Restoring the Spirit

"Our public officials are not much concerned about the 'waste of human resources'.… But … the big causes of stupidity, of lack of initiative and lack of honorable incentive, are glaring," noted Paul Goodman—a half-century ago—in Growing Up Absurd.

"Our society cannot have it both ways: to maintain a conformist and ignoble system and to have skillful and spirited men to man that system with." That word, "spirited," is where I rest the heart of our case. Spirited students require spirited teachers, of course. And we are killing off the spirit in the most deliberate way—fifty-five years after Goodman published these words.