Mid-morning. You are waiting for Jill K. to
arrive for housecleaning. You were looking up Sartre and self-deception as a
reminder. Here is a good example of my point to you last night. - Amorella
Underlining focuses on important points in my philosophical outlook then and now.- rho
** **
** **
Sartre: Existential Life
French
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre focussed more sharply on the moral consequences of
existentialist thought. In literary
texts as well as in philosophical treatises, Sartre emphasized the vital
implications of human subjectivity.
Sartre's 1946 lecture L'Existentialisme est un humanisme
(“Existentialism is a Humanism”) offers a convenient summary of his basic
views. The most fundamental doctrine of existentialism is the claim that—for
human beings at least—existence precedes essence. As an atheist, Sartre demands
that we completely abandon the traditional notion of human beings as the
carefully designed artifacts of a divine creator. There is no abstract nature
that one is destined to fill. Instead, each of us simply is in the world; what we will be is then entirely up to
us. Being human just means having the capacity to create one's own essence in
time.
But my exercise of this capacity inevitably makes me totally
responsible for the life I choose. Since I could always have chosen some other
path in life, the one I follow is my own. Since nothing has been imposed on me
from outside, there are no excuses for what I am. Since the choices I make are
ones I deem best, they constitute my proposal for what any human being ought to
be. On Sartre's view, the inescapable
condition of human life is the requirement of choosing something and accepting the responsibility for the consequences.
Responsibility
But
accepting such total responsibility entails a profound alteration of my
attitude towards life. Sharing in the awesome business of determining the
future development of humanity generally through the particular decisions I
make for myself produces an overwhelming sense of anguish. Moreover, since there is no external authority to which I
can turn in an effort to escape my duty in this regard, I am bound to feel abandonment as well. Finally, since I
repeatedly experience evidence that my own powers are inadequate to the task, I
am driven to despair. There can
be no relief, no help, no hope. Human
life demands total commitment to a path whose significance will always remain
open to doubt.
Although this account of human
life is thoroughly subjective, that does not reduce the importance of moral
judgment. Indeed, Sartre maintained that only this account does justice to the
fundamental dignity and value of human life. Since all of us share in the same situation, we must
embrace our awesome freedom, deliberately rejecting any (false) promise of
authoritative moral determination. Even when we choose to seek or accept advice
about what to do, we remain ourselves responsible for choosing which advice to
accept.
This
doesn't mean that I can do whatever I want, since free choice is never
exercised capriciously. Making a
moral decision is an act of creation, like the creation of a work of art;
nothing about it is predetermined, so its value lies wholly within itself. Nor
does this mean that it is impossible to make mistakes. Although there
can be no objective failure to meet external standards, an individual human
being can choose badly. When that happens, it is not that I have betrayed my
abstract essence, but rather that I have failed to keep faith with myself.
Self-Deception
Sartre
thoroughly expounded his notion of the self-negation of freedom in l'Être et
le néant (Being and Nothingness) (1943). Since the central feature of human existence is the capacity to
choose in full awareness of one's own non-being, it follows that the basic
question is always whether or not I will be true to myself. Self-deception
invariably involves an attempt to evade responsibility for myself. If, for
example, I attribute undesirable thoughts and actions to the influence upon me
of the subconscious or unconscious, I have made part of myself into an
"other" that I then suppose to control the real me. Thus, using
psychological theory to distinguish between a "good I" and a
"bad me" only serves to perpetuate my evasion of responsibility and
its concomitants.
Sartre
offered practical examples of mauvaise
foi (bad faith) in action.
People who pretend to keep all options open while on a date by deliberately
ignoring the sexual implications of their partners' behavior, for example,
illustrate the perpetual tension between facticity and transcendence. Focussing
exclusively on what-we-might-become is a handy (though self-deceptive) way of
overlooking the truth about what-we-are. Similarly, servers who
extravagantly "play at" performing their roles illustrate the
tendency to embrace an externally-determined essence, an artificial expectation
about what we ought-to-be. But once again, of course, the cost is losing what
we uniquely are in fact.
