SOURCE: "Dr. Reich's Banned Books," in Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals, Random House, 1962, pp. 138-44.

Goodman was an American writer and educator whose works include Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized System (1960) and People or Personnel: Decentralizing and the Mixed System (1965). In the following essay, which was first published in 1960, he defends Reich's books at a time when they were banned by the Food and Drug Administration.

We are here concerned with the fate of Dr. Reich's books, banned by the Food and Drug Administration. The relation of theory and practice, of a scientific theory and its applications, is a thorny one; but it must in every case be decided in the direction of absolute freedom of speculation and publication, otherwise it is impossible to live and breathe. The practical policing of therapies is not an author's responsibility. The Administrator's reasoning in Section 5 of his...