Paul Goodman replies
I don't want to answer Mike Walzer in any detail, since much of what he says by way of criticism I also strongly affirm in my book—he is not a close reader. Perhaps I write too much in the old...
...The evidence is, I think, that people are communal by nature (they naturally speak, imitate, communicate, identify, compete, etc...
...Perhaps I write too much in the old style, of meaning what I say pretty exactly, including the little concessive clauses, and people aren't used to this any more...
...In these circumstances, are the administrators "caretakers...
...The single point of my book was that by "scientific coordinative management" they have taken over and have become the university communities...
...Those who are weeded out, or drop out, are coped with as "dynamite" or "unemployable...
...And by keeping the teachers and students out of contact, they coordinate them too...
...It is impossible to look frankly at the present educational system, from top to bottom, and not say that we are making a monolith to process apprentices, at the public expense and parents' expense for college tuition, for a very few corporations, the armed forces, and the educational establishment itself...
...At best, however, we are anxious and vulnerable...
...Subtle...
...But I would suggest that the medieval juridical relations—of ghostly universal consensus freely (and casuistically) applied by face-to-face corporations that have independent power—make a tolerable social life...
...There seems to be one simple misunderstanding that I can mention for purposes of dialogue...
...Mike assumes that there is normally such a thing as an isolated individual who can make free choices...
...15 billions of government money last year for Research and Development (75 per cent channeled through the corporations, two billions directly through the universities), plus three or four billions by the corporations themselves, plus the NDEA money for dormitories and special equipment, and the student loans, etc., etc...
...Conversely, guild or congregational power seems to me to provide the best and safest relation to the ghostly unifying principles—ideals, the city, Natural Law, God, etc.—that make possible the whole fabric of society...
...I am no lover of the medieval superstitions...
...we have our own scientific and democratic superstitions that I inevitably and gladly share...
...All that society can ever provide is the tolerable...
...it cannot give inspiration or happiness, which come by special grace...
...Mike talks as though he had never belonged to a good club or sat at a good staff meeting...
...when they are stripped to their individuality, they are in a pathological situation and must fight hard to keep the pathology from being internalized as charismatic or mass-identification...
...As the case is in 1963, however, I am astounded when Mike speaks of society's "subtle pressures" on the schools...
...As a community anarchist, genre of Kropotkin, I often express this view by saying that I strongly affirm the Common Law and that every malefactor should be brought to hear it, but I strongly oppose the existence of policemen or jails...
...I don't want to answer Mike Walzer in any detail, since much of what he says by way of criticism I also strongly affirm in my book—he is not a close reader...
...In a community where each one, in his spontaneity and by his ani mal presence, is a force in the actual decisions, the dilemmas of "individual freedom" and "corporate decision" do not exist in the way we are used to...
...as Mike says...
...One way is to assert community and cry out to friends for help, as I do...
Vol. 11 • January 1964 • No. 1