The
ability to accept ourselves for what we are—without exaggeration—is the key,
since the chief value of human life is
fidelity to our selves, sincerity in the most profound sense. In our relationships with other human beings, what we truly
are is all that counts, yet it is precisely here that we most often betray
ourselves by trying to be whatever the other person expects us to be. This is
invidious, on Sartre's view, since it exhibits a total lack of faith in
ourselves: to the extent that I have faith in anyone else, I reveal my lack of
the courage to be myself. There are,
in the end, only two choices—sincerity or self-deception, to be or not to be.
Despair
Sartre’s
short story "The Wall" captures his central philosophical themes in a
fictional setting. Only in the
true-to-life moment of someone facing up to the immanence of his own death will
the nature of human life be revealed.
Pablo
fully experiences his own weakness in the face of death. But then his captors
offer him the choice of saving himself by betraying his comrade. Now he must
decide whether to defend the great cause or to live. After sweating it out, he
chooses to give the authorities a phony story, knowing that it will guarantee
his death. But the tables are turned when the lie turns out to be true.
Here are all of the consequences of human responsibility:
anguish over the decision, abandonment in making it alone, and despair when it
backfires. This, Sartre believed, is the character of human life.
Selected and edited
from -- http://www.philosophypagesDOTcom/hy/7e.htm
** **
1116
hours. As an existentialist I feel we do have two choices – sincerity or
self-deception. Authenticity is sincerity in my book. This is the way I remain
true to myself. Amorella checks up on me from my inner self first to see that I
remain authentic within the Merlyn books and this ‘Encounters in Mind’ blog. If
I consciously recognize my authenticity then I am better prepared to meet the
immanence of my own death because with it my inner and outer nature will be
revealed to me. I danced with a real Angel before/during this event. Being in a
transcendent state provided me with the experience of understanding how it is
to be and not being both at once. My doubts are not being in the transcendent state,
my doubt is whether the angelic figure sensed but unseen was a real angel or
not. Later, you (Amorella) said that it was you I danced to the mental tune of “Hava
Nagela” with some twenty-eight years ago. If so, then I was right to doubt.
You were and are a doubter by your essence. This
is a selection of your authenticity from my perspective. Were I to announce
that, “I, Amorella, am an Angel,” you would still doubt because you do not know
what an Angel is. You have earthly definitions but not divine ones. This shows
your reasoning, your sincerity. This is the reason you love the quotation you
just discovered on your quick iPhone Google research.
** **
. . . for thereby some have entertained angels unawares; as
Abraham, [Genesis 18:1] he knew them not to be angels at first; they appeared
as men, and he treated them as such; but they were angels, yea, one of them was
Jehovah himself; and hereby he received many favors, . . .
Selected and edited from - biblehubDOTcom
** **
1204
hours. This is not the simpler quotation I was looking for – the one found in
the English bookstore in Paris, the one where Hemingway, Stein and other expatriates
hung out. [I have no memory of this place presently, yet I ‘know’] (1207) - (It just hit me at 1951 hours. - Shakespeare and Company is the bookstore.)
You
had a healthy lunch at Chipotle/Panera and are presently on the east side of Rose
Hill Cemetery facing west under the shade of a very good-sized Oak. Carol is on
page twenty-eight of David Baldacci’s Total Control. There are lots of
small American flags shifting in the breezes, boy; lots of remains below on
this pleasant October day. – Amorella
1338
hours. Don’t forget the stones with names engraved on them.
Do you want them to rise from the Dead, boy?
– Amorella
1341
hours. No, Ma’am. That sounds to end-of-days like.
