, a failed revolution signals that something is not achieved and there are still more work to do. However, an unfinished revolution promotes the sense that everything that ought to be has been, and nothing more could be done.
Remember that this book is written during the 1950s. Therefore, one who is not thoroughly familiar with the cultural scene of America in those days (like myself) might have trouble in understanding his examples. Being a Malaysian in the early 21st century, however, I can relate to some of the points illustrated by Goodman.
In Malaysia, the Bumiputeras (a rough equivalent of WASPs in America, but that's debatable, of course) have been given ample political and economic opportunities as a result of government policies, especially after the 1969 riots. Some of them managed to study overseas under government sponsorship, come back to work in cushy jobs in the government or multinational Government-Linked Companies (think Sime Darby), settled in a comfortably suburban life in Shah Alam, Ampang, Bangi and eventually producing offsprings that will continue this cycle of success (thanks largely to ample social, cultural and economic capital attained by their parents).
With the rise of the Malay middle class, there are those who are left behind in the 'rat race'. Those are the Malays that lacks the necessary capitals to win scholarships or business grants, the rural Indians who eventually inhabited the city slums, the migrant workers who now form the backbone of the proletariat, the ever-neglected Orang Asli (the aborigines) and other marginal groups not favored by the official policy, or simply ignored/oppressed due to blatant corruption.
Like 1950s America, Malaysia's economic growth indeed increases the standard of living for many of its citizens, but at the cost of solidifying structural imbalances. Those who benefit, possibly a majority of the people, will defend this structure. While those who are marginalized loses more and more of their bargaining power. In the end, those who benefit sees no reason to change anything, while those are marginalized simply loses the power to imagine a better life. Everyone belief that the current system is a divinely ordained, instead of an objective reality changeable through human agency.
For Goodman, the losers here are not only those who live in the fringe of the society. Even those who 'make it' suffered in doing mundane, unimportant jobs for the sake of high salary. Those 'Organization Man' becomes cynical and resigned. He finds solace in consumption of material goods, not in enjoying his job or doing something worthwhile in his spare time.
Again, returning to the Malaysian example, these executives play golfs with their bosses not because they enjoy it, but to play the role sycophants for career advancement. Also, contracts are signed without proper tender, and everyone, from the department director to the lowly clerks, seem resigned and cynical about it all. In short, men are separated from their worthwhile vocation, and whose main purpose of life is to accumulate more wealth for the sake of consumption. No longer we do a job and be proud of it.
Goodman's America and my Malaysia might be separated in space and time, but I notice similarities in the direction both those countries are (or were) heading. We live in times of peace and prosperity, albeit with increasing subtle marginalization that solidifies the status quo. And sadly men become objects, not subjects, of history.
Goodman's remedies are so simple that critics are shocked by his seeming naivety. He called for the return to old traditional values such as Honesty, Honor, Shame, Patriotism and the reinstatement of the communal spirit. Cities should be built in a way that is friendly for interaction between its citizens. Schools should be swarmed by earnest professionals who are not resigned in the face of it all. And education should be liberal, instead of streamlined to give importance to Science subjects.
In the same way, Malaysia could do better with the return to the old 'kampung' (village) spirit that shaped the Malays way of life, instead of this half-baked urbanization that drives Malaysians to crazed consumerism. And words like 'Sahsiah' (personality), 'Jati Diri' (integrity), 'Maruah' (Honor) should be given a deeper respect, instead of being meaningless slogans in government letters, typed down by cynical personnel.
What is needed is a complete revolution in our way of life. And please, as Goodman himself insists, no more half-baked revolutions (as in the case of most revolutions in human history), for an unfinished revolution is more damaging than a failed one. Because, a failed revolution signals that something is not achieved and there are still more work to do. However, an unfinished revolution promotes the sense that everything that ought to be has been, and nothing more could be done.
February 6, 2026
Despite being published in 1960 most of this book is still relevant to what we as humans are facing in the world in 2026. Goodman definitely influenced much of the counter culture of the 1960's. This book provides plenty of food for thought and points out many paths we could have taken that we didn't.
Anyone interested in looking back at what radical thinker was thinking in 1960 should give this book a visit.
Anyone interested in looking back at what radical thinker was thinking in 1960 should give this book a visit.
