GOODMAN IN REPLY

To he Editors of the CRIMSON:

I have just been shown Jacob Brackman's "Silhouette" of me in CRIMSON Dec. 14. It is not especially thoughtful of Mr. Brackman to report the carefully considered argument of a person on a sober issue as if he were reviewing the performance of an actor of a stage, and then to say, "Mr. Goodman has chosen to become a personality." I have made no such choice. Supposing Mr. Brackman were wrong in his perception and was projecting a TV-ideology of his own, or perhaps some anxiety that he felt during the evening, would he not, on reflecting, be ashamed?

Since he was disturbed by the "alarming frankness" with which I spoke of my own "sexual license," let me get this out of the way first. When Mr. Thomases of the Harvard-Radcliffe Union phoned to ask me to the meeting, I told him at once that I was a poor choice. I could not conscientiously speak to students on the subject without being frank about my own hang-ups, in order that they could know the provenance of my opinions as well as my reasons for them (I am a believer in the genetic method); but this would surely damage the case that many students wished me to champion. But Mr. Thomases insisted. I then asked him to invite also Professor Erikson, since he would say something sensible but dislikes my views enough to provide an antidote. Thomases concurred, but it turned out that Erikson was unavailable. I agreed to come altogether because Harvard, though not a good school, is an influential one and might lead other colleges to better practice. (To be sure, it never does lead, except in the important case of academic freedom, where its record is fine.)

Having twenty minutes to speak, I used ten, by the clock in Burr, to explain the right (Jeffersonian) policy for an educational community, namely to teach responsibility by giving freedom in a framework of wise counsel and affectionate support. I then spent one minute on my "alarming frankness," namely, the insoluble problems of being a husband and father without allowing marriage to become an inhibiting jail--(by the way, I wish young Brackman would bring up three good children of his own before lecturing his elders on the responsibilities of fatherhood); and the rough go of being bisexual in our mores. I then, turned, for nine minutes, to some topics to bear in mind: the provincialism and brief history of our present customs; the organic nature of pleasure and its value as one criterion of vitality; the Thomist concept of sexual contact as a means of knowng another person; and the need to rethink the traditional family pattern in modern economic and urban conditions. I had prepared my notes carefully; I spoke my propositions tersely and, I felt, pretty well.

Mr. Brackman's chief complaint, however, is that I "manipulated," "flirted with," was "irresistible to" the audience. I doubt it. That night I happened to be in a very detached and objective mood, being troubled by some events far away. Is it not possible that for many students the attractive-and-disturbing quality of my remarks might have come from the direct statement of importantly-relevant propositions on a matter crucial to their age of life? If so, let me say it is chastening and humbling to think that a frank presentation of mine could be charismatic. (My guess is that the "Silhouette" is vastly exaggerated.)

Mr. Brackman's notion of "influence" is a little paranoic. A student's mind is not made of wax; it actively responds and takes and rejects according to need. If there are submerged contents, it is best if they come to the surface. A good teacher does not avoid transference; but, unlike an orthodox psychoanalyst, he at once tries to dissolve it, by noticing it, by the play of reason, by turning it into actual liking or hostility. How else does he think a young person "matures"? One does not "wait for" maturity. Along the same lines, when he speaks of (sexual) "seduction," he is a very inexperienced young man if he doesn't know about the mutual reaching in such "seductions."

But in Mr. Brackman's view, any "initiation" of, say, a nineteen or twenty-year-old male to homosexual acts exposes him to "inevitable emotional damage," so the seducer is inevitably "irresponsible." Oh, I suppose so. It is also often damaging to hold back and effectually reject. In life you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. (But Jacob's tone sounds a little like the "obsessional heterosexuality" that Ferencxi claimed made peace and fraternity impossible in Europe!) My weary opinion is, as Professor Carlson used to say at Chicago, "It's joost living that wears the organism out; these other vices don't count for so much." I wonder, however, how many Harvardians are "initiated" into anything at age twenty? And surely Mr. Brackman must know that the thing is not the kinds of acts but the background psychosexual history and the interpersonal context in which they occur. (He himself dismisses the social context as badly "repressive." He's a liberal.)

