Ari Garvett
Period 2
May 5, 2014
The Beat movement, also known as the Beat Generation, is defined as an American literary and social movement originating in the 1950’s. Centered in the bohemian artist communities throughout California, its adherents, who called themselves “Beats”, expressed their alienation from conventional society by alienating themselves from social problems while advocating the ideals of self purification and personal release through the “heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism.” (Britannica, 1).
Centering around the movement is author and poet, Jack Kerouac, born on March 12, 1922, whose literary work On The Road has captured the spirit and essence of the Beat movement. As a young child, Kerouac attended a French Canadian school while his mother worked at a shoe factory and his father worked as a printer. In his early years, Jack only spoke Joual, a Canadian dialect of French, and as a result, despite the fact that he was considered to an American citizen, Kerouac viewed himself as a foreigner in the United States.
In 1940, Kerouac attended Columbia University. There, he joined the Columbia football team; however, both his studies and his athletics were interrupted by the events of World War II. In the war, Kerouac served first in the merchant marine and then in the Navy where he was discharged as “a schizoid personality”.
Immediately after the war, Kerouac had the experiences that shaped him as a writer. He returned to New York where he met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, who together, brought the literary movement to life.
The word “Beat”, originating from Herbert Huncke, a Times Square junkie, meant “down and out” and signified the most spiritual ‘high’ achievable through the use of drugs. Kerouac once said that the word “Beat”, was first used “to signify the feelings of despair and nearness to an apocalypse that impelled them to reach out for new experiences.”. (Lelyveld, 1).
In his writings, as a result of the music of bebob jazz artists such as Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, Kerouac’s subject became himself and his method was to write as “spontaneously as possible.” (The New York Times, 1). In fact, On The Road was originally written on a scroll in three week blasts. Originally, Kerouac hoped to publish the novel as a scroll to allow his work to flow when reading it rather than be interrupted by the act of turning the pages.
Overnight, Kerouac found himself to be a national sensation. The question that stems from this becomes why did the Beat movement capture the hearts of millions of Americans. Primarily, the shift towards the liberal left comes from the rejection of the conservative right. The World War II generation believed in the institution of marriage, the sanctity of virginity, nd also, they rejected the use of hallucinogens like weed. As, a result, that generation heavily drank in order to ease the pain of the events that were occurring during that time.
Through the course of time there are often a few people who are able to single- handily change the socio-political and cultural structure of America. Most of America, in any given generation, accepts the power that the government has over them. However, sometimes, there are individuals who separate themselves from society and fight for what they believe in. Soon after, the majority from the original society, want to assimilate into this new world. In this case, Kerouac assisted the children of the World War II generation shift from the conservative right and join the liberal left.
Kerouac represented the few who strayed from societal standards. With him came the Hippies who represent the final stepping stone in the process of liberalism. Both the Beats and the Hippies were opposed to war and embraced the concept of peace. Also, they did not believe in the sanctity of marriage and believed premarital sex was a moral, and acceptable act. This shift marked the complete transition to the left.
When finally printed in 1957, the Beat Movement became widespread and was infecting the social and political fabric of America. Kerouac was disappointed in his newly found fame. He believed that he achieved fame for the wrong reason: “little attention went to the excellence of his writing and more to the novel’s radically different characters and its characterization of hipsters and their nonconformist celebration of sex, jazz, and endless movement.” (Britannica, 2). During a dialogue between Kerouac and one of his friends, Kerouac stated "It's a kind of furtiveness ... Like we were a generation of furtives. You know, with an inner knowledge that there's no use flaunting on that level, the level of the "public," a kind of Beatness—I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are—and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world__ So I guess you might say we're a Beat generation." Consequently, the furtiveness was lost with the fame that he achieved. For the remainder of his life Keraouc attempted to regain the secrecy that he cherished, however, he was never able to gain it back.
Furthermore, Kerouac believed people were drawn to his movement in order to conform with the new standards that Americans were establishing for society. In other words, people wanted their self-image to appear similar to the rest of America and as a result, shifted to liberalism to be rebellious, and in essence, selfish.
Social movements, such as the Beat generation, are used as a tool to allow society to believe in a false idea of progression and advancement of the human race. To Kerouac’s dissatisfaction, his movement, and his book On The Road, illustrates to readers that no matter how much humanity ‘progresses,” it will still indulge in a pool of selfish lemon squeezers.
