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Can they solve the problem of the nagging unanswerable question of justification and vocation? Their principle is the traditional one of classical mysticism: by “experiences” (“kicks”) to transcend the nagged and nagging self altogether and get out of one’s skin, to where no questions are asked—nor is there any articulate speech to ask them in.

— Paul Goodman Growing Up Absurd (1956)

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Perhaps the social message has been communicated clearly to the young men and is unacceptable.

Growing Up Absurd (1956)

It is desperately hard these days for an average child to grow up to be a man, for our present organized system does not want men. They are not safe.

Growing Up Absurd (1956)

We certainly have at present the dismal situation that the most imaginative men are directed by a group, the top managers, who are among the least.

Growing Up Absurd (1956)

When the sciences are supreme, average people lose their feeling of causality.

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Not to teach the whole curriculum is to give up on the whole man.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Paul Goodman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.