For Goodman, the unhappiness of young people was a concentrated form of the unhappiness of American society as a whole, run by corporations that provide employment (if and when they do) but not the kind of meaningful work that engages body and soul. Goodman saw the young as the first casualties of a humanly reĀpressive social and economic system and, as such, the front line of potential resistance.
Noam Chomsky has said, "Paul Goodman's impact is all about us," and certainly it can be felt in the powerful localism of today's renascent left. A classic of anarchist thought, Growing Up Absurd not only offers a penetrating indictment of the human costs of corporate capitalism but points the way forward. It is a tale of yesterday's youth that speaks directly to our common future.