Burbanite

I’ve recently read two articles on the “Renaissance Man” of the sixties, Paul Goodman*, both in response to the recently released documentary Paul Goodman Changed My Life. The two articles are by Roger Ebert and A.O. Scott, and they both make similar points: 1) That Goodman was a household (or at least, college dorm) name but is now relatively unknown, and 2) that Goodman’s eclectic literary work basically foretold the future of American education.

From Ebert’s article:

A university should be a place to gather a general education, Goodman argued…Instead, he said, universities were organized for the convenience of their various departments, which focused narrowly in their specialties. Students shouldn’t hasten to define themselves too quickly; he recommended a free year between high school and college, to roam free and discover what life paths beckoned.

Those books published nearly 50 years ago were uncannily prophetic. Today some kids are already on a career path in grade school. Before the really know themselves, it is determined what they will do in life.

Goodman is not the first to advocate a liberal education, but his points, plainly-spoken and often controversial, seem to ring truest now. From Scott’s article:

The time is surely right for a Goodman revival. There are aspects of contemporary life that he anticipated and influenced — the gay rights movement, most notably — and others that are sorely in need of his wisdom. At a time when the discussion of education is locked into sterile, strident and instrumental debates about “reform,” his radical humanism, at once romantic and commonsensical, would be more than welcome.

His most famous book, “Growing Up Absurd,”…a bible of the 1960s student rebellion, remains essential and troubling reading for anyone who cares about the problems of the young…Libertarians and anarchists of the left and the right could learn a lot from this Jeffersonian pacifist’s ideas about freedom. And those drawn to the recent renewal of interest in artisanal and agrarian practices as a sustainable alternative to consumerism will find instruction and inspiration in “Communitas,” a 1947 blueprint for utopia that Mr. Goodman wrote with his brother, Percival.

Maybe we need a Goodman now more than ever, particularly in light of the current problems with our public education system (see: Waiting for “Superman”), the disorganization of modern student rebellions like Occupy Wall Street, and the seeming inability of Congress to make a single unified decision. “On the very weekend of the march on the Pentagon,” Ebert writes, “[Goodman] had been invited to address an official government conference of defense contractors and military leaders, and he informed them they were the devil incarnate.”

Or maybe it’s all just wishful thinking.

*I’d recommend you click on this link, if you don’t know who Paul Goodman is. It leads to his Wikipedia page. Just to give you a hint, one could easily introduce him with seven different adjectives before they got to “anarchist.”