You are now facing north at the far west
side of Rose Hill because the lawn was being cut near where you were. The
caretaker waved friendly-like and you returned the wave and decided it was time
to move on. Carol is on page 43 presently and your thoughts fade lightly into
the dust. – Amorella
1356
hours. It is not natural that the Dead rise up but it is natural for the Living
to fall down.
That it is, boy. The Living fall down and
stay dead. – Amorella
1358
hours. How did this rising up from the Dead get started in the first place? It
is an odd concept to dwell on. I can see the idea of the spirit rising up into
Heaven, but if one has already died and gone to Heaven then why would the Dead
rise up a second time. I mean, how would they, their spirits would already be
gone? It doesn’t make sense. I’ll look the concept up online when we get home.
Later, dude. – Amorella
You
moved away from the cemetery and the school because the buses are pulling in
and school will be out along with masses of cars as well as the yellow buses. Now
you are in the far north parking lot, facing west in the shade of trees on the
hill. The car windows are
down and the sun roof open. Carol is on page fifty-eight. You are awaiting your
new black beret from the west
coast Village Hat Store. – Amorella
1423
hours. I am. I have an old Beret Impermeable, by Berrios, Pure Laine, Boina
Exposicion. I have a newer one in the closet, but it is time for a new one for
more formal informal occasions. The Village Hat Shop still exists. They have
gone up in price, but what else is new. I have my black driver’s cap for summer
weather and the berets for the rest of the year – some have been thrown out
over the years, a few are sitting somewhere in closets I assume, at least one
other is in the front hall closet. Kim bought me a brown one, a Kangaroo, when
she was overseas some years ago but I lost it or someone stole it. I’m partial
to the traditional, Basque-style black berets made with the headband tucked in.
I’ve had some made in Basque country, France and Spain and Scotland over the
years. I forget what I ordered. The last one I bought is a Jaxon Basque beret.
You stop because you are becoming conscious
of the too many “I’s” used. -
Amorella
1447
hours. I am, yes. Here is what Wikipedia says about berets.
** **
From Wikipedia -
A beret
is a soft, round, flat-crowned hat, usually of woven, hand-knitted wool,
crocheted cotton, wool felt, or acrylic fibre.
Mass production began in 19th century France and Spain,
countries with which it remains associated. Berets are worn as part of the
uniform of many military and police units worldwide, as well as by other
organisations.
Etymology
The
French word béret, from which the English term derives, is based on the
Bearnais Berret, a "sort of flat woollen cap, worn by the local
peasants". It was first mentioned 1835 in French and in the 19th century
in English. This word is related to the English biretta "clerical
square cap", borrowed itself from the Spanish birrete of the same
etymology. Most specialists think it is a diminutive form biretum of the
Low Latin birrum, which means "sort of short cloak with a hood"
["cuculla brevis"], that is from Gaulish birros
"short". This word is a close relative to Old Irish berr
"short", Welsh byr, Breton berr "short", all
thought to be from Proto-Celtic *birro-. The Greek word βίρρος is
borrowed from Latin.
History
Archaeology
and art history indicate that headgear similar to
the modern beret has been worn since the Bronze Age across Northern Europe and
as far south as ancient Crete and Italy, where it was worn by the Minoans,
Etruscans and Romans. Such headgear has been popular among the nobility and
artists across Europe throughout modern history.
The
Basque style beret was the traditional headgear of Navarrian shepherds from the
Roncal valleys of the Pyrenees, a mountain range that divides Southern France from
northern Spain. The commercial production of Basque-style berets began in the
17th century in the Oloron-Sainte-Marie area of Southern France. Originally a
local craft, beret-making became industrialised in the 19th century. The first
factory, Beatex-Laulhere, claims production records dating back to 1810. By the
1920s, berets were associated with the working classes in a part of France and
Spain and by 1928 more than 20 French factories and some Spanish and Italian
factories produced millions of berets.
In
Western fashion, men and women have worn the beret since the 1920s as
sportswear and later as a fashion statement.
