Thwarting The Young

...At their best, the authorities are all too similar to academics who in their unwillingness to contemplate a disturbance of the status quo, either endlessly ring variations on the psychology of homes and gangs or exhaust themselves in a genuine but narrow passion over slums and discrimination...

...At their frequent worst, the public authorities invoke more strenuous policing and jails that are called by various other names...

...While Goodman offers it as only a simple and partial explanation, it helps correct the imbalance of most studies of delinquency and conformity, their absorption in primary and small group psychology...

...become largely mysterious questions...

...Having drawn the broad outlines of his critical vision of mid-twentieth century American life, Goodman offers as an imaginative representation of it, "An apparently closed room in which there is a large rat race as the dominant center of attention," and goes on to consider the human relations possible in such a place...

...its thesis is that . . the missed revolutions of modern times—the fallings-short and the compromises—add up to the conditions that make it hard for the young to grow up in our society...

...but these are not circumstances unavailable to others...

...Consequently, it includes essays on the class and status structure of midtwentieth century America, and the effects of that structure on the aptitude and abilities of the young who grow up within it...

...Most of his proposals represent, broadly speaking, a rational extension of already instituted welfare provisions—an extension according to humane standards...

...As a people we seem to be moving more deeply into a sensate culture...

...DAVID SACHS...

...The outlines of his comprehensive picture become clear in the chapters of the book which deal with community, sexuality, and the sense of leading a meaningful or justified existence...

...it goes hand in hand with his insistence that we must deserve their allegiance...

...The preparation for this condition is found even in the Feld of education, where emphasis is placed on adapting oneself to the thinking of the group...

...The significance of it is the extent to which it explains how cynicism, indifference, resignation and disaffection have become the main attitudes of many young persons...

...but they do exist interestingly and peacefully...

...After assessing the incomplete and lost revolutions, Goodman offers some dozen realizable but difficult proposals for achieving communities and a country in which fewer of the young would grow up askew...

...Appeals to sentiments of place and country have long fallen into desuetude...

...Goodman's sketches of the predicaments of American youth are parts of a synoptic and deeply critical vision of our society as a whole...

...However, Growing Up Absurd is not merely a catalogue of diverse ways in which America fails its young...

...Recognizing, with a number of students of the subject, that the term "juvenile delinquency" is hopelessly confused, Goodman refrains from playing the arbitrary and idle game of determining a concept of delinquency...

...Goodman's reflections on patriotism constitute a notable act of recovery...

...The gist of what he finds admirable and regrettable about the Beats is expressed in his remark that they ". .. have resigned from the organized system of production and sales and its culture, and yet are too hip to be attracted to independent work...

...He begins with a "simple objective factor which is not much mentioned" —the lack of worthy jobs in our economy, worthy by the criteria of unquestionable utility, exercise of human potentialities, and honor...

...his topic is the conditions which discourage their sentiments of pride of place and patriotism...

...In this connection, the crucial question Goodman puts is: "What does it mean to grow up in the fact that during one's productive years one will spend eight hours a day doing what is no good...

...To the proliferating literature on juvenile delinquency, Goodman makes a salutary addition...

...Much of this has often been noticed...

...the reflections it contains on human nature will only tantalize those seriously interested in the topic and may, to their loss, repel some readers...

...The class and status distinctions to be drawn, as Goodman envisages them, are fundamentally both economic and cultural...

...My main intention in this review is to provide, in virtually outline form, a statement of its contents...

...Noteworthy is his emphasis on the distinction between "Delinquent Behavior as doingtheforbidden-and-even-defiant and Delinquent Behavior in-order-to-getcaught...

...Along with the shrinking environment and the lack of examples of skills go the familiar inadequacies of our educational system and the complexity and abstractness of social relationships...

...For both the urban poor and not-so-poor...

...as he says, "The delinquent fatalism is the feeling of no chance in the past, no prospect in the future, no recourse in the present...

...Goodman's criticisms, some old, some new, of the situations of youth in our society, are invariably expressed with perception and feeling...

...they had some useful education and their poverty is in part voluntary...

...I doubt that Goodman's class of independents is a serious sociological category...

...Finally, some readers may feel that one or two apt anecdotes Goodman relates, and in which he figures, are sentimentally self-indulgent...

...The comparison is not enabled by his saying that Hemingway "is a pretty good writer," and reiterating the same words about Faulkner...

...This question, though it is articulated only by a fraction of the young, must at least be dimly felt by many of them...

...For those who may find this description dramatically exaggerated, a study of records of interviews and individual histories will provide sufficient gloomy confirmation...

...Uniformity of thought and supine loyalty to the organization, whether it be the industrial corporation, the labor union, or the political party, are too often encouraged and rewarded...

...In speaking of community, his main concern is the feelings of the young— or the lack thereof—about their nation and communities...

...Only in the chapter on the Beats is there a relaxation of the tone of urgency which pervades the book...

...men blink at gross needs like that of a future which contains the likelihood of a meaningful job...

...Here Goodman examines in a tender and even entertaining—though hardly light—way the sole recent development in the life of the American young that appears to him valuable...

...The Beats do not go far, they invite degeneration, they seem hard put to assume responsibility...

...There is an excessive preoccupation with material security at the expense of spiritual well-being...

...Statement of Roman Catholic Bishops of the U.S., November 20, 1960...

...In their stead, in place of the fostering of aptitude, the young of all classes are encouraged in role playing and "belonging...

...Throughout the book, in an unfailing tone of urgency, with lively analyses and abundant examples, Goodman shows why our young often fall disastrously short of this ideal, how our society thwarts their capacities, and causes their increasing disaffection...

