Drawing the Line Once Again

Paperback, 122 pages

English language

Published June 22, 2010 by PM Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-60486-057-3
OCLC Number:: 2009901375

(1 review)

Five years after his death in 1972, Paul Goodman was characterized by anarchist historian George Woodcock as “the only truly seminal libertarian thinker in our generation.” In this new PM Press initiative, Goodman’s literary executor Taylor Stoehr has gathered together nine core texts from his anarchist legacy to future generations.

Here will be found the “utopian essays and practical proposals” that inspired the dissident youth of the Sixties, influencing movement theory and practice so profoundly that they have become underlying assumptions of today’s radicalism. Goodman’s analyses of citizenship and civil disobedience, decentralism and the organized system, show him Drawing the Line Once Again, mindful of the long anarchist tradition, and especially of the Jeffersonian democracy that resonated strongly in his own political thought. This is a deeply American book, a potent antidote to US global imperialism and domestic anomie.

(Source: PM Press)

2 editions

sol2070 reviewed Drawing the Line Once Again by Paul Goodman

Sharp and pragmatic (but a bit dated?)

3 stars

(em português, incluindo um artigo traduzido do livro → sol2070.in/2023/10/Princ%C3%ADpios-do-descentralismo)

"... we are in a period of excess centralization. It is demonstrable that in many functions this style is economically inefficient, technologically unnecessary and humanly damaging. Therefore we ought to adopt a political maxim: to decentralize where, how and how much is expedient." ... "It is not “anarchy.” (But of course most Anarchists, like the anarcho-syndicalists or the community-anarchists, have not been “anarchists” either, but decentralists.)" Paul Goodman (in 1964)

Ursula Le Guin was the one who led me to read Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972), referring to the American intellectual as the anarchist who most influenced her.

"Drawing the Line Once Again: Paul Goodman's Anarchist Writings" is a short book that brings together articles on topics related to anarchism. Perhaps it's not the best book to introduce the author. I felt that many of the articles were a bit …

(em português, incluindo um artigo traduzido do livro → sol2070.in/2023/10/Princ%C3%ADpios-do-descentralismo)

"... we are in a period of excess centralization. It is demonstrable that in many functions this style is economically inefficient, technologically unnecessary and humanly damaging. Therefore we ought to adopt a political maxim: to decentralize where, how and how much is expedient." ... "It is not “anarchy.” (But of course most Anarchists, like the anarcho-syndicalists or the community-anarchists, have not been “anarchists” either, but decentralists.)" Paul Goodman (in 1964)

Ursula Le Guin was the one who led me to read Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972), referring to the American intellectual as the anarchist who most influenced her.

"Drawing the Line Once Again: Paul Goodman's Anarchist Writings" is a short book that brings together articles on topics related to anarchism. Perhaps it's not the best book to introduce the author. I felt that many of the articles were a bit dated: as they weren't originally intended as a book, they make frequent references and are even based on news stories from the time, for example.

But I really liked the sharp analysis and pragmatism. One example is the article "Some Prima Facie Objections to Decentralism", which I liked the most.

It's about a basic principle of anarchism, decentralization at (almost) all levels. Answering frequent questions from young people, Paul introduces how this could actually be implemented.

Subjects

Anarchism