Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR FEUER AND SUNDEL Lewis Feuer's "The Cult of the Rebel" (NL, June 19) and Alfred Sundel's book-review entitled "The Limp-Wrist School" (NL, June 19) are two of the finest bits of...
...Rubel, I refer the reader again to my original reply to his first letter (XL, June 12...
...Paris, France Maximilien Rubel Sidney Hook replies: I find Maximilien Rubel's reasoning absurd from start to finish...
...policy" has forfeited the right to be taken seriously...
...What could be more "prudential" than the Letter's statement that "We are sympathetic to the true democrats and trade unionists in exile, to those who proved their devotion to freedom in, the struggle against Batista and who- seek a return to the original ideals of the revolution...
...Does that sound like "asserting that American intervention in general is bad...
...If my assumption is correct—and the revolutionary experiences of humanity confirm it—it appears to me monstrous to accept that policy of deterrence which Hook advocates as a means of saving liberty...
...The Open Letter also states: "When Castro overthrew Batista, the United States could have said: 'It is to our shame that we so long supported the tyrant who oppressed the Cuban people...
...he is eager to see an analogy with the struggle against Hitler...
...Explicitly and implicitly I pleaded for a permanent refusal of slavery in all its forms and disguises, assuming that there exists in man a calling and a will for liberty which no political regime can weaken indefinitely or extirpate permanently...
...The anti-violence bill had led to a repetition of the events of last year, with student rioting in the streets, physical violence in the Chamber by the Socialists to prevent vote, police intervention to restore order in the Diet, a Socialist boycott, and passage of the bill with the Socialists absent...
...Providence, R. I. Richard C. Kostelanetz DRAPER REPUES I should like, even if belatedly, to make some brief comment on the letters concerning my two supplements ("Castro's Cuba: A Revolution Betrayed?, NL, March 27...
...Well, although I have felt that Goodman's earlier works were characterized by brilliance coupled with incoherence, I like his latest book...
...Columbia, S. Carolina Gordon Tullock HOOK In distorting my argument and trying to make me an apologist for a "surrender to Communism," Sidney Hook needed twice the space which I had available in your journal ("Dear Editor," NL, June 12...
...As I read him, Goodman ascribes no such mission to the J.D...
...Rather, he is a "revealer" or a "symptom" of human values against the pressures of society...
...before becoming the ally of the "free world," Stalin was the ally of Hitler...
...I do not see the inconsistency that M. Bergman thought that he detected in "Cuba and U.S...
...Seldom has a crystal ball been cloudier than Feuer's...
...For example, Feuer writes that Goodman sees the juvenile delinquent as "the bearer of human values against the pressure of the Organized System...
...The fact that he had just adduced his own dogma, that there is no absolute truth, as the essential of education does not faze him...
...It is a fact of history that American power made Cuba a vast sugar plantation, distorting its economy and impoverishing its citizens...
...Again, Feuer writes: "The juvenile delinquent is an anarchist political philosopher...
...Policy," and could say that I cling to the notion that "nothing was really wrong with U.S...
...it is, it realizes itself in the struggle for a society without masters— either money or the state...
...Lagos, Nigeria Lateef A. Olukotun...
...Growing Up Absurd presents germane theory that sees such diverse phenomena as J.D.'s, Beats and Organization Men as all part of the same reality of contemporary America...
...Policy," NL, June 5), published in The New Leader of June 26, during my absence from the country...
...I also have Roche's summary of it in his May 15 New Leader piece...
...The liberty of man is not susceptible to salvation...
...Ratner also informs us that he is not the author of Characters and Events, as stated in « biographical note.—Ed...
...Feuer's remark is like saying that Karl Marx was a. spokesman of the cult of the suppressed industrial masses...
...Goodman does not complain about the "competitive economy," but rather about the society in which competition enters all forms of existence and in which the competition has no higher value than itself...
...Robert Lekachman uses as his final argument against aid to parochial schools the fact that such schools operate with a conscious certainty and dogmatism...