Military
berets were first adopted by the French Chasseurs Alpins in 1889. After seeing
these during the First World War, British General Hugh Elles proposed the beret
for use by the newly formed Royal Tank Regiment, which needed headgear that
would stay on while climbing in and out of the small hatches of tanks. They
were approved for use by King George V in 1924. The black RTR beret was made
famous by Field Marshal Montgomery in the Second World War.
Wear
The
beret fits snugly around the head, and can be "shaped" in a variety
of ways – in the Americas it is commonly worn pushed to one side. In Central
and South America, local custom usually prescribes the manner of wearing the
beret; there is no universal rule and older gentlemen usually wear it squared
on the head, jutting forward. It can be worn by both men and women.
Military
uniform berets feature a headband or sweatband attached to the wool, made
either from leather, silk or cotton ribbon, sometimes with a drawstring allowing
the wearer to tighten the hat. The drawstrings are, according to custom; either
tied and cut off/tucked in or else left to dangle. The beret is often adorned with
a cap badge, either in cloth or metal. Some berets have a piece of buckram or
other stiffener in the position where the badge is intended to be worn.
Berets
are not usually lined, but many are partially lined with silk or satin. In
military berets, the headband is worn on the outside; military berets often
have external sweatbands of leather, pleather or ribbon. The traditional beret
(also worn by selected military units, such as the Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais or
the French Chasseurs Alpins), usually has the "sweatband" folded
inwardly. In such a case, these berets have only an additional inch or so of
the same woollen material designed to be folded inwardly.
New
beret styles, fully lined and made of "Polar fleece", have become
popular. These are unique in that they are machine washable.
National traditions and variants
Basque Country
Berets
came to be popularised across Europe and other parts of the world as typical
Basque headgear, as reflected in their name in several languages (e.g. béret
basque in French; Baskenmütze in German; Basco in Italian; or
baskeri in Finnish). They are very popular and common in the Basque
Country. The colours adopted for folk costumes varied by region, red in
Gipuzkoa, white in Alava, blue in Biscay, but eventually the Basques settled on
blue berets and the people of Navarre and Aragon adopted red berets while the
black beret became the common headgear of workers in France and Spain. The
small stub in the centre of a beret is sometimes known by its Basque name,
[with] txortena meaning "stalk". Berets are still manufactured
in the Basque country.
A
commemorative beret is the usual trophy in sport or bertso competitions,
including Basque rural sports or the Basque portions of the Tour de France.
France
The
black beret was once considered the national cap of France in Anglo-Saxon countries
and is part of the stereotypical image of the Onion Johnny. It is no longer as
widely worn as it once was, but it remains a strong sign of local identity in
the southwest of France. When French people want to picture themselves as
"the typical average Frenchman" in France or in a foreign country,
they often use this stereotype from Anglo-Saxon countries. There are today,
three manufacturers in France. Laulhère (who acquired the formerly oldest
manufacturer, Blancq-Olibet, in February 2014) has been making bérets since
1840. Boneteria Auloronesa is a small artisan French beret manufacturer in the
Béarnaise town of Oloron Sainte Marie, and Le Béret Français is another artisan
béret maker in the Béarnaise village of Laàs. The beret still remains a strong
symbol of the unique identity of southwestern France and is worn while
celebrating traditional events.
Spain
In
Spain, depending upon the region, the beret is usually known as the boina
(from the Latin abonnis to the Aragonese word boina which was
adopted by Spanish) or chapela (from the Basque, txapela) and
sometimes it is also called the chapo (from the French chapeau).
They were once common men's headwear across the cooler north of the country, in
regions of Aragon, Navarre, the Basque Country, Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia
and nearby areas.
Scotland
There
are several Scottish variants of the beret, notably the Scottish bonnet
or Bluebonnet (originally bonaid in Gaelic), whose ribbon cockade
and feathers identify the wearer’s clan and rank. It's considered a symbol of
Scottish patriotism. Other Scottish types include the tam-o’-shanter (named by Robert Burns after a character in one of
his poems) and the striped Kilmarnock cap, both of which feature a large
pompom in the centre.
