Beat Generation

The Philosophy of The Beat Generation.

Some year ago, Time Magazine called them the Silent Generation, but this may have been because Time was not really listening. Others tried out the Waiting Generation, and the Go Generation, but all of these were somehow inadequate. Now, with the word "beat," we may have their sobriquet at last...


What differentiated the characters in On The Road from the slum-bred petty criminals and icon-smashing Bohemians which have been something of a staple in much modern American fiction--what made them beat--was something which seemed to irritate critics most of all. It was Kerouac's insistence that actually they were on a quest, and that the specific object of their quest was spiritual..."The Beat Generation," he said, "is basically a religious generation."...


On the face of it, this may seem absurd when you consider that parents, civic leaders, law-enforcement officers, and even literary critics most often have been amused, irritated or downright shocked by the behavior of this generation. They have noted more delinquency, more excess, more social irresponsibility in it than in any generation in recent years, and they have seen less interest in politics, community activity, and the orthodox religious creeds. They have been outraged by the adulation of the late James Dean, seeing in it signs of a dangerous morbidity, and they have been equally outraged by the adulation of Elvis Presley, seeing in it signs of a dangerous sensuality. They have read statistics on narcotics addiction, sexual promiscuity, and the consumption of alcohol among the young—and blanched. They have lamented the fact that "the most original (literary) work being done in this country has come to depend on the bizarre and the offbeat for its creative stimulus"; and they have expressed horror at the disquieting kind of juvenile crime—violent and without an object—which has erupted in most large cities.


...Such crimes, which are no longer rarities and which are all committed by people under twenty-five, cannot be understood if we go on mouthing the same old panaceas about broken homes and slum environments and bad company, for they are spiritual crimes, crimes against the identity of another human being, crimes which reveal with stark and terrifying clarity the lengths to which a desperate need for values can drive the young. For in actuality it is the longing for values which is expressed in such a crime, and not the hatred of them. It is the longing to do or feel something meaningful, and it provides a sobering glimpse of how completely the cataclysms of this century have obliterated the rational, humanistic view of Man on which modern society has been erected.


..."Howl is an 'Affirmation' by individual experience of God, sex, drugs, absurdity," Ginsberg says.


...The suggestion, at least in Kerouac's book, is that beyond the violence, the drugs, the jazz, and all the other "kicks" in which it frantically seeks its identity, this generation will find a faith and become consciously--he believes that it is unconsciously already--a religious generation.


...They may never find the faith that Kerouac believes is at the end of their road. But on one thing they would all agree: the valueless abyss of modern life is unbearable. And if other generations have lamented the fact that theirs was "the worst of all possible worlds," young people today seem to know that it is the only one that they will ever have, and that it is how a man lives, not why, that makes all the difference. Their assumption--that the foundation of all systems, moral or social, is the indestructible unit of the single individual--may be nothing but a rebellion against a century in which this idea has fallen into disrepute. But their recognition that what sustains the individual is belief--and their growing conviction that only spiritual beliefs have any lasting validity in a world such as ours--should put their often frenzied behavior in a new light, and will certainly figure large in whatever future they may have.



Quotes from John Clellon Holmes.