...Hook's argument is based on the alleged opposition between "Communism" and the "free world...
...Usually, I read The New Leader promptly, but I had been out of town and I read this issue over a month late...
...The full text of the statement was published in the May 19 issue of the Socialist Party's newspaper, New America...
...Furthermore, Goodman is not, like Sergei Nechayev, "a spokesman for the cult of aimless destruction...
...and "Cuba and U.S...
...It is like saying that because X is an out-growth of Y, no significant distinction can be drawn between them even when the distinction is a matter of life and death...
...DEAR EDITOR FEUER AND SUNDEL Lewis Feuer's "The Cult of the Rebel" (NL, June 19) and Alfred Sundel's book-review entitled "The Limp-Wrist School" (NL, June 19) are two of the finest bits of criticism of literature and of culture that I have seen in a long time...
...Thomas sent Roche inviting his signature...
...Hook's distinction, fictitious in the main, can be countered by a more real picture: that of the vast majority surrendering to the decisions and appetites of the dominant elites, which oppress and exploit them...
...Berkeley, Calif...
...The poorly chosen word is "bearer," which implies that Goodman assigns mission to the J.D...
...Judging from his letter, we think very much alike...
...As for the letter of Richard Drinnon, it is full of ignorant venom...
...Feuer's dismissal of Goodman's key metaphor of the Rat Race as "animalizing human beings" is much too glib...
...Indeed, he seems unconscious of it...
...July 3-10), there is a remark that leads me to suspect that his judgment may be equally faulty in another area...
...Is this really the mentality of the pro-Castro fraternity in Berkeley, California...
...Feuer hints that those who like the book must be Goodman's "disciples...
...Further Thoughts on Intervention," June 19...
...When I wrote that "from the available evidence I strongly doubt" that "Fidel always knew where he was going," I was referring to his entire political past...
...Point Lookout, N. Y. Joseph T. McIntyre PENPAL I am an African Nigerian boy of 18 years and am seeking a penpal-friend of any age...
...Because the West is partly responsible for the rise of Hitler and the triumph of the Kremlin, it does not follow in the least that no significant opposition exists between them...
...His statement made me wonder how many other signers of the "Open Letter to President Kennedy" may actually have put their names to a document which seriously misrepresents their true feelings in important respects...
...All letters must be answered by air mail, which costs $.25...
...INTERVENTION John Roche has me puzzled by his remarks about Norman Thomas in both of his pieces on intervention ("Confessions of an Interventionist," XL, May 15...
...I have before me the full text of the "Open Letter to the President" on Cuba, which...
...It strikes me that more basic article would be one entitled "May the Government [Federal, of course] Give Aid to Schools...
...On the contrary, it specifically says, "The only real defense is an offensive for social justice and democracy supported by the United States" (my italics...
...as Marx does to the proletariat or Norman Mailer to the hipster...
...Under what clause of the Constitution does our Congress have the power to appropriate money for schools...
...Goodman's point is that the J.D.'s unformulated response to the Organized System resembles an anarchist response...
...He defends the humane base of some forms of "aimless destruction," but uses them as examples of conditions to be eradicated...
...I hope it is an individual aberration...
...To call this a "Rat Race" seems to me an apt and perceptive metaphor...
...I regret to say that summary does not faithfully impart either the spirit or text of the Thomas letter...
...Both of these thoughts seem to me to be entirely compatible, and I would say to Bergman that both agree with the facts as far as we can know them now...
...Robert E. Fitch In his review of Paul Goodman's Growing Up Absurd ("Cult of the Rebel," NL, June 19), Lewis S. Feuer often misrepresents Goodman...
...Goodman in no way wishes to make it a way of life...
...The only difference between these events and those of last year arose from the steadily increasing factional splits in the Liberal-Democratic party which made it impossible to get the bill through the upper house...
...But we believe that their cause is compromised in the eyes of the Cuban people by association with U.S...
...It is surprising that Feuer, a professor of philosophy, should label the inarticulate with the title of "philosopher...
