Growing Up Absurd

Growing Up Absurd

First paperback edition
Author	Paul Goodman
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Social criticism, sociology, American youth
Publisher	Random House
Publication date	1960
Media type	Print
Pages	296
ISBN	0-3947-0032-5
LC Class	HQ796 G66

Growing Up Absurd is a 1960 book by Paul Goodman on the relationship between American juvenile delinquency and societal opportunities to fulfill natural needs. Contrary to the then-popular view that juvenile delinquents should be led to respect societal norms, Goodman argued that young American men were justified in their disaffection because their society lacked the preconditions for growing up, such as meaningful work, honorable community, sexual freedom, and spiritual sustenance.

Goodman's book drew from his prior works, psychotherapy practice, and personal experiences and relations in New York City. The small New York press that originally commissioned the book asked Goodman to return his advance when the resulting book, written in late 1959, focused less on the commissioned subject of city youth gangs than on the American culture and value systems in which the youth were raised. Nineteen publishers rejected Growing Up Absurd before Norman Podhoretz used selections from the book to relaunch his magazine, Commentary. After Podhoretz encouraged Random House publisher Jason Epstein to reconsider the book, Goodman had a contract the next day. Random House published Growing Up Absurd in 1960 and a Vintage Books paperback edition followed two years later.

Growing Up Absurd became a bestseller with 100,000 copies sold in its first three years and translations into five languages. It was widely read across 1960s college campuses and popular among student activists and the New Left, who assimilated the author's ideology. Growing Up Absurd transformed Goodman's outcast career into mainstream notoriety as a social critic, including invitations to lecture at hundreds of colleges, though Goodman's fame did not endure long after his death in 1972. Many specifics of Growing Up Absurd became dated with time and, in later years, retrospective reviewers criticized Goodman's exclusion of women from his analysis. New York Review Books reissued Growing Up Absurd in 2012.