Uses
As uniform headgear
The
beret's practicality has long made it an item of military and other uniform
clothing. Among a few well known historic examples are the Scottish soldiers,
who wore the blue bonnet in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Volontaires
Cantabres, a French force raised in the Basque country in the 1740s to the
1760s, who also wore a blue beret, and the Carlist rebels, with their red
berets, in 1830s Spain. More recently, in the 1950s the U.S. Army's newly conceived
Special Forces units began to wear a green beret as headgear, following the
custom of the British Royal Marines, which was officially adopted in 1961 with
such units becoming known as the “Green Berets”, and additional specialised
forces in the Army, U.S. Air Force and other services also adopted berets as
distinctive headgear.
In fashion and culture
The
beret is part of the long-standing stereotype of the intellectual, film
director, artist, “hipster”, poet, bohemian and beatnik. A beret was worn by
the artist Rembrandt and the composer Richard Wagner. In the United States and
Britain, the middle of the 20th century saw an explosion of berets in women's
fashion. In the latter part of the 20th century, the beret was adopted by the
Chinese both as a fashion statement and for its political undertones. Berets
were also worn by bebop and jazz musicians like Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Krupa,
Wardell Gray and Thelonious Monk.
As a revolutionary symbol
Guerrilleo Heroica, one of
the most famous photographs of the Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara, shows
him wearing a black beret with a brass star.
In the
1960s several activist groups adopted the black beret. These include the
Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA), the ETA guerrillas (who wore black
berets over hoods in public appearances), the Black Panther Party of the United
States, formed in 1966, and the "Black Beret Cadre" (a similar Black
Power organisation in Bermuda). In addition, the Brown Berets were
a Chicano organisation formed in 1967. The Young Lords Party, a Latino
revolutionary organisation in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, also wore
berets, as did the Guardian Angels unarmed anti-crime citizen patrol units
originated by Curtis Sliwa in New York City in the 1970s to patrol the streets
and subways to discourage crime (red berets and matching shirts).
Rastafarians
Adherents of the Rastafari movement often wear a very
large knitted or crocheted black beret with red, gold and green circles atop
their dreadlocks. The style is often erroneously called a kufi, after
the skullcap known as kufune. They consider the beret and dreadlocks to
be symbols of the biblical covenant of God with his chosen people, the
"black Israelites".
Selected and edited from – Wikipedia - beret
** **
1522
hours. We are home. I always learn something when looking things up on
Wikipedia this time is no exception. I learned several things, such as about
half the material in the Etymology for instance, which takes the word beret
back to Proto-Celtic root meaning ‘short’. I considered myself, and still
do, a Beatnik, I have since early college days. The only professor I had at
Otterbein College who wore a beret (which I thought was cool) was Prof Ray who
taught English literature as well as Old and Middle English (during my
sophomore year in 1962). I had him for Old and Middle English (a fun course). He
wore a tam-o’-shanter. He set the idea in my head to wear a beret and I have
been wearing one ever since.
Let’s end this, boy, with a look-up on ‘beatnik’.
– Amorella
1621
hours. I’ll probably be surprised but not dumbfounded by what Wikipedia says.
** **
Beatnik
From Wikipedia and [my comments]
[Note – the brackets indicate my personal view then and now
of how I saw the movement.]
Beatnik was a media stereotype prevalent
throughout the 1950s to mid-1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of
the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s. Elements of the beatnik
trope included inclinations toward violence, drug use, and
pseudo-intellectualism, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life
people and the spiritual quest of Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical fiction.