...The organizational man, cloaked in a sort of anonymity, rather than the responsible individual, is favored and advanced...

...THE CONCLUDING SUBSTANTIAL chapter of Growing Up Absurd is called "The Missing Community...

...As a result, "Who is responsible for what...

...gravated stages, fatalistic attitudes become prominent...

...In his words, their behavior ought to be expressive of "force, grace, discrimination, intellect and feeling...

...GOODMAN'S SHORT ESSAY on the origin, values and limitations of the Beat subculture warrants the epithet "definitive" by contrast to Lawrence Lipton's full-length romantic version in The Holy Barbarians...

...In the notices it has received thus far, Paul Goodman's remarkable book, Growing Up Absurd, has not been done the decency of a summary...

...This pattern is so prevalent that some psychologists consider juvenile delinquency as a revolt, just for the sake of rebellion, against a stifling uniformity that fails to challenge the individuality of the student...

...The first chapter of Growing Up Absurd is titled, "Jobs...

...The introduction is marred by a sketchy excursus in philosophical anthropology...

...Growing U$ Absurd is chiefly about the diverse ways in which youth's appetites and capacities are balked and wasted throughout our society...

...The most detailed discussions in Growing Up Absurd are its analysis of the Beat generation and the socalled "juvenile delinquent sub-culture...

...It is the deprivation and confusion of the young in these regards which, together with the lack of serious vocational opportunities and the discouragement of aptitude, makes their over-all situation one that approaches crisis...

...Instead, he proposes ". . . a series of possible punishable relations obtaining between the boy struggling for life and trying to grow up, and the society that he cannot accept and that lacks objective opportunities for him...

...Goodman shows that the Beat sub-culture furnishes evidence for the claim that "People can go it on their own, without resentment, hostility, delinquency, or stupidity, better than when they move in the organized system and are subject to authority...

...concealed technology, family mobility, loss of the country, loss of neighborhood tradition, and eating up of the play space have taken away the real environment," the ground and occasions for the development of aptitude...

...Of course the public spokes...

...I, to the contrary, find them expressive tokens of the authentic passion that animates the book's pages...

...The proposals should be pondered despite the cost they would entail, an annual expenditure, it may be hazarded, comparable to the portion of the gross national product wagered each year in advertising and gambling, and certainly as recoverable...

...His rat race model of human relations in our society is avowedly caricature...

...At the outset Goodman, with a few abstract strokes, sketches an ideal picture of what the lives of young people should be like, how, in general, they should be growing up...

...The second, appropriately, bears the heading, "Being Taken Seriously...

...If only because of their brevity, Goodman's remarks on the question, What is Man?, appear dogmatic and unnecessary for what follows them...

...but like superior caricature, revealing...

...The main feature of Beat life of which Goodman is critical is the hipsterism that colors many of the Beat attitudes, pervading their defensive ignorance, their confusion of art and modest creative expression, their attempts at heightening experience, and, of course, their jargon...

...and "In what do his responsibilities consist...

...In the chapters on community, sex, and a meaningful life, Goodman treats of the American lack of morale and of America's problematic mores...

...Among the original observations it puts in bold emphasis is that of the similarity between middle status organization men and the members of delinquent gangs: "Morally, both groups are conformist, one-upping, and cynical, protect their 'masculinity', conceal their worthlessness, and denigrate the earn est boys...

...Goodman's account, utterly without cant or jingoism, of the importance of allegiance for the young is compelling...

...here Goodman examines how public authorities and spokesmen address themselves to the spectacular problem of juvenile delinquency...

...more rarely observed is the impact of the ignorance and helplessness of adults who grow less acquainted with the machinery and materials they use both at home and at work...

...The third class contains "those who do not properly belong to the system and are not yet submerged into the poor" outside "of society...

...He titles the chapter, "The Early Resigned," pointing out that the word "Angry" in "Angry Young Men" is a misnomer for "bitter and waspish," whereas "Beat" is accurate, meaning "defeated and resigned...

...He then proceeds to analyze six distinct stages in the series...

...IN REGARD TO THE PROBLEMS of sexuality and youth, the main thesis Goodman propounds is undeniable: "There are class differences...

...I will close by noting what seem to me a few faults in Goodman's extraordinary book...

...Likewise undeniable is his main contention about leading a meaningful life: "Balked, not taken seriously, deprived of great objects and available opportunities, and in an atmosphere that does not encourage service—it is hard to have faith, to feel justified, to have a calling, or win honor...

...The striking general fact that Goodman particularizes is the fostering of ineptitude among the young in the several classes and statuses...

...often, because of the profusion of thought and observation in the book, my outline will be at best a sampling...

...whence the drive to disaster...

...but through all classes, it is hard to grow up when the general social attitude toward sexuality is inconsistent and unpredictable...

...His classes are: first, a minority poor, second, the organized system, including the three statuses of workers, organization men, and managers, and, finally, a third class of "independents...

...Thus, in Goodman's words, "The sense of initia tive, causality, skill has been discouraged...

...The manifestations of that near-crisis are delinquency, the beats, and a conformity both apathetic and cynical...

...In the more ag Don't Believe Us, Listen to Them...

...one passage in Growing Up Absurd seems to me especially open to this charge, a place where he makes an interesting comparison between the masculinity-proving ideal of Hemingway's heroes, the implicit resignation of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha, and the idealism of the characters in his own tetralogy, The Empire City...

...He adds: "To be sure, the Beats were not among the underprivileged to begin with...

...In the past, Goodman's writing has sometimes been blotted by self-indulgence...