“Children, if we observe them, seem normally to be abounding in simple faith. They rush headlong and there is ground underfoot. They ask for information and are told. They cry for something and get it or are refused, but they are not disregarded. They go exploring and see something interesting. It is the evil genius of our society to blight, more or less disastrously, this faith of its young as they grow up; for our society does not, for most, continue to provide enough worth-while opportunities and relevant duties, and soon it ceases to take them seriously as existing.”

—  Paul Goodman, book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 139-140.

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Paul Goodman47
American novelist, playwright, poet and psychotherapist 1911–1972

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