***
[In 1960
three of my just graduated classmates (who were not thinking beat – at the time
I was taken with the ‘beats’ at Antioch College where my parents would not
allow me to go to school) and I took an On the Road trip for six summer
weeks in my dad’s 1951 Willys Jeep from Westerville, Ohio to Rt. 66 to LA
(stopped by City Lights bookstore in SF) - (with a stop at the Grand Canyon and
Los Vegas), up the coast to SF and back home through Reno, Nevada, Utah, Idaho,
Montana, Wyoming on to Chicago and back home to Westerville. We lived the life
when we were out of high school and still in our teens.]
Similar to Dad’s Green Willys station wagon
From Online Image – Willys Jeeps
***
History
Kerouac
introduced the phrase "Beat Generation" in 1948, generalizing from
his social circle to characterize the underground, anticonformist youth
gathering in New York at that time. The name came up in conversation with the
novelist John Clellon Holmes, who published an early Beat Generation novel, Go (1952), along with a manifesto in The New York Times Magazine: "This
Is the Beat Generation"[1] In 1954, Nolan Miller published
his third novel, Why I Am So Beat (Putnam), detailing the weekend
parties of four students.
The
adjective "beat" was introduced to the group by Herbert Huncke,
though Kerouac expanded the meaning of the term. "Beat" came from
underworld slang—the world of hustlers, drug addicts, and petty thieves, where
Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac sought inspiration. "Beat" was slang
for "beaten down" or downtrodden, but to Kerouac and Ginsberg, it also
had a spiritual connotation as in “beatitude”. [Yes] Other adjectives
discussed by Holmes and Kerouac were "found" and "furtive".
Kerouac felt he had identified (and was the embodiment of) a new trend
analogous to the influential Lost Generation.
In
"Aftermath: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation", Kerouac
criticized what he saw as a distortion of his visionary, spiritual ideas:
The Beat
Generation, that was a vision that we had, John Clellon Holmes and I, and Allen
Ginsberg in an even wilder way, in the late Forties, of a generation of crazy,
illuminated hipsters suddenly rising and roaming America, serious, bumming
and hitchhiking everywhere, ragged, beatific, beautiful in an ugly graceful new
way—a vision gleaned from the way we had heard the word "beat" spoken
on street corners on Times Square and in the Village [Yes], in other cities
in the downtown city night of postwar America—beat, meaning down and out but
full of intense conviction. We'd even heard old 1910 Daddy Hipsters of the
streets speak the word that way, with a melancholy sneer. It never meant
juvenile delinquents, it meant characters of a special spirituality who
didn't gang up but were solitary Bartlebies staring out the dead wall window of
our civilization [Yes] ...
Kerouac
explained what he meant by "beat" at a Brandeis Forum, "Is There
A Beat Generation?", on November 8, 1958, at New York's Hunter College
Playhouse. Panelists for the seminar were Kerouac, James A. Wechsler, Princeton
anthropologist Ashley Montagu and author Kingsley Amis. Wechsler, Montague, and
Amis all wore suits, while Kerouac was clad in black jeans, ankle boots, and a
checkered shirt. Reading from a prepared text, Kerouac reflected on his beat
beginnings:
It is
because I am Beat, that is, I believe in beatitude and that God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten son to it... Who knows, but that the
universe is not one vast sea of compassion actually, the veritable holy honey,
beneath all this show of personality and cruelty? [Yes, it reminds me of Coney
Island of the Mind #5 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti]
Kerouac's
address was later published as "The Origins of the Beat Generation" (Playboy,
June 1959). In that article, Kerouac noted how his original beatific philosophy
had been ignored amid maneuvers by several pundits, among them Herb Caen, the
San Francisco newspaperman, to alter Kerouac's concept with jokes and jargon:
I went
one afternoon to the church of my childhood and had a vision of what I must
have really meant with "Beat"... the vision of the word Beat as being
to mean beatific... People began to call themselves beatniks, beats, jazzniks,
bopniks, bugniks and finally I was called the "avatar" of all this.
