Growing Up Absurd Author:Paul Goodman The publishing of Growing Up Absurd in 1960 brought Goodman to the public as a social/educational critic. The book was rejected seventeen times before a publisher accepted it, after Norman Poderhotz serialized it in the then leftist Commentary. Growing Up Absurd was adopted in education and sociology courses throughout the country. The book was... more » read as a condemnation of the alienation and oppression in American society and schools, and was a forerunner to the educational criticism of John Holt, Herb Kohl, Jonathan Kozol, and Edgar Friedenberg. For sixties activists, as well as liberal educators, the book provided an analysis of the wrongs of American society and education.« less