600
IRVING HOWE
those twists and turns, those frenetic pursuits of novelty, which have
characterized so many intellectual careers of the past few decades.
Goodman continues to write as if it were still possible to move
people: perhaps not sufficiently or in sufficient numbers, yet with
some sense that speech retains a power. The action toward which he
points is not necessarily a parading in the streets, though that too when
it is necessary; it can be an action within the intellectual world or
among friends or wherever people, coming together, retain a concern
for something beyond ego or career. For Goodman the value of this
perspective, apart from its rightness, is that it enforces a certain
discipline upon his work.
It
keeps his writing from slipping into the
merely
lJ,rilliant,
that mode of display which attracts writers who have
prominence but not influence; and it preserves the valuable assump–
tion-which through persistence and courage he has made come true–
that there is an audience out there listening to what we say.
Most of the social criticism written in the last twenty years has
been sharp and informative in detail, but toothless in its larger ap–
proaches, which is why it has been so popular among middle-brow
readers who want to be moved without having to move. Another kind
of criticism, prevalent in
Partisan R eview, Commentary,
and other ad–
vanced journals, is frequently bold in speculation and clever in local
insights, but without any visible objective goal or intent: such writing
has a way of declining into a narcissistic exercise, providing amuse–
ment for a coterie audience which survives after the intellectual coterie
that had brought it into existence has disappeared.
If
you ask a
sophisticated reader what he admires in Mary McCarthy's essays, his
answer will probably be, "why, she's brilliant"-which she certainly
is; but I don't imagine anyone is likely to associate Miss McCarthy
with an idea. Some time ago Isaac Rosenfeld spoke about "wisdom
without thesis-the inexpensive kind," and that, in the name of a free
play of intellect, is what we have gotten from most intellectuals these
past years. Often very good,
it
is not good enough. By contrast, Paul
Goodman tries for something more, and frequently achieves it. His
mannerisms, like those of many "minority writers," can be annoying,
his ego is decidedly visible, but finally it is his thought, his convictions
to which one must respond.
Because he writes with respect for both the idea of history and
the idea of an intellectual career, Goodman uses the essay in a some–
what tentative and improvisatory way. None of his pieces stands en–
tirely alone; each of them picks up ideas he first ventured years ago,
or seems to wait for a further development in the future. Several of his
