The Philosophy of the Beats

Introduction

1 IntroduCtIon Sharin N. Elkholy The great historian of ideas Arthur O. Lovejoy once wrote: “The word ‘romantic’ has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing . It has ceased to perform the function of a verbal sign.”1 One could say the same about the word “Beat.” “Beat” encompasses such an array of meanings and contexts—cultural, social, literary, political, and philosophical —that an exact definition of the term is hard to establish. Still, we might follow Lovejoy’s trajectory. He notes that the term “Romantic” is best defined by the set of German thinkers, poets, and authors who first used it to describe not only their literary and aesthetic styles, but also their styles of life. Likewise, we may define “Beat” and its several cognates, “beatnik,” “beat-i-tude,” “beat generation,” “beat,” by the group of writers who, similarly , utilized the term to describe both their literary styles and styles of life. Since the word “Beat” refers to both a literary movement and a lifestyle, it may be helpful to use the term Beat with an uppercase B to describe the writers grouped under the genre of Beat, either willfully or not, and beat with a lowercase b to describe the lifestyle and sentiments expressed by Beat authors and adopted by those known as beat to create perhaps the most enduring American subculture to date. The best-known Beat writers are Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs met near Columbia University in New York City in the early 1940s. John Clellon Holmes, Gregory Corso, and LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka) were also among their ranks, along with the street hustler Herbert Huncke and Neal Cassady, who served to inspire the above writers. Ann Charters traces the original source of the term “beat” to jazz musicians and hustlers in post–World War II New York, who used it to characterize the lifestyles of the down-and-out, poor, exhausted, and beat-up.2 Burroughs first heard the term used by Huncke 2 Sharin N. Elkholy and brought it to the attention of Kerouac and Ginsberg. Years later (1948) in conversation with Holmes, Kerouac adopted the term “beat” to explain certain attitudes, gestures, and lifestyles belonging to those who embodied “a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world.”3 These folks would come to be known as “hipsters,” or simply “beat,” those “who really know where we are.”4 Thus the term “Beat” primarily serves to group together the above set of New York writers who self-consciously chose the word to identify their writings. But, as stated above, “beat” also captures diverse but related impulses and sentiments. These sentiments and styles, to be discussed below, were shared outside of New York by another set of West Coast writers and poets who, often begrudgingly, found their works grouped together as Beat. The most well-known of these writers are Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Diane di Prima, Joanne Kyger, Bob Kaufman, and Ken Kesey. In The Philosophy of the Beats, leading scholars in the field of Beat studies and philosophy provide cutting-edge analysis of beat style—literary, personal , and political—by drawing on philosophical theories and frameworks to recast the themes explored in Beat writings in light of their philosophical relevance. Each essay introduces its Beat subject and the philosophical figure and theory that will be used to discuss the work of the Beat writer. It then develops the Beat work from the new philosophical perspective, and, likewise, uses Beat writings and life forms to illuminate leading philosophical ideas and concepts. Writers explored in this volume include Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Holmes, Snyder, Kaufman, Kyger, di Prima, Baraka, Charles Bukowski, and Beat filmmaker Peter Whitehead. From critical race theory, feminist theory, film theory, deconstruction, and environmentalism, to phenomenology, contemporary French philosophy, political philosophy, existentialism, Descartes, and Eastern philosophies, The Philosophy of the Beats explores the significance of the Beats through a range of philosophical perspectives while engaging the questions, concerns, influences and contributions of Beat writers for the contemporary reader. In various ways, Beat writers introduced Americans and their readers around the world to new beginnings, new mythologies, and new frameworks for self-understanding through the spontaneous and dynamic modes of expression that came to mark both the Beat literary style and the beat way of life. The Beats captured an American ethos of intensity, vitality, excess, and enthusiasm. Kerouac depicts this high energy...