March 19, 2014
Arguably the pivotal text from "the 1950s" to "the Sixties," Goodman's book is the ultimate reasoned rant against the painful consequences of the postwar repressive society of what he intentionally reifies as "the Organized System" of "the Man." He takes the Beats as both symptomatic of what's wrong with the system, and possessed of some seeds of future healthier social alternatives. As Nelson's new introduction points out, it is of a piece with other radical critiques that remain rooted in hope for premodern virtues (one thinks of Kit Lasch): it would be a mistake to think of this book as reactionary, but it's certainly true that Goodman's ideal world appears to be the Gemeinschaft of the early modern village, stripped of its sexual repressions and social rigidities.
First, in certain respects it remains shockingly timely, in its explanation of the way that society's strictures produce the alienation that leads to juvenile delinquencies. He realizes that it is the foreclosure of the American small town virtues of "manly" labor that leads those who do not have access to the top of the income scale to engage in antisocial behavior. He detects, very rightly, that the anomie of the delinquent and the cynicism of the salaryman are in fact not all that dissimilar and in fact spring out of the same social dynamics created by mindless consumerism and jobs that do not involve the production of anything tangibly useful. One sees easily why this became a bible of the New Left's critique of the repressively desublimating society.
Second, in other respects, it is shockingly dated, above all in its treatment of women, who he breezily suggests should be totally satisfied with just making babies. He writes, for example, of how women may themselves become Beats: "Perhaps they have left an unlucky marriage, have had an illegitimate child, have fallen in love with a Negro, and found little support or charity 'in' society. They might then choose a life among those more tolerant and find meaning in it by posing for them or typing their manuscripts." Ouch: pre-Betty Friedan this most certainly is!
Third, in its treatment of sexual repression it is both shockingly frank and weirdly of its Neo-Freudian moment. He speaks directly to the sexual desires and activities of the young, both homosexual and heterosexual, in a very matter of a fact way. He takes sexual desire to be a basic part of the human experience, not something to be apologized for. And he says with absolute clarity that sexual repression does far more aggregate psychological damage than any untoward sexual misadventures will do. In this sense, his sensibility is already post-sexual revolution.
Finally, there are moments when it all three at once. For example, consider his "precise, if annoying, illustration" of how young men the world over need to establish their manliness by earning a decent living: "In countries where it is not too antipathetic to the mores, young fellows will engage in homosexual activity; but they might ask for a few pennies, enough to buy five cigarettes. This sum is not the wages of prostitution; such a thought wuold outrage them, for if they did not enjoy what they are doing they would not do it. It is, rather, a way of making the act legitimate, justified, not merely pleasure. The money serves exactly the same symbolic function as the wedding ring for a young woman. Earning some money affirms the young man is a man." (183-4) Whoa!
First, in certain respects it remains shockingly timely, in its explanation of the way that society's strictures produce the alienation that leads to juvenile delinquencies. He realizes that it is the foreclosure of the American small town virtues of "manly" labor that leads those who do not have access to the top of the income scale to engage in antisocial behavior. He detects, very rightly, that the anomie of the delinquent and the cynicism of the salaryman are in fact not all that dissimilar and in fact spring out of the same social dynamics created by mindless consumerism and jobs that do not involve the production of anything tangibly useful. One sees easily why this became a bible of the New Left's critique of the repressively desublimating society.
Second, in other respects, it is shockingly dated, above all in its treatment of women, who he breezily suggests should be totally satisfied with just making babies. He writes, for example, of how women may themselves become Beats: "Perhaps they have left an unlucky marriage, have had an illegitimate child, have fallen in love with a Negro, and found little support or charity 'in' society. They might then choose a life among those more tolerant and find meaning in it by posing for them or typing their manuscripts." Ouch: pre-Betty Friedan this most certainly is!
Third, in its treatment of sexual repression it is both shockingly frank and weirdly of its Neo-Freudian moment. He speaks directly to the sexual desires and activities of the young, both homosexual and heterosexual, in a very matter of a fact way. He takes sexual desire to be a basic part of the human experience, not something to be apologized for. And he says with absolute clarity that sexual repression does far more aggregate psychological damage than any untoward sexual misadventures will do. In this sense, his sensibility is already post-sexual revolution.
Finally, there are moments when it all three at once. For example, consider his "precise, if annoying, illustration" of how young men the world over need to establish their manliness by earning a decent living: "In countries where it is not too antipathetic to the mores, young fellows will engage in homosexual activity; but they might ask for a few pennies, enough to buy five cigarettes. This sum is not the wages of prostitution; such a thought wuold outrage them, for if they did not enjoy what they are doing they would not do it. It is, rather, a way of making the act legitimate, justified, not merely pleasure. The money serves exactly the same symbolic function as the wedding ring for a young woman. Earning some money affirms the young man is a man." (183-4) Whoa!
