The "Beat Generation"

1. “A swinging group of new American men intent on joy.” – Jack Kerouac
   1. “Disreputable heritage” included jazz musicians, junkies, sexual outlaws, hobos, and other marginal types
   2. Attitude, dress, and language derived from bebop jazz musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and from the “stereotypical” jive-talking, flashily dressed hipster of the World War II era (i.e., “Killer Joe”).
   3. “Hipsters came in two varieties: “hot” (enthusiastic, fun-loving) and “cool” (withdrawn, nihilistic). Kerouac, Ginsberg, and company were definitely in the hot category.”
2. The movement centered around Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs.
   1. Kerouac was a Columbia University football star. He and Neal Cassady “bummed” around the country, and Kerouac wrote On the Road to chronicle their experiences. The novel's premise (in a “whitewashed” version) became CBS' Route 66.
   2. Allen Ginsberg moved to San Francisco in 1953 and in 1955 organized a poetry reading advertised as “Six Poets at the Six Gallery.” He premiered the poem “Howl,” which was declared obscene by the San Francisco Police Dept.
   3. William Burroughs, heir to the Burroughs adding machine fortune, authored The Naked Lunch (1959).
3. The Beat philosophy was based on Eastern mysticism: “beat” refered to “beatitude,” the beat of jazz, and possibly from a comment by New York hustler Herbert Huncke (“I'm beat,” perpetuated by Kerouac).
   1. Beats embraced a cultural relativism that placed them outside the social mainstream. Unlike the folk movement of the 50s and early 60s, they were less interested in social change than in personal development.
   2. Occasionally overt but always present, race played a major role. “Disaffected whites viewed the black community as embodying the honest vitality missing from their own culture.” Beats adopted African American “style,” slang, and music as a way of demonstrating non-conformity.
   3. Critics of the movement saw the “beatnik” (a derogatory term coined by columnist Herb Caen in 1958) as lazy, obscene, perverted, a drug user, and generally lacking in hygiene.
4. The non-conformism of the Beats was a major factor in the Psychedelic and New Left movements of the 60s as well as the punk movements of the 70s and 80s.

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