“In the modern world, we Americans are the old inhabitants. We first had political freedom, high industrial production, an economy of abundance.” WorldFirstsPoliticalEconomyModernProductionsAbundanceModern WorldPolitical Freedom Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
“We do not behave as if we believed that the affairs of our world were significant enough for the intervention of great men.” IfsMenWorldEnoughAffairSignificantBehaveGreat MenOur WorldIntervention Author:Paul Goodman
“When we choose a man to beautify our towns, we do not automatically call on the major artists of the world. ... We now lavishly praise Frank Lloyd Wright, but we never made any community use of him, though he longed for the chance.” MenWorldMadeUseArtistCommunityChanceMajorsTownsPraiseFrankOur Town Author:Paul Goodman
“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.” WorldRealEnoughBitsIdealsLet MeOneselfReactionsMediumsArtisticFlawsReal WorldDispositionFormationReacting Author:Paul Goodman
“In a milieu of resignation, where the young men think of society as a closed room in which there are no values but the rejected rat race, ... it is extremely hard to aim at objective truth or world culture. One's own products are likely to be personal or parochial.” ThinkingMenWorldHardYoungValuesCultureRoomsRaceProductsAimObjectivesYoung ManRejectedRatsResignationRat RaceMilieuObjective Truth Author:Paul Goodman
“An awkward consequence of heightening experience when one is inexperienced, of self-transcendence when one has not much world to lose, is that afterward one cannot be sure that one was somewhere or had newly experienced anything. If you aren't much in the world, how do you know you are "out of this world"?” IfsKnowsWorldSelfLosesThis WorldConsequenceDo You KnowAwkwardTranscendence Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