December 24, 2014
Goodman was a brilliant thinker and this is a very insightful book. It great on several levels, to the in depth analysis of The Beat Generation to the social criticism about the career culture that still persists today. If you can look beyond the sexism, which is a problem, you'll absolutely take something from this book. Susan Sontag, in her essay on Goodman addresses this and her reasons for forgiving it. I think ultimately despite being so forward looking he was ultimately still man very much locked in his age and the sensibilities of that age and I think that his legacy has paid something for that.
January 3, 2013
Even though it was written over 50 years ago, it still feels like there are topics that maintain relevance today with today's youth. A worthwhile read for anyone trying to piece together the lack of progress in American society and education in developing it's young boys into proper men. This book offers the reader a set of patterns from the history that we still have not fully overcome as a collective and may well help to properly inform from where modern society has developed.
May 23, 2016
A reminder that every so often a generation worries about an upcoming generation.
"The kids have no future," they cry. Then it all works out eventually, until the cycle of time wheels back around and once again the cry is heard, "the kids have no future."
"The kids have no future," they cry. Then it all works out eventually, until the cycle of time wheels back around and once again the cry is heard, "the kids have no future."
February 2, 2021
Took me a while to accept Paul’s referencing of males vs females, but once I made peace with this, found the information as relevant today as when he wrote it. Perhaps even more so.
October 29, 2024
Not so Absurd
For a younger generation of readers Growing Up Absurd does not have much to offer. Ironically, I can’t help but think if the author was alive today his verdict on gen z would be much worse than his indictment of the Beat Generation of the sixties . As a reader partly growing up in the sixties, not in the immediate surroundings of original beat generation environment, I always felt more kinship with them. Their stance on the social issues of the time: War against Vietnam , Racism, Apartheid. was not particularly Beat gen subjects but an overall part of the youth culture of the time . It seems to me it was harsh to bring an entire culture to the limited vocabulary of “On the Road “ literature. The author has much to say about his time and change of attitude on subjects such as Literature, Politics, Education, pedagogy, psychology, politics, sex, society etc. At the end of his analysis, one verdict comes out loud and clear: there is only one culprit for the wrong doings of the youth generation of the time: society itself.
Interesting reading, certainly outdated by half a century.
For a younger generation of readers Growing Up Absurd does not have much to offer. Ironically, I can’t help but think if the author was alive today his verdict on gen z would be much worse than his indictment of the Beat Generation of the sixties . As a reader partly growing up in the sixties, not in the immediate surroundings of original beat generation environment, I always felt more kinship with them. Their stance on the social issues of the time: War against Vietnam , Racism, Apartheid. was not particularly Beat gen subjects but an overall part of the youth culture of the time . It seems to me it was harsh to bring an entire culture to the limited vocabulary of “On the Road “ literature. The author has much to say about his time and change of attitude on subjects such as Literature, Politics, Education, pedagogy, psychology, politics, sex, society etc. At the end of his analysis, one verdict comes out loud and clear: there is only one culprit for the wrong doings of the youth generation of the time: society itself.
Interesting reading, certainly outdated by half a century.
October 27, 2025
I absolutely hated this book, which I guess was really influential in the sixties, but which reads as horribly dated now. The thing that really struck me, though, was how right-wing this book feels now. From the Wikipedia summary:
Doesn't that sound like something you'd hear from the alt-right? Goodman's distrust of "the system" may have been left-coded when he was writing, but it's right-coded now. The "organization man" he rails against sounds a lot like today's "laptop class." And as for his constant complaint that young men are socialized into societal mores that are "against human nature," well, I doubt I have to make the parallels explicit.
Pretty sure that if Goodman had lived to today, he'd have become a Trump voter.
Contrary to the then-popular view that juvenile delinquents should be led to respect societal norms, Goodman argued that young American men were justified in their disaffection because their society lacked the preconditions for growing up, such as consideration and self-respect, meaningful work, honorable community, sexual freedom, and spiritual sustenance.
Doesn't that sound like something you'd hear from the alt-right? Goodman's distrust of "the system" may have been left-coded when he was writing, but it's right-coded now. The "organization man" he rails against sounds a lot like today's "laptop class." And as for his constant complaint that young men are socialized into societal mores that are "against human nature," well, I doubt I have to make the parallels explicit.
Pretty sure that if Goodman had lived to today, he'd have become a Trump voter.
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