Jack Newfield Quote

A study of the San Francisco Beat enclave by psychiatrist Dr. Francis Rigney in the late 1950's showed 60 percent "were so psychotic or crippled by tensions, anxiety and neurosis as to be nonfunctional in the competitive world." In contrast, the several studies released so far made of the student radicals at Berkeley show them to be stable, serious, and of above-average intelligence. The point is that the Beats had to "cop out" of the Rat Race because they couldn't perform; the New Left chooses to reject a society it could easily be successful in.

Jack Newfield

A study of the San Francisco Beat enclave by psychiatrist Dr. Francis Rigney in the late 1950's showed 60 percent "were so psychotic or crippled by tensions, anxiety and neurosis as to be nonfunctional in the competitive world." In contrast, the several studies released so far made of the student radicals at Berkeley show them to be stable, serious, and of above-average intelligence. The point is that the Beats had to "cop out" of the Rat Race because they couldn't perform; the New Left chooses to reject a society it could easily be successful in.

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About Jack Newfield

Jack Abraham Newfield (February 18, 1938 – December 21, 2004) was an American journalist, columnist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. Newfield wrote for the Village Voice, New York Daily News, New York Post, New York Sun, New York, Parade, Tikkun, Mother Jones, and The Nation and monthly columns for several labor union newspapers. In his autobiography, Somebody's Gotta Tell It: The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist (2002), Newfield said, "The point is not to confuse objectivity with truth."
A career beat reporter, Newfield wrote prolifically about modern society, culture, and politics, on a range of topics relevant to urban life, such as municipal corruption, the police, and labor unions, and also professional sports, especially baseball and boxing, as well as contemporary music. He wrote numerous books about modern social and political subjects, including A Prophetic Minority (1966) and Robert Kennedy: A Memoir (1969). He received the American Book Award for The Full Rudy: The Man, the Myth, the Mania about New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.