 |
|
|
Fred Newman is the public
philosopher who for 30 years has translated the most progressive
ideals of the 1960s into effective instruments of social and
personal transformation. The centerpiece of Newman’s work
in culture, psychology and politics is our capacity to create
the conditions for our own development.
Newman’s cutting edge discoveries and accomplishments have
generated constant controversy throughout his career. Branded
a “cult leader,” a “self-hating Jew,” a
brainwasher and a political opportunist by his critics, Newman’s
unusual blend of rigorous postmodern philosophy and practical
on-the-ground organizing have made him a lasting – if vilified – architect
of a new progressivism. (see Newman
and his Critics)
Born in 1935, Newman grew up in a predominantly Jewish, working
class area of the southwest Bronx. After his father died when
Newman was nine, leaving his family destitute, Newman earned
what money he could at a variety of jobs. From the years he spent
working in machine shops, where he learned the skill of precision
tool-making from his older brother, Newman derived a lifelong
interest in creating the social machinery for making new tools.
Newman briefly attended the City College of New York before enlisting
in the U.S. Army at the age of 18. After serving in Korea he
returned to New York to complete his undergraduate education
at City College, where he majored in philosophy. In 1962 he received
his doctorate in the Philosophy of Science from Stanford University.
His dissertation – published under the title Explanation
by Description – was written under the supervision of Donald
Davidson, whom Newman has credited with having taught him to
think and to teach.
Explanation (Mouton, 1968) sought to elaborate on Carl Hempel’s
insights into the structural similarities between historical
explanation and the causal-deductive paradigm of explanation
applied to physical phenomena. His unique perspective is most
fully articulated in the anti-epistemology trilogy (co-authored
with the developmental psychologist Lois Holzman) that concludes
with The End of Knowing: A new developmental way of learning.
(Routledge, 1997). The three major influences on Newman’s
thought – the early Marx, the early Soviet psychologist
Lev Vygotsky, and the later works of Ludwig Wittgenstein – are
all very much present in these books.
In 1962 Newman embarked on a career in academic philosophy at
Knox College in Illinois. He subsequently taught at several other
institutions while becoming increasingly active in the anti- Vietnam war
movement that was rapidly taking over the country’s campuses;
with a handful of others across the country he began giving only
A’s to his students to help the men avoid the draft. But
by 1968 Newman decided that this form of protest was inadequate,
and left academia to become a community organizer. His dream
was not to construct a version of what Christopher Lasch called
a “haven in a heartless world” but to create something – he
did not know what – that could be of value to society as
a whole. Since then he has served as chief engineer/toolmaker
in a community of activists with a shared commitment to human
development; together they have created and/or inspired dozens
of political, therapeutic, educational and cultural projects.
Newman’s views on the central political issues of our time – poverty,
racism, war, the democratic process itself – often align
with the positions of other progressive intellectuals. Social
therapy, the clinical approach that he founded, bears a “family
resemblance” to the work of many postmodern, critical,
and humanistic psychologists, including the social constructionist
Kenneth Gergen. Newman is the foremost American director of the
plays of the late Heiner Müller, the German playwright whose
ruthless and poetic accounts of Communism’s failure inspired
Newman to “translate” Müller’s quintessentially
European sensibility into an American idiom. On the electoral
front, Newman was an early pioneer of the independent political
movement, in which he remains an active tactician and power broker.
That Newman is a uniquely polarizing figure suggests that it
is not merely the content of his ideas but his ability to organize
political bases of support (e.g. votes) and give practical expression
to them that most disturbs his critics. He is, in effect, a “rebel
with an organization.”
Dr. Newman practices social therapy in New York City, where he
resides.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