This new ‘Beat Generation’ has a direct tie-in with the Hippies. Their beliefs include the rejection of mainstream American values; exploring alternate forms of sexuality (homosexuality); and experimentation with drugs. Kerouac despised this new mainstream ‘revolution’ which forced him to eventually leave his own movement. This shocking act can be explained through the term lemon squeezers. Lemon squeezers are defined to be people who metaphorically squeeze everything sweet and useful out of someone and when all dried up, dump those people in the trash similar to what humans do with lemons. To Kerouac, the new Beatniks were parasites of his movement and were, in essence, doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
In the end, history has proven through religious and governmental wars that all cultures have a common denominator - selfishness. People will go to great lengths in order to preserve and protect their beliefs and ideals. The question that stems from this is do people truly need their beliefs like race, religion, and gender?
Simply, the answer to this question is no. The power of social constructions, “an idea or phenomenon that does not exist in nature but is created and given meaning by people” (Greiner, 226), is quite powerful. Within the exchanges between people, they develop the social value of power. In this expression, people come to believe in the necessity of ideas like money and war.
To further this argument of the invention of ideas for the sake of selfishness is the idea of the dinosaur. In the quest of explaining all the ins and outs of this world, the concept of a dinosaur is something that people have constructed over time. Even in the face of something real, this philosophy stating that every human beings actions are selfish would invite people to question if dinosaurs existed simply because of the fossil. Metaphysically, one could argue the dinosaur is real only because the human made it. In fact, eliminating it would not violate a law of nature. Or, on the other hand, the epistemic argument suggests that humans continue to believe in the dinosaur because of the role it plays socially. The belief itself subserves a social purpose of the need for human’s beings to explain the world that they live in.
Furthermore, tying this idea together with the theme of selfishness is the idea of murder. For generations, human beings have been taught that murdering is wrong. This ideal, proving to be yet another social construction, serves a social purpose for population control and self-preservation tendency because people do not want to be murdered. Peoples’ beliefs are shaped on what they truly want and desire from this world. The human races’ safety would be challenged if murdering was allowed, and as a result, now, it is condemned.
In light of the previous argument, lemon squeezers infect each and every line of On The Road. Epitomizing this term is Dean Moriarty. Charismatic and handsome, with an infectious personality, Dean at first glance seems like a God. In fact, he appears to be a God that is able to escape the existential world. However, the reader quickly learns that Dean has a dark side. Amongst the things that the reader learns is that Dean is a thief, a con man, a remorseless womanizer, and most of all, selfish.
In the novel, Dean abandons Sal twice. The first time, he leaves Sal on the streets of San Francisco with Marylou and no money. After promising Sal to teach him about living in the moment, without hesitation, Dean leaves Sal for a woman. But even worse is the second time Dean leaves Sal. While in Mexico City, Dean deserts Sal for, yet, another woman, when Sal is suffering with dysentery.
John Tytell states that Dean is “an undecipherable puzzle of contradictions.” John further states “an erotomaniac seeking self-acknowledgement, Dean is married to three women at once, without feeling more than sexual attraction for any of his wives. He is a personification of free will, called “mad” by Sal, a word with oxymoronic qualities for the narrator, who admires and is repelled by Dean’s radical subjectivity, which challenges any official authority. Indiscriminately ventillated, his energy becomes “mindless and narcissistically devouring”. (Tytell, 421)
Soon, Dean’s effervescent personality transitions into one marked by his tragic downfall. By the end of the novel, Dean can no longer put together, or say, a coherent sentence. He experiences a mental breakdown and becomes opposite of what he is supposed to represent.
Altogether, Dean represents the Beat Movement and its values of sex, drugs, dreams, and self-pleasure. Through Dean, Kerouac unintentionally exposes the flaws and cracks within his own movement. “Disenfranchised, the Beats tried to bend social conventions and go after individualistic aspirations, sometimes with great recklessness.” (Perkins, 1) Perkins states that the Beat Generation was preoccupied with worries of self. Among these worries include spiritual liberation and sexual revolution.
Ultimately, like Dean, the Hippies became too extreme. Dean’s downfall stems from his overuse and abuse of substances and woman. Similar to Dean, the Hippies selfish overuse and abuse of drugs and sex led to the AIDS outbreak of the 80’s which is said to be the origin of the death of the Hippie subculture.
