The Beat Generation Of The 1950's

Sex, Drugs, and Buddhism

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” This quote from Jack Kerouac, author of On the Road, sums up the Beat Generation of the 1950’s well. The Beat Generation was defined originally by a small group of young writers: Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs, who all met at Columbia University. As a group, they were ’beat down’, as it were, by the conformity and monotony of the mainstream 1950’s culture- the insistence upon working in an office and mowing the lawn, and not on climbing mountains. They placed an emphasis on free love, the here and now, and on freedom from societal repression. The Beat

The precursor to the hippie movement of the 60s, the Beat Generation is often referred to as ‘beatniks’, a mocking term created by Herb Caen which portrayed only the superficial aspects of the Beat Generation. The true Beat Generation culture can be symbolized by psychedelic drugs, the lotus flower, and a gavel. An important symbol of the Beat Generation were psychedelic drugs such as amphetamine and cannabis. Amphetamine is a drug which stimulates the central nervous system; the street drug speed is based on Amphetamines. Cannabis, better known as marijuana, tends to calm the brain and release inhibitions. The writers of this time period were intellectually curious about the effects and usage of such drugs, and some felt that such substances increased their creative abilities. As such, these substances were widely used throughout the Beat Generation. The concept of using drugs to aid in their artistic endeavors came from the jazz and bebop clubs which the core Beat Generation frequented

The second was “Naked Lunch” by William Burroughs, which focused on heroin addiction. “Howl” was first brought under scrutiny when a San Francisco bookseller was arrested for selling copies of Howl and Other Poems in 1957. Later that year, “520 copies of the book were confiscated while being imported from London.” Despite the poem’s controversial subject matter, California judge Clayton Horn ruled that “Howl” had redeeming social importance and thus could not be banned. “Naked Lunch” was the subject of the last obscenity trial in America involving a novel. Similarly to how the trouble with “Howl” began, in 1963 a Boston store owner was arrested for selling “Naked Lunch.” At the trial, Burroughs’ friend Allen Ginsberg and fellow writers John Ciardi and Norman Mailer defended “Naked Lunch”, and in 1966 a high court ruled that because the novel had societal value, it was not obscene. These rulings influenced both the legal precedent and the social conception of how much eroticism was publically