In light of what he considered beat to mean and what
beatnik had come to mean, he once observed to a reporter, "I'm not a
beatnik, I'm a Catholic", showing the reporter a painting of Pope Paul VI
and saying, "You know who painted that? Me.”
Stereotype
In her
memoir, Minor Characters, Joyce Johnson described how the stereotype was
absorbed into American culture:
"Beat Generation" sold
books, sold black turtleneck sweaters and bongos, berets and dark glasses, sold
a way of life that seemed like dangerous fun—thus to be either condemned or
imitated. [Yes] . . .
Etymology
The word "beatnik" was coined by Herb Caen in
an article in the San Francisco Chronicle
on April 2, 1958. Caen coined the term by adding the Russian suffix nik to the
Beat Generation. Caen's column with the word came six months after the launch
of Sputnik I. Objecting to the term, Allen
Ginsberg wrote to the New York Times to deplore "the foul word
beatnik", commenting, "If beatniks and not illuminated Beat poets
overrun this country, they will have been created not by Kerouac but by
industries of mass communication which continue to brainwash man.” [Yes! Amen,
Allen.]
Beat culture
In the
vernacular of the period, "Beat" indicated the culture, the attitude,
and the literature, while the common usage of "beatnik" was that of a
stereotype found in lightweight cartoon drawings and twisted, sometimes
violent, media characters. In 1995, film scholar Ray Carney wrote about the
authentic beat attitude as differentiated from stereotypical portrayals of the
beatnik in the media:
Much of
Beat culture represented a negative stance rather than a positive one. It was
animated more by a vague feeling of cultural and emotional displacement,
dissatisfaction, and yearning, than by a specific purpose or program... It was
many different, conflicting, shifting states of mind. [This comment is a bit
general.]
Since
1958, the terms Beat Generation and Beat have been used to describe the
antimaterialistic literary movement that began with Kerouac in the 1940s,
stretching on into the 1960s. The Beat philosophy of antimaterialism and
soul searching influenced 1960s musicians such as Bob Dylan, the early Pink
Floyd, and The Beatles. However,
the soundtrack of the beat movement was the modern jazz pioneered by
saxophonist Charlie Parker and trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie that the media dubbed
Bebop. [Yes, including the Beatles.]
Jack
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg spent much of their time in New York jazz clubs such
as the Royal Roost, Minton’s Playhouse, Birdland and the Open Door, shooting
the breeze and digging the music. Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Miles
Davis rapidly became what Ginsberg dubbed "Secret Heroes" to this
group of aesthetes. The Beat authors borrowed much from the jazz/hipster slang
of the 1940s, peppering their works with words such as "square",
"cats", "cool", and "dig"., but jazz meant
much more than just a vocabulary to the Beat writers. To them, jazz was a way
of life, a completely different and improvisational way to approach the
creative process. [Yes!]
At the
time the term Beatnik was coined, a trend existed among young college students
to adopt the stereotype, with men adopting the trademark look of bebop
trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie by wearing goatees, horn-rimmed glasses and berets,
and rolling their own cigarettes and playing bongos. Fashions for women
included black leotards and wearing their hair long, straight and unadorned in
a rebellion against the middle class culture of beauty salons. Marijuana use
was associated with the subculture, and during the 1950s, Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception further
influenced views on drugs. [Around OSU the ticket was Thunderbird wine more
than pot.]
By 1960,
a small "beatnik" group in Newquay, Cornwall, England (including a
young Wizz Jones), had attracted the attention and the abhorrence of their
neighbours for growing their hair to a length past the shoulders, resulting in
a television interview with Alan Whicker on BBC television's Tonight series.
The Beat
philosophy was generally countercultural and anti-materialistic and it stressed
the importance of bettering one's inner self over and above material
possessions. Some Beat writers, such as Alan Watts, began to delve into Eastern
religions such as Buddhism or Taoism. Politics tended to be liberal, with
support for causes such as desegregation [Yes.] (although many of the figures associated with the original Beat
movement, particularly Kerouac, embraced libertarian and conservative ideas).