In addition, someone in the grip of an addiction can be selfish and oblivious to concerns of others. Despite the fact that this ‘progressive’ movement was changing the world, it was not necessarily beneficial to humanity in any way. According to Apple Dictionary, progression is “a movement or development toward a destination or a more advanced state...” In terms of progression in human beings, the process entails bettering the race itself. In no shape or form did the ideals of the Beat Generation benefit any character in the novel besides Dean himself. It is arguable that Dean is able to live his life to fullest; however, on the other hand, his actions caused more harm than good. Furthermore, as a whole, Dean was a parasite to anyone he encountered. His selfish sexual desires destroyed both Marylou’s and Camille’s lives and his need to feel loved drove Sal mad for many years.
Lastly, exhibiting how the human race’s false perceptions of the world and their devotions to movements such as the Beat Movement weakens the species is the modern medical system. Before the idea that prolongation of life as much a possible was inserted in society, the world was kept strong full of youth and vitality. In fact, cultures like the Eskimos would send off their elderly (considered middle aged today) to die as they believed that another world awaited their dead and that they would not be sending the person to die, but rather, just sending them to a new world. Now, with old age homes, healthcare, and the modern medical system, people are capable of living for more than one hundred years. Although morally it might sound wrong, the prolongation of the lives of the elderly weakens the world. Essential and limited resources, such as medical care, are given to people who most often can no longer benefit society in any shape or form.
Furthermore, in conjunction with the previous argument, comes the statement that the Beat Generation is in fact the elderly person in the old age home. The movement created a pool of selfish lemon squeezers rather than spearheading the world to change for the better.
In contrast, events like the Civil War are in fact ‘progressive’ because it moved the human race towards a better place. Through the Civil War came the end of slavery. It cannot be said that the Beat Generation accomplished nothing so lofty. The Beat Generation encouraged temptation that humanity could not afford to play with. This pales in comparison to the seismic shift occasioned by the end of slavery.
In fact, the values and behaviors that the Beats contributed to society decades ago continues to linger in our new modern ‘progressive’ world. An article in USA today suggests that America has in fact shifted from a “we” society to a “me” society.
In the process of examining over seven hundred fifty thousand American novels and short stories from the past fifty years, researchers have found a profound shift in the use of words like “I” instead of communal words like “we”. The argument does in fact suggest that since the 1960 Beat and Hippie movements, the world has become more self-absorbed. “The conclusion: Americans have become more focused on individualism since the 1960s, but not necessarily in the best way: It’s not the “standing on your own two feet” kind often associated with the so-called “American spirit”; it’s more about narcissism and self-absorption.” (Examiner, 1)
The American quest for social and financial power illustrates this transition to the “me” society. In a series of nine experiments, conducted by researchers, the researchers came to the conclusion that money enhances the motivation for people to achieve their own aspirations while diminishing sympathy for others. The researchers stated that whether the money was real, in the form of paper, or fake in the form of a photograph, the participants all became selfish.
In conclusion, both the Hippie and Beat movements have left America with a pool of lemon squeezers. In fact, now, the advancement of self is the only thing that many people care about. People go to school to get into college, to get a degree, to get a job that will allow them to live a life full of consumption and focused on themselves. In the end, the selfishness that the Beat Generation is associated with outweighs the morality and values that they paid lip service to.
The Beat Generation has created many Dean’s in today’s world. Instead of helping humanity to progress, the movement has halted humanity from moving forward. As a result of the pool of lemon squeezers created, America today is at a standstill. It is not progressing. Only when the pool of lemon squeezers is drained can America progress.
"Are we a more selfish society today?." Examiner.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/are-we-a-more-selfish-society-today>.
"Definition of progress in English:." progress: definition of progress in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/progress>.
Greiner, Alyson L.. Visualizing human geography. Chichester: Wiley, 2011. Print.
"Jack Kerouac." News. The New York Times , 6 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/jack_kerouac/>.
Stiles , Bradley . "The Beat Generation." The Beat Generation. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://edu.txtshr.com/docs/index-19077.html>.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Beat movement (American literary and social movement)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57467/Beat-movement>.
Jack Kerouac. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/kamkerouac.htm>.
Period 2
May 5, 2014
The Beat movement, also known as the Beat Generation, is defined as an American literary and social movement originating in the 1950’s. Centered in the bohemian artist communities throughout California, its adherents, who called themselves “Beats”, expressed their alienation from conventional society by alienating themselves from social problems while advocating the ideals of self purification and personal release through the “heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism.” (Britannica, 1).
