Paul Goodman - Dissent Magazine

Paul Goodman Replies

Paul Goodman ▪ January 27, 2023

I don’t want to answer Mike Walzer in any detail, since much of what he says by way of criticism I also strongly affirm in my book—he is not a close reader. Perhaps I write too much in the old …

Banning Cars From Manhattan

Percival Goodman and Paul Goodman ▪ Summer 1961

This article first appeared in our Summer 1961 issue. We are republishing it following the New York state legislature’s recent approval of a congestion pricing plan for New York City.

Reflections on Literature as a Minor Art

Paul Goodman ▪ Summer 1958

I am setting down the following melancholy reflections not with any hope of a remedy, but because the matter is important and nobody else seems to be saying it. In many ways literature has, in this century, become a minor …

Notes on Decentralization

Paul Goodman ▪ April 1, 1974

I. What Is Meant by Decentralization and What Is Not Meant Decentralizing is increasing the number of centers of decision-making and the number of initiators of policy; increasing the awareness by individuals of the whole function in which they are involved; …

Sub-Language as Social Badge

Paul Goodman ▪ December 1, 1971

Innumerable sentences that are said are mainly social cement, keeping people together by engaging in the sociable action of speaking and listening, playing with the common code like any other game, and telling enough information to avoid the pain of a …

Memoirs from Prison

Paul Goodman ▪ July 1, 1970

THE EXTRAORDINARY APPALLING BEGINNING Of this extraordinary book—I can’t conceive of any other way to make credible the attentat on Frick by the compassionate, sensitive, and intellectual young man, and the author succeeds in making it totally credible. No novelist …

Kropotkin at this Moment

Paul Goodman ▪ November – December 1968

The new interest in Kropotkin is part of the worldwide revival of Anarchist action and thought, in both “private enterprise” and socialist countries. So Bakunin, Kropotkin, and the other Anarchists were right after all: the real enemies have proved to …

Missing the Point on LBJ

Paul Goodman ▪ March-April 1967

There is a positivist school of political science that devotes itself to the analysis of power. It is value-free about things like justice or commonwealth; and it pays as little mind as possible to causes like class interests or historical …

Berkeley in February

Paul Goodman ▪ Spring 1965

The dominant system of society is critically dependent on the schools, especially the universities. Schools provide the brainpower for the scientific technology. They are wistfully expected, beginning with age 3, to bring everybody into the mainstream of economic usefulness; and …

Letters From Mississippi

Paul Goodman and L. Geoffrey Cowan ▪ September 1, 1964

“From Mississippi the rest of the United States seems unreal,” Bob Moses, director of the Mississippi Summer Project, remarked to a group of volunteers at our orientation session at Oxford, Ohio. At that time my own mental picture of the …

Notes on Decentralization

Paul Goodman ▪ September 1, 1964

What Is Meant by Decentralization and What Is Not Meant Decentralizing is increasing the number of centers of decision-making and the number of initiators of policy; increasing the awareness by individuals of the whole function in which they are involved; …

Format And Anxiety

Paul Goodman ▪ Summer 1962

I don’t much look at the movies, television, or the other popular arts covered by Show magazine. About once a year my wife and I go to a movie to see what that is like. Occasionally, if I am immured …