Beatniks, hippies and Allen Ginsberg / yet another post about Salinger
Andrew Charles Kennis (holden@escape.com)
Thu, 14 May 1998 11:13:01 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 13 May 1998, Valerie Thompson wrote:
>
> He and his friends became part of a movement because of what they
> wrote, but I don't think they wrote what they did in an attempt to start
> a movement.
>
> ~Valerie
>
This post couldn't be more lacking in accuracy, unless Valerie is
completely forgetting about the existence of Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg was
overtly political and active in his lifetime, both in his personal
activities and in his writings. His anarcho-socialist sympathies are
continually revealed in his works as well as the various other publicly
made statements he made in his lifetime. It is the mainstream corporate media
and culture which has successfully supressed these political leanings and
his activism, as it has done with many other successful / popular
/ famous leftist writers both in the early and late part of this century
(e.g. Upton Sinclair, George Orwell).
Because of Ginsberg's obvious political nature, I would highly doubt that
anybody could come close to proving with any certainty that Ginsberg
never had intentions of being part of a movement or even not minding
starting one or *even* wanting to start one. Personally, it seems pretty
obvious to me that Ginsberg would not have and didn't mind any of the
aforementioned three scenarios being true and to a significant degree,
*were* true anyhow. Indeed, as being a significant part of the Beatnik
cultural phenomenon, Ginsberg participated in something that would serve
as the major precursors for hippies in the 60's. And indeed, it is hard
to argue, if even possible, that the young people who came to live
beatnik and hippie lifestyles in the 50's and 60's were anything but
political (i.e. unbelievable extent of involvement through the formation
of dozens of political organizations and also the existence of large
scale protests that occurred VERY often especially during the anti-war
movement).
--AK
p.s. To Scottie: Hey proper English loving d00d, I saw one of your posts
that referred to a Chomsky quote I apparently posted sometime ago, and I
couldn't quite tell if you were being sarcastic as hell or not. I mean, I
probably coulda figured it out if I belabored myself into thinking for
awhile about it, but I didn't quite feel up to doing as much. Mind just
telling me directly if you were being for real or not without teasing the
slang I am using right now? :P~