Centering around the movement is author and poet, Jack Kerouac, born on March 12, 1922, whose literary work On The Road has captured the spirit and essence of the Beat movement. As a young child, Kerouac attended a French Canadian school while his mother worked at a shoe factory and his father worked as a printer. In his early years, Jack only spoke Joual, a Canadian dialect of French, and as a result, despite the fact that he was considered to an American citizen, Kerouac viewed himself as a foreigner in the United States.
In 1940, Kerouac attended Columbia University. There, he joined the Columbia football team; however, both his studies and his athletics were interrupted by the events of World War II. In the war, Kerouac served first in the merchant marine and then in the Navy where he was discharged as “a schizoid personality”.
Immediately after the war, Kerouac had the experiences that shaped him as a writer. He returned to New York where he met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, who together, brought the literary movement to life.
The word “Beat”, originating from Herbert Huncke, a Times Square junkie, meant “down and out” and signified the most spiritual ‘high’ achievable through the use of drugs. Kerouac once said that the word “Beat”, was first used “to signify the feelings of despair and nearness to an apocalypse that impelled them to reach out for new experiences.”. (Lelyveld, 1).
In his writings, as a result of the music of bebob jazz artists such as Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, Kerouac’s subject became himself and his method was to write as “spontaneously as possible.” (The New York Times, 1). In fact, On The Road was originally written on a scroll in three week blasts. Originally, Kerouac hoped to publish the novel as a scroll to allow his work to flow when reading it rather than be interrupted by the act of turning the pages.
Overnight, Kerouac found himself to be a national sensation. The question that stems from this becomes why did the Beat movement capture the hearts of millions of Americans. Primarily, the shift towards the liberal left comes from the rejection of the conservative right. The World War II generation believed in the institution of marriage, the sanctity of virginity, nd also, they rejected the use of hallucinogens like weed. As, a result, that generation heavily drank in order to ease the pain of the events that were occurring during that time.
Through the course of time there are often a few people who are able to single- handily change the socio-political and cultural structure of America. Most of America, in any given generation, accepts the power that the government has over them. However, sometimes, there are individuals who separate themselves from society and fight for what they believe in. Soon after, the majority from the original society, want to assimilate into this new world. In this case, Kerouac assisted the children of the World War II generation shift from the conservative right and join the liberal left.
Kerouac represented the few who strayed from societal standards. With him came the Hippies who represent the final stepping stone in the process of liberalism. Both the Beats and the Hippies were opposed to war and embraced the concept of peace. Also, they did not believe in the sanctity of marriage and believed premarital sex was a moral, and acceptable act. This shift marked the complete transition to the left.
When finally printed in 1957, the Beat Movement became widespread and was infecting the social and political fabric of America. Kerouac was disappointed in his newly found fame. He believed that he achieved fame for the wrong reason: “little attention went to the excellence of his writing and more to the novel’s radically different characters and its characterization of hipsters and their nonconformist celebration of sex, jazz, and endless movement.” (Britannica, 2). During a dialogue between Kerouac and one of his friends, Kerouac stated "It's a kind of furtiveness ... Like we were a generation of furtives. You know, with an inner knowledge that there's no use flaunting on that level, the level of the "public," a kind of Beatness—I mean, being right down to it, to ourselves, because we all really know where we are—and a weariness with all the forms, all the conventions of the world__ So I guess you might say we're a Beat generation." Consequently, the furtiveness was lost with the fame that he achieved. For the remainder of his life Keraouc attempted to regain the secrecy that he cherished, however, he was never able to gain it back.
Furthermore, Kerouac believed people were drawn to his movement in order to conform with the new standards that Americans were establishing for society. In other words, people wanted their self-image to appear similar to the rest of America and as a result, shifted to liberalism to be rebellious, and in essence, selfish.
Social movements, such as the Beat generation, are used as a tool to allow society to believe in a false idea of progression and advancement of the human race. To Kerouac’s dissatisfaction, his movement, and his book On The Road, illustrates to readers that no matter how much humanity ‘progresses,” it will still indulge in a pool of selfish lemon squeezers.
