Howl and 50s Counterculture

[Anonymous No.11011178]

Hey, this is my first time posting here. I was driven to do so by Ginsberg's pile of word vomit.

Maybe I'm a philistine, maybe I just don't get it, but the entire message of Howl seemed so contradictory. Consumerism and conformity force people to lead empty, meaningless lives and so the "greatest minds of his generation" fight back by having lots of empty, meaningless sex, going on a lot of empty, meaningless drug trips, and eventually dying empty, meaningless deaths from suicide or overdose.

Can someone help me see any worth in this poem? I've been reading analyses which go on and on about how brave and groundbreaking Howl was, but I just don't see it and could use some help.

[Anonymous No.11011201]

>>11011178
It seems it would be groundbreaking in the sense that Howl acknowledges the "darker" aspects of youth which Consumerist media in 50's portrayed as nonexistent. It's kind of like how people today think young adults in the 1920's were very strict moral people but in reality they were having bacchanals and fucking random flapper sluts every weekend.

[Anonymous No.11011223]

>>11011201
I suppose so. But I don't even know if this is broadly applicable to "the youth." In fact, Ginsberg seems to shit all over the 1950s equivalent of normies for wanting houses and cars instead of fucking boys in bath houses.

I'm trying to get my head around it for class later today and really trying to give it a fair shot, but I keep getting caught up in just how depressing and degenerate the whole thing is.

[Anonymous No.11011361]

>>11011178
you dont actually grasp the ever imminent beauty and glory and mystery of existence and being and continually utilize it to ceaselessly replenish and invigorate your soul in each moment with the eternal and divine do you

[Anonymous No.11011417]

>>11011223
the whole 60s thing and then still today with punks and hipsters and tumblerinas and bikers and artists etc is extreme uniform strictness vs the desire to explore and feel freedom, the escape of extreme pressure and constant demanding particular exact expectation. To be ruled and follow rule perfectly continuously strictly, to be in a box, vs the desire to explore liberty. Extreme fascism vs extreme anarchy (as the two extremes). The individual owning itself and its relation to and in the world, vs a certain society of individuals owning the individual and forcing it to follow a million rules at all times every day of its existence.

[Anonymous No.11011477]

>>11011361
I don't think fucking twinks in Central Park and shooting heroin is a worthwhile use of your life, sorry.

[Anonymous No.11011587]

>>11011477
The first part, maybe
Nice dubs btw

[Anonymous No.11011596]

>>11011477
If that isn't, what is then?

[Anonymous No.11011618]

>>11011587
Okay, maybe.

And I get Ginsberg's message about being liberated enough to seek out lovers and be with who you want and not fall into the grey flannel suited abyss of 1950s Madison Ave culture.

But if these are really supposed to be the "greatest minds of a generation" then why were they so self destructive and crazy? They seem a lot more like modern day college kids, doing club drugs and hooking up on Tinder.

[Anonymous No.11011634]

>>11011417
difference between certain certainties and certain uncertainties and different certainties and uncertainties of various certainties and uncertainties

[Anonymous No.11011635]

>>11011618
>They seem a lot more like modern day college kids, doing club drugs and hooking up on Tinder.
Well spotted. The beats are the start of modern narcissism. The self is the centre of the universe, not duty to country, responsibility to family or your job. They dressed up their hedonism with spiritual nonsense, but the part from on the road to Coachella is very clear.

[Anonymous No.11011650]

>>11011618
>But if these are really supposed to be the "greatest minds of a generation" then why were they so self destructive and crazy?
because they were so denied freedom when they got a taste of it it was the best tasting thing theyve ever had, and do you know if they were all self destructive and crazy? A lot of them were probably type related to weirdo nerds and geeks and then went into computer culture.

[Anonymous No.11011662]

>>11011618
A lot of other Beat writers (even Ginsberg too) were also reeling from the United States' nuclear capability. You have to remember the existential threat that posed to humanity and how that would have influenced their psyche. It's more distant, more out of mind nowadays than it was in the immediate post-war years. Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, and others all wrote about the bomb. And then you factor in things like the repression of sexuality and the consequences of transgression: electro shock therapy. The world might start to seem a little mad the way in which ordinary people could just throw on a suit and go about their careers and consumption with but a care in the world.

[Anonymous No.11011670]

>>11011635
A lot of the Beats actually served as part of the Merchant Marine, and Burroughs even tried enlisting in the air force.