An openness to African American culture and arts was apparent in literature and
music, notably jazz. While Caen and other writers implied a connection with
communism, no obvious or direct connection occurred between the beat philosophy
(as expressed by the leading authors of this literary movement) and the
philosophy of the communist movement, other than the antipathy that both
philosophies shared towards capitalism. [Yes.]
The
Beatnik movement introduced Asian religions to the Western society. These
religions played a significant impact on the Beat generation because they provided
the movement with new essential views on the world. [Yes] With their desire to rebel in concerns to the conservative
middle-class values of the 1950s, old radicalism of post-1930s, the mainstream
culture, and institutional religions in America, their interest in Asian
religions was a reaction to change the standards of Americans.
By 1958,
many beat writers published writings focalizing on Buddhism. This was the year
Jack Kerouac published his novel The Dharma Bums. Kerouac discovered
his interest in Buddhism following the many traumatic events that occurred in
his lifetime. His fascination focused on the Four Noble Truths established by
Buddha.
Allen
Ginsberg's spiritual journey to India in 1963 influenced the Beat movement, as
well. This voyage brought him enlightenment in regards to Asian religions,
because he studied religious texts alongside monks. The poet deduced that what
linked the function of poetry to Asian religions was the mutual goal to achieve
ultimate truth. His discovery of Hindu mantra chants, a form of oral delivery,
subsequently influenced Beat poetry. What many Beat pioneers, who followed a
spiritual Buddhist path, appreciated about Asian religions was their profound
understanding of human nature and insights into the being, existence, and
reality of mankind. [Yes, I still listen to Hindu mantra and chants, several
times for weekly periods during any given year.]
The Beat
movement considered that the philosophies from Asia had the means of elevating
the American society's conscious to a higher one, although this could only be
achieved through the breaking of barriers of Western civilization, in terms of
institutions and psychological matters. The understanding of ultimate
reality, the desire for unity, and the importance of otherness, concepts
deriving from religions, formed the main ideologies of the Beat generation. [Yes, this is a main focus is my intellectual life.]
Notable
Beat writers such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and Gary Snyder, were drawn
to Buddhism; to the extent that they each, at different periods in their lives,
followed a spiritual path. The goal of all three of these writers was to
provide answers to universal questions and concepts. As a result, the Beat
philosophy stressed the bettering of the inner self and the rejection of
materialism. They believed that East Asian religions could fill a religious and
spiritual void in the lives of many Americans. [Yes, you can see this in my
work.]
Many scholars speculate that a reason that many Beat
writers were interested in and wrote about Eastern religions was because they
wanted to encourage young people to practice spiritual and sociopolitical
action. As a result, these progressive thoughts originating from East Asian religions,
influenced the youth culture to challenge capitalist domination and break the
dogmas of their generation. The Buddhist idea of achieving inner freedom was
popular among the Beatniks. As a result, it motivated this movement to reject
traditional gender and racial rules.
Museums
In San
Francisco, Jerry and Estelle Cimino operate their Beat Museum, which began in
2003 in Monterey, California and moved to San Francisco in 2006.
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth used fiberglass to build his
Beatnik Bandit in 1960. Today, this car is in the National Automobile Museum in
Reno, Nevada.
Selected and
edited from Wikipedia – beatnik
[I deleted several
paragraphs because they were not as I experience the Beat flavor of life mostly
around Ohio State University but also for a few days in Greenwich Village and
Provincetown, Mass. with my friend Fritz M. in 1964.]
** **
This took you a while to read and make
insertions. The bracketed insertions separate you personally from the Beat movement generally. – Later, dude. – Amorella
1821
hours. I took a break; but just completed the brackets. The bracket show how I
felt the movement and have been influenced by it – more by Lawrence
Ferlinghetti and Alan Ginsberg than the others mentioned here.
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