thinking particularly of the English Ro–
mantic poets like Coleridge and De
Quincey) which we think of as en–
t:rely respectable.
If
these emotional
states are sometimes (although not of–
ten) induced with the aid of nar–
cotics, what is involved is not addic–
tion (Mr. Podhoretz is careful to point
out that Marijuana is all that is used),
but a kind of free-hand experimenta–
tion in advanced states of cognition
(the sort of thing one would associate
more readily with Aldous Huxley–
for whom it was scarcely a prob–
lem) .. . .
Closely linked to the insistence upon
sensual knowledge is the Beat Genera–
tion~
emphasis on sexual activity.
Again, this is scarcely original, either
in its literary aspect or in the history
of Bohemianism, or even, for that
matter, in the history of mature philo–
sophy. What is original is that sex is
not to the new Bohemians a means of
revolt against social stricture (Mr. Pod–
horetz recognizes this) , but in itself an
end: an advanced state of sensual
knowledge, and more significantly, an
affirmation of life in the face of a
cond.ition of prospective death repre–
sf'nted by their vision of civilization....
It
is perhaps its attraction to crimi–
nality that most concerns Mr. Pod–
horetz about the Beat Generation.
Stealing cars, pushcarts, and groceries
appears to be the extent of the under–
wodd activity of Mr. Kerouac's char–
acter~
and, presumably, of his follow–
ers in the new Bohemianism ...
(I
have not yet heard of any rapists, as–
saulters, or murderers giving credit to
the movement for their escapades),
but Mr. Podhoretz suggests, mention–
ing some remarks of Norman Mailer's
on Hipsterism, that recent instances of
vicious brutality among American youth
st('m from the same spirit that acti–
vates the Beat Generation. . . . [But
thesp. are] more readily associated with
another literature entirely- that of the
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