[Anonymous No.11011711]

>>11011670
Ginsberg did as well, but he was also eligible to serve in WW2 and decided to go to Columbia instead.

Seems kind of self centered to me, especially seeing as he was Jewish man.

[Anonymous No.11011723]

>>11011662
>the repression of sexuality

Possibly, although Howl certainly makes it seem like sex of all kinds was readily available. I understand penalties existed, both social and criminal, especially for homosexuality, but it sounds like Ginsberg and his set were fucking and sucking like there was no tomorrow... which is understandable considering the threat of the bomb like you mentioned.

[Anonymous No.11011741]

>>11011723
I don't know the extent of how much sex was out there, nor where to find it, but Howl did end up being the subject of an obscenity trial after its publication.

I'm not necessarily a fan of the Beats or anything like that, but I wanted to add some more context for all of this.

[Anonymous No.11011863]

Ginsburg was the jewish ringleader of a two-bit cast of useful idiots who wanted to be writers and artists, and who were used by jewish-run outlets to break down the culture in the US and atomize whites. This is what jews do, and it worked, paving the way for the 60s, when jews were able to cement their cultural power by brainwashing an entire generation and leading us into the pornographic cultural wasteland we have today. They did the same thing in Germany, and this led to the rise of the Third Reich, because people were sick of all the perversion jews had spewed into their culture. It's why jews have been hated and kicked out of everywhere they've ever set foot in.

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/09/24/sexual-decadence-weimar-germany/

[Anonymous No.11011878]

>>11011863
Seriously back to pol.

[Anonymous No.11011885]

>>11011178
YEAH BRO
JUST CONFORM
NEVER DO ANYTHING OUTSIDE THE NORM
NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT MIGHT BE SEEN AS BAD
CONSUME
WORK
DIE
CONSUME
WORK
DIE
GOOD BOY

[Anonymous No.11012420]

>>11011178
The beets are gay and bad except Burroughs he is STRAIGHT and COOL I recommend his novel Queer.

[Anonymous No.11013182]

>>11011650
There we go. Some of them just wanted to be gay. Some wanted to have long hair. Some wanted to do any fucking thing slightly different than their neighbors, and in the 50s, that was all ilegal and stomped on. Howl makes sense once you grasp the true paranoid stultifying horror of their adolescence.

[Anonymous No.11013197]

>>11011178
There is no message, the point is that it sounds cool. You all miss the point of poetry.

[Anonymous No.11013201]

>>11013182
Oh yeah, the horror of the 1950s compared to the pornographied, multicultural utopia of today. Get real. It was always jewish propaganda aimed at white kids, to make them attack their own traditions and heritage, and give the tribe a step up over the men who historically kept them rightly at bay.

[Anonymous No.11013228]

>>11013197
What a retarded analysis

[Anonymous No.11013237]

>>11013228
That poetry is the art of rhythmical composition? Thats the definition of poetry.

[Anonymous No.11013736]

I think an acquaintance with Pound, who I consider to be Ginsberg's precursor, would be of assistance. (A distaste for the Hell Cantos is as understandable as a distaste for some parts of Pound)...the best critic on Ginsberg that I've read has been Helen Vendler, and I'll quote her on Howl -
"Even if one can't aspire to equal Ginsberg's courage, one is encouraged by it. But of course candor alone wouldn't have struck to my heart as the words of Howl did; it was Ginsberg's onrushing rhythms--already in my mind from the Psalms and the prophets and Blake and Whitman, but differently cadenced in Ginsberg's lines--that swept away all objections. In Howl (and in all Ginsberg's subsequent books) rage came mixed with tenderness, prophetic denunciation alternated with visionary hope, the coarse consorted with the delicate."

[Anonymous No.11013741]

>>11013237
In July 1922, Pound wrote to one of his former professors at the University of Pennsylvania that “it's all rubbish to pretend that art isn't didactic. A Revelation is always didactic.” But, he added, “art can't offer a patent medicine. A failure to distinguish that from a profounder didacticism has led to the errors of ‘aesthete's critique”

[Anonymous No.11013748]

>>11013741
Good God I hate Pound

[Anonymous No.11013758]

>>11011178
Read Kerouac's On the Road to get a sense of where Ginsberg is coming from. The dude was a neurotic homosexual Jew, undoubtedly intelligent, but utterly consumed by his own pretentiousness.

Don't end up like every College freshman who reads Kerouac, and drop everything for ephemeral travel, however. That would be cliche, and a massive misreading, and I simply won't have it.