...I make my cause with the victims, and above all with the most innocent among them, the children...
...The Chinese Communist historians consider the May 4 movement as the beginning of their party...
...If under the general welfare clause, will it be held constitutional for the Congress to discriminate against some 25 per cent of the nation's school children and still claim that it is acting for the general welfare...
...The Open Letter nowhere declaims "interventionism in general...
...Such at least are the teachings of genuine socialism...
...Consequently, I knew that the "agreement" had completely failed the first time it had been put to a test...
...Thus a manuscript reference to "the Mills," meaning father James and son John Stuart, emerged as "the Mills brothers...
...New York City Irwin Suall CORRECTION In Joseph Ratner's review of American Pragmatism by Edward C. Moore (NL, June 26), family relationships were mangled by the editorial mill...
...AID TO EDUCATION I read with interest Robert Lekachman's article "Should the Government Give Aid to Religious Schools" (NL, June 26...
...To make friends with each other is evidence of good living...
...Let us hope that the similarities of these two student movements are superficial...
...Instead of this, we adopted a position of uneasy neutrality, as if a 'hands off' policy was an act of political virtue...
...It seems fair that I be allowed the following brief clarification: I did not advocate a "philosophy of survival at all costs or at any price...
...In his second piece, Roche speaks favorably of the work being done by the Institute of Political Education in San Jose, Costa Rica, but neglects to mention that the "liberal isolationist" Norman Thomas is chairman of a committee which has cooperated with Latin Americans in setting up and maintaining the school...
...I meant that, for whatever reason, he knew what he was doing, even if he did not know that he would do it from the outset of his political career or from some relatively distant point in the past...
...When I wrote that "the Communists and Fidel walked toward each other, each with his eyes open," I was referring to the more recent period in power...
...Among this mass of men, the children surely would prefer to judge for themselves the nature of Communism instead of surviving "free," in mourning, or crippled...
...But historical evidence shows the falseness of Hook's Manichean distinction between "Communism" and the "free world" Before becoming the cause of World War II, Hitler was the product of the First, i.e., of the policy of the then "free world...
...New York City Theodore Draper ZENGAKUREN I was much amused by Lewis S. Feuer's conclusion in "A Talk with the Zengakuren" (NL, May 1) that "The resultant agreement of the Parliamentary parties not to have snap votes while any group is absent, and not to mar the Chamber with violence is, in large measure, the consequence of the Zengakuren intervention...
...Anyone who read my article, "Cuba and U.S...
...New York City Joseph M. Brennan The naivete, the almost pristine innocence of the liberal mind as it grapples with logic is awe-inspiring...
...The difference makes Goodman, who is a social critic, seem like a messianic thinker...
...Policy...
...military power and with former supporters of Batista's bloody dictatorship...
...This is Goodman's major achievement...
...Hook makes himself the accomplice of the fatal game of the ruling elites which is leading the world to its destruction...
...In Feuer's reply to Professor I. I. Morris' letter (NL...
...The May 4 movement did indeed mark "The dawn of a new day...
...With John T. Edsell, I can have no quarrel...
...They are, moreover, a pleasant reassurance that not every one in this country has gone soft in the head and corrupt in the heart...
...As for the other issues raised by Mr...
...Please write to me at 6, Atiko Street, Lagos, Nigeria, W.C.A...
...Although other trends also originated then, the ultimate outcome was totalitarian control...
...It is an example of Goodman's greatest virtue—to originate ideas that brilliantly explain our complex experience...
...Because we understand this, we greet the Cuban Revolution and pledge ourselves to provide political and economic support so that its democratic aims may be realized...
...I think Roche owes Norman Thomas a more gracious apology than is contained in his second piece...
...He points to similarities between June 15, 1960, in Tokyo and May 4, 1919, in Peking...
...I meant, for example, that he probably did not know in 1953, or even in January 1959, how far he would go in embracing the orthodox Communists...
Vol. 44 • July 1961 • No. 29
