New Reformation: Notes of a Neolithic Conservative

by Paul Goodman

New Reformation was Paul Goodman’s last book of social criticism. The man who set the agenda for the Youth Movement of the Sixties with his best-selling Growing Up Absurd , and who wrote a book a year to keep his “crazy young allies” focused on the issues as he saw them, stepped back in 1970 to re-assess the results of what he considered a moral and spiritual upheaval comparable to the Protestant Reformation—“the breakdown of belief, and the emergence of new belief, in sciences and professions, education, and civil legitimacy.” Michael Fisher’s introduction situates Goodman in his era and traces the development of his characteristic insights, now the common wisdom of every radical critique of American society. A poet and novelist famous in his day for books on decentralization, community planning, psychotherapy, education, linguistics, and media, nowhere is Goodman’s voice more prescient and still relevant than in New Reformation .

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Paul 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.

Reviews

[JB · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the title of the documentary goes, Paul Goodman Changed My Life. Though it's interesting that now that I'm in my mid-30s, I find his sensible, radical voice all the more reasonable and engaging than I did even reading the crucial Growing Up Absurd in my early 20s. Things in Montreal are as revolutionary as they've been in more than a generation right now, and I'm so thankful that I had Goodman's reason and guidance to offer quiet counsel at ends of long days of marching, being attacked by police, and standing up for the dignity of democracy in the face of authoritarian consolidation of power.

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodman was one of my gurus ... A review copied and pasted ...
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1970/...
" So I propose maxims like 'the right purpose of elementary schooling is to delay socialization'
and “'innovate in order to simplify, otherwise as sparingly as possible.'”
***
While net browsing "Neolithic Conservative," I came across this article ...
https://www.livescience.com/18132-int...
"There's no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy."

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great account of the state of American politics and culture at the end of the 60's. Goodman is an American writer and critic who has been somewhat forgotten but is essential, I think towards understanding Utopian, and somewhat pragmatic (as in John Dewey) positions on the American left. Goodman is like a U.S. version of Marcuse, except instead of philosophy his positions are founded more on education theory, urbanism, and literary criticism.

[Man Solo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book, definitely worth checking out