This new ‘Beat Generation’ has a direct tie-in with the Hippies. Their beliefs include the rejection of mainstream American values; exploring alternate forms of sexuality (homosexuality); and experimentation with drugs. Kerouac despised this new mainstream ‘revolution’ which forced him to eventually leave his own movement. This shocking act can be explained through the term lemon squeezers. Lemon squeezers are defined to be people who metaphorically squeeze everything sweet and useful out of someone and when all dried up, dump those people in the trash similar to what humans do with lemons. To Kerouac, the new Beatniks were parasites of his movement and were, in essence, doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons.
In the end, history has proven through religious and governmental wars that all cultures have a common denominator - selfishness. People will go to great lengths in order to preserve and protect their beliefs and ideals. The question that stems from this is do people truly need their beliefs like race, religion, and gender?
Simply, the answer to this question is no. The power of social constructions, “an idea or phenomenon that does not exist in nature but is created and given meaning by people” (Greiner, 226), is quite powerful. Within the exchanges between people, they develop the social value of power. In this expression, people come to believe in the necessity of ideas like money and war.
To further this argument of the invention of ideas for the sake of selfishness is the idea of the dinosaur. In the quest of explaining all the ins and outs of this world, the concept of a dinosaur is something that people have constructed over time. Even in the face of something real, this philosophy stating that every human beings actions are selfish would invite people to question if dinosaurs existed simply because of the fossil. Metaphysically, one could argue the dinosaur is real only because the human made it. In fact, eliminating it would not violate a law of nature. Or, on the other hand, the epistemic argument suggests that humans continue to believe in the dinosaur because of the role it plays socially. The belief itself subserves a social purpose of the need for human’s beings to explain the world that they live in.
Furthermore, tying this idea together with the theme of selfishness is the idea of murder. For generations, human beings have been taught that murdering is wrong. This ideal, proving to be yet another social construction, serves a social purpose for population control and self-preservation tendency because people do not want to be murdered. Peoples’ beliefs are shaped on what they truly want and desire from this world. The human races’ safety would be challenged if murdering was allowed, and as a result, now, it is condemned.
In light of the previous argument, lemon squeezers infect each and every line of On The Road. Epitomizing this term is Dean Moriarty. Charismatic and handsome, with an infectious personality, Dean at first glance seems like a God. In fact, he appears to be a God that is able to escape the existential world. However, the reader quickly learns that Dean has a dark side. Amongst the things that the reader learns is that Dean is a thief, a con man, a remorseless womanizer, and most of all, selfish.
In the novel, Dean abandons Sal twice. The first time, he leaves Sal on the streets of San Francisco with Marylou and no money. After promising Sal to teach him about living in the moment, without hesitation, Dean leaves Sal for a woman. But even worse is the second time Dean leaves Sal. While in Mexico City, Dean deserts Sal for, yet, another woman, when Sal is suffering with dysentery.
John Tytell states that Dean is “an undecipherable puzzle of contradictions.” John further states “an erotomaniac seeking self-acknowledgement, Dean is married to three women at once, without feeling more than sexual attraction for any of his wives. He is a personification of free will, called “mad” by Sal, a word with oxymoronic qualities for the narrator, who admires and is repelled by Dean’s radical subjectivity, which challenges any official authority. Indiscriminately ventillated, his energy becomes “mindless and narcissistically devouring”. (Tytell, 421)
Soon, Dean’s effervescent personality transitions into one marked by his tragic downfall. By the end of the novel, Dean can no longer put together, or say, a coherent sentence. He experiences a mental breakdown and becomes opposite of what he is supposed to represent.
Altogether, Dean represents the Beat Movement and its values of sex, drugs, dreams, and self-pleasure. Through Dean, Kerouac unintentionally exposes the flaws and cracks within his own movement. “Disenfranchised, the Beats tried to bend social conventions and go after individualistic aspirations, sometimes with great recklessness.” (Perkins, 1) Perkins states that the Beat Generation was preoccupied with worries of self. Among these worries include spiritual liberation and sexual revolution.
Ultimately, like Dean, the Hippies became too extreme. Dean’s downfall stems from his overuse and abuse of substances and woman. Similar to Dean, the Hippies selfish overuse and abuse of drugs and sex led to the AIDS outbreak of the 80’s which is said to be the origin of the death of the Hippie subculture.
