Goodman: American Education, "Positively Damaging"

Lately there has been a great deal of talk about the political exhaustion of the left. Some people see an apocalypse, "the end of ideology." Others like Sartre, find it impossible to combine "philosophical despair with political activism." And still others take a quiet second look at pet programs of big government--ugly housing projects inhuman superhighways, massive defense budgets--and when no one is looking, vomit.

To the some of the exhausted, Paul Goodman seems the answer. He leads a new kind of American utopian leftism, a kind which is very sure of itself. Though Goodman has made no specific reference to Herbert Marcuse, his thinking appears to use ideas first formulated by the Frenchman in Eros and Civilization. This approach tries to put mass production, Marx, and Freud into a coherent scheme. The result is a clear possibility for a "non-repressive society."

What Americans have now, presumably, is a repressive society, which, to Goodman, is no good at all. The present economic organization sets political traps, yes; but beyond this and more important, sheer size creates pervasive, damaging psychological exploitation. In Goodman's view, the contemporary American is forced to make a bad trade--he gives up community, good sex and decent communication for money and status in the "Organized System." In short, Goodman argues that our times have become effectively totalitarian even though our political system is not.

An Extrapolation

But this run-down of the basic Goodman position comes from extrapolation. Goodman's books never give his reader a clear notion of his basic assumptions. And, had Goodman presented his theoretical framework to his audience in Burr last spring, he might have won over more people. As it turned out his alarmingly candid remarks about his own sexual hang-ups struck the audience as willy-nilly. Yet the primary appeal remained: If you want more sex, follow me.

With Sex as Liberator and the "Organized System" as current World Historical Process, Goodman has written Compulsory Mis-education, an angry little book. It maintains that education in this country at all levels is, for the most part, "positively damaging." He writes, "the compulsory system has become a universal trap, and it is no good. Very many of the youth, both poor and middle class might be better off if the system simply did not exist, even if they then had no formal schooling at all." As for the people who run American education, Goodman says, "the goal of the school monks (a vested intellectual class) is a progressive regimentation and brain washing, on scientific principles, directly towards a facism-of-the-center, 1984."

Some Kind of Lie

In other words, Compulsory Miseducation contends that American education is living some kind of lie, that the king has no clothes. Goodman wants to begin by junking the whole thing. But this is obviously impractical. And the term "school monk" is a pretty stupid smear. Education has some good men, even some great men. All of them "school monks in an Organized System"? Hardly.

Goodman's new book is particularly vehement about Harvard. Since the "Organized System" is a "strict top to bottom affair," the University sets a pattern in which grades and other extrinsic determine "who to accept, reward, hire." The archetype of the alienated kid is the guy who "'does' Bronx High to 'make' Harvard and 'does' Harvard to 'make'. . ."

Harvard Conspiracy

Goodman goes on to treat a number of Harvard people as if they were members of a conspiracy. James Conant, Jerome Bruner, Graham Blaine, Dr. Resnick of the Ed School, and Dean Whitla from the Office of Tests all have a hand in enforcing in loco parentis, and putting on public relations. "The University," Goodman laments, "which should be the dissident and the poor has become the Establishment. The streets are full of its monks . . . What a bad scene. Its spirit pervades all of society."

But Harvard is not that bad really. Rather than smothering the dissident it more often sharpens individual dramas. The undergrad Pilgrim comes to Harvard, reputedly some kind of paradise, having been elected by a mysterious lottery in Holyoke Center. The problem is to justify one's election. So we see people scrutinizing their lives and working out their personal salvation through the Rank List, among the Young Dems or through civil rights work, etc. And if they also choose to have love affairs, the University is in no position to stop them. Harvard pretty much leaves its students alone; C's are easy to make and leaves of absence are granted no questions asked.

The "Organized System" isn't really that organized, here or anywhere else. Goodman gives it too much credit