But let me come to my main point. Mr. Brackman's reporting of my opinions on pregnany is irresponsible and contemptible. He says some garbage about my "callous lack of concern for the plight of the unloved illegitimate child and the unwed mother." These words are entirely out of his own mind or heart. Let me review the dialogue as it occurred. In my presentation, I quoted Alex Comfort's two commandments; "Do not exploit another's feelings, and do not cause an unwanted birth," I cautioned, however, that often middle-class people put off having children, or even compel abortions, for the most trivial or venal reasons, or mere convenience; they out themselves off from big experience. Dr. Blaine then chose as his principle theme the "tragedy" of the unwed pregnant girl. A student then protested that if Dr. Blaine thought that this was such an ultimate evil, why didn't the University clinic provide contraceptives on request? Dr. Blaine evaded the question. I thought this evasion was contemptible, his tears were crocodile tears, and I suppose I blew up and let him know it. I pointed out, too, that it was his ideas that made the situation more tragic than necessary; after all, Radcliffe girls were largely middle-class and their families could support the child. It was because of petty ideas that the girl was so disgraced and the child made unwanted--just as fifty years ago it was a legal stigma to be a "bastard." I said also, if I remember, that if my daughter had become pregnant in college, my wife and I would have been annoyed at having to baby-sit, but we would have simply adjusted to it, for she is our daughter and a baby is a baby. At this a student reasonably protested that other parents were not so understanding, and I said, too angrily, "Let them learn, if they're so Christian!" The fact is, I can't endure the American middle-class. Paul Goodman

MR. BRACKMAN REPLIES:

I never wished to report Mr. Goodman's argument, a news story did that; nor was my chief complaint of his podium manners. My article was a personal Impression of the man; of the tensions between his ideology and his way of life. I did not bother to write of these contradictions because I fear the student's mind is waxen, but because the student longs for an adult to champion his cause and will overlook much when rendered this service.

Mr. Goodman puts his finger on my real fear when he speaks of responsibility. But he shrugs his shoulders. It is a teacher's responsibility to help the student towards maturity, to "wait for" it before enticing him into bed. Adult homosexuality 18 a rough-go. Once initiated, a young person tends to remain homo-or bi-sexual, or returns to heterosexual activity long bearing the guilt and anxiety (however irrational) of his youthful experience. Neither consequence is happy; neither justifies Goodman's fling in the hay.

Naturally there are "mutual reachings" in such a seduction--this increases the teacher's liability. Often young people have not fully resolved their own sexuality. Latent homosexual inclinations frequently co-exist with normal desires. Left undisturbed, these usually fade away as the adolescent emerges into adulthood. Except in the relationship of the rapist and patient, it is not always best that submerged contents come to the surface. Under normal circumstances the analysand is not in danger of being led into buggery by his therapist. In denying seduction Goodman exploits these latent attractions. If there were no such skill or art as seduction, all men would meet with equal sexual success.

The quasi-Reichian notion that "holding back" is an damaging to a young man as introducing him to pederasty might be more convincing if Goodman were willing to offer his manifold partners continued commitment and support. But it is ludicrous to presume that his lovers cease to be infatuated with him at the precise moment he moves on to a new affair. Here again, he abdicates his responsibility.

Writing for a college paper, I can only give Mr. Goodman mild publicity. But supposing he is using this dubious Reichean doctrine as a simple go-ahead for his own sexual self-aggrandizement? This sacrifices others to his caprice. Would not he, on reflection, be ashamed? Reich himself, as A.S. Neill points out was anti-promiscuity in sex. No school of psychology considers Don Juan a healthy man.

That monogamous union can be no more than an "inhibiting jall" for Goodman, suggests that his capacity for genuinely loving another may be as ephemeral as his sexual loyalty. I think that extra-marital sex is better than loveless fidelity. But neither, much as I hate to sound square, is as happy as affectionate and spontaneous constancy.

I need hardly reply to Goodman's allegation that I distorted his opinions on pregnancy when his own example supports my inference. Needless to say, the middle-class will not "learn" overnight simply at Goodman's command. And how can we have any revolution in this society without enlisting the middle-class?

Neill, in an aside to Goodman in "The Village Voice" remarked, "Paul might say! what does it matter anyway? Ultimately not a bit: which of us will matter in a hundred years? But today..."

But today! This is what I have called callous. Dr. Blaine is wrong in falling to join Goodman in condemnation of society's hostility to bastardy and the unwed mother. Goodman is wrong in pooh-poohing Blaine's recognition of this unhappy attitude as social fact. Properly, we should work towards changing the situation without minimizing the damage to people caught in the wake of social change. To Goodman, these are expendable and unimportant droplets in a great wave. To Blaine, they are miserable individuals who seek his therapy.

To confront Goodman with a childish conundrum, what would society be like if a great many people suddenly behaved as he does--denying social order in the quest for absolute personal freedom? There is only one answer to this query. We would soon find ourselves living in a community of hardened, broken, narcissistic individuals. This cannot be the Utopia he envisions.

Undeniably we live in a period of electric social change; and the tension between society's often atavistic law and the demands of individual freedom can be most terrible. Yet in our need to resolve this tension we must be wary lest a solipsistic anti-moralism become our ideology.

I eagerly anticipated a rejoinder from Mr. Goodman, but the letter above is confused and disappointing. I respect his brilliance; I admire much of his social thinking--he is one of the last utopians we have left. But I can only pity his hang-ups. How preferable it would be for us all if Mr. Goodman could launch his diatribes at the unendurable American middle-class from some secluded little New Hampshire hide-away, like J. D. Sailnger's, and leave the revolutionary field work to others.