In addition, someone in the grip of an addiction can be selfish and oblivious to concerns of others. Despite the fact that this ‘progressive’ movement was changing the world, it was not necessarily beneficial to humanity in any way. According to Apple Dictionary, progression is “a movement or development toward a destination or a more advanced state...” In terms of progression in human beings, the process entails bettering the race itself. In no shape or form did the ideals of the Beat Generation benefit any character in the novel besides Dean himself. It is arguable that Dean is able to live his life to fullest; however, on the other hand, his actions caused more harm than good. Furthermore, as a whole, Dean was a parasite to anyone he encountered. His selfish sexual desires destroyed both Marylou’s and Camille’s lives and his need to feel loved drove Sal mad for many years.
Lastly, exhibiting how the human race’s false perceptions of the world and their devotions to movements such as the Beat Movement weakens the species is the modern medical system. Before the idea that prolongation of life as much a possible was inserted in society, the world was kept strong full of youth and vitality. In fact, cultures like the Eskimos would send off their elderly (considered middle aged today) to die as they believed that another world awaited their dead and that they would not be sending the person to die, but rather, just sending them to a new world. Now, with old age homes, healthcare, and the modern medical system, people are capable of living for more than one hundred years. Although morally it might sound wrong, the prolongation of the lives of the elderly weakens the world. Essential and limited resources, such as medical care, are given to people who most often can no longer benefit society in any shape or form.
Furthermore, in conjunction with the previous argument, comes the statement that the Beat Generation is in fact the elderly person in the old age home. The movement created a pool of selfish lemon squeezers rather than spearheading the world to change for the better.
In contrast, events like the Civil War are in fact ‘progressive’ because it moved the human race towards a better place. Through the Civil War came the end of slavery. It cannot be said that the Beat Generation accomplished nothing so lofty. The Beat Generation encouraged temptation that humanity could not afford to play with. This pales in comparison to the seismic shift occasioned by the end of slavery.
In fact, the values and behaviors that the Beats contributed to society decades ago continues to linger in our new modern ‘progressive’ world. An article in USA today suggests that America has in fact shifted from a “we” society to a “me” society.
In the process of examining over seven hundred fifty thousand American novels and short stories from the past fifty years, researchers have found a profound shift in the use of words like “I” instead of communal words like “we”. The argument does in fact suggest that since the 1960 Beat and Hippie movements, the world has become more self-absorbed. “The conclusion: Americans have become more focused on individualism since the 1960s, but not necessarily in the best way: It’s not the “standing on your own two feet” kind often associated with the so-called “American spirit”; it’s more about narcissism and self-absorption.” (Examiner, 1)
The American quest for social and financial power illustrates this transition to the “me” society. In a series of nine experiments, conducted by researchers, the researchers came to the conclusion that money enhances the motivation for people to achieve their own aspirations while diminishing sympathy for others. The researchers stated that whether the money was real, in the form of paper, or fake in the form of a photograph, the participants all became selfish.
In conclusion, both the Hippie and Beat movements have left America with a pool of lemon squeezers. In fact, now, the advancement of self is the only thing that many people care about. People go to school to get into college, to get a degree, to get a job that will allow them to live a life full of consumption and focused on themselves. In the end, the selfishness that the Beat Generation is associated with outweighs the morality and values that they paid lip service to.
The Beat Generation has created many Dean’s in today’s world. Instead of helping humanity to progress, the movement has halted humanity from moving forward. As a result of the pool of lemon squeezers created, America today is at a standstill. It is not progressing. Only when the pool of lemon squeezers is drained can America progress.
Works Cited
LELYVELD , JOSEPH. "Jack Kerouac, Novelist, Dead; Father of the Beat Generation." The New York Times. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/07/home/kerouac-obit.html>."Are we a more selfish society today?." Examiner.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2014. <http://www.examiner.com/article/are-we-a-more-selfish-society-today>.
"Definition of progress in English:." progress: definition of progress in Oxford dictionary (British & World English). N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/progress>.
Greiner, Alyson L.. Visualizing human geography. Chichester: Wiley, 2011. Print.
"Jack Kerouac." News. The New York Times , 6 Apr. 2014. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/jack_kerouac/>.
Stiles , Bradley . "The Beat Generation." The Beat Generation. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://edu.txtshr.com/docs/index-19077.html>.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Beat movement (American literary and social movement)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/57467/Beat-movement>.
Jack Kerouac. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. <http://www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/easyrider/data/kamkerouac.htm>.
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