[Anonymous No.11013818]

>>11011178
>1950s
>Be a typical perverted, resentful jew
>US has just won the biggest war in the history of the world
>Life has literally never been better
>USA is on the cutting edge of everything. Sure, nuclear weapons exist now, but it seriously looks like within just a few decades humanity will fly not just across the oceans but to the stars
>Even now, some of the most brilliant men who have ever lived are drawing the plans to send the first men to the Moon.
>BUT WAIT!
>people judge me for being a syphilitic faggot
>no one wants to listen to the rambling screeds of a buttblasted jews
>GOYIM have so much money that they don't even need to take out loans to keep the family farm in business
>UPPITY GENTILES sit astride what is suddenly one of the great hegemons the world has ever seen, built while G-D'S CHOSEN huddled in shtetls before being gassed by a guy who looks like Charlie fucking Chaplin.

America? More like AmeriKKKa, am I right? The United $naKKKes? Huh? ever tried being a GAY JEW NIGGER in the Untied $nakes? Things aren't so great then! So much for your "golden age"! Well, t-the b-best minds of MY generation, well they did too many drugs and Dwight D. Eisenhower, who thinks he's SO GREAT, he made all these FUCKING GOY nurses ROLL THEIR EYES when I went in to get my anal fissure stitched up. AmeriKKKa is practically satan. Can't an old yid get a tight twink to bust in? That's all I want. That, and I should be in charge of everything. P.s. i'd totally fuck my fat dead mom

[Anonymous No.11013838]

>>11011650
>went into computer culture.
lol, there were a lot of guys into "computer culture' in the 1950s who did some incredible work. Somehow they didn't look or act like Ginsberg.

[Anonymous No.11013845]

>>11011178
I hope my good old asshole holds out
60 years it's been mostly OK
Tho in Bolivia a fissure operation
survived the altiplano hospital--
a little blood, no polyps, occasionally
a small hemorrhoid
active, eager, receptive to phallus
coke bottle, candle, carrot
banana & fingers--
Now AIDS makes it shy, but still
eager to serve--
out with the dumps, in with the condom'd
orgasmic friend--
still rubbery muscular,
unashamed wide open for joy
But another 20 years who knows,
old folks got troubles everywhere--
necks, prostates, stomachs, joints--
Hope the old hole stays young
till death, relax

[Anonymous No.11013849]

>>11011650
>>11013838
If only society had become more accepting of jew faggots, we would have gone to Mars by now. We could have gone to the stars.

[Anonymous No.11013866]

>>11011417
>punks hipsters tumblerinas bikers artists
All of those including beats were just default countercultures designed to be accesible to young people without the monetary capital to feel successful in the mainstream culture. Can't placate one lust so you might as well placate another instead in the designated manner.

[Anonymous No.11013895]

>>11013748
>Good God I hate Pound
nice criticism of what he said, I guess we will just have to assume you know reasons why and are correct

[Anonymous No.11013900]

>>11013895
It's not a criticism you faggot pseud I was just venting my frustration

[Anonymous No.11013906]

>>11013845
ew

[Anonymous No.11013910]

>>11013838
>>11013849
>>But if these are really supposed to be the "greatest minds of a generation" then why were they so self destructive and crazy?

>lol, there were a lot of guys into "computer culture' in the 1950s who did some incredible work. Somehow they didn't look or act like Ginsberg.
Did I say there weren't?

>weirdo nerds and geeks

>generation

>type related

[Anonymous No.11013929]

Ah, the Beats—such narcissism.

[Anonymous No.11013933]

>>11013900
what were you frustrated about? Everyone would just rather see why you reading something he said caused you to say you hate him: there must be reasons, but you did not state those reasons. I said what I said with the desire to provoke those reasons to come to light .

[Anonymous No.11013934]

>>11013818
Basically this.

The jew is the purest form of the 'sociopath.' Their culture has taught them for eons that they are the victims of others and are therefore justified in trying to destroy those others by any means necessary. But not only that, they think their destruction is "tikkun olam," that they are actually making the world better by attacking others, while having no awareness of their ruinous nature. As one delves deeper into the JQ this is the inevitable conclusion reached: that jews have been selected to be psychopaths to whom "truth" and "rightness" mean whatever furthers their cult elites' interests. It's both the most fascinating phenomenon in the realm of human nature and the greatest proof that something called "evil" really does exist. A remarkable time that we live in, that we can synthesize this information and use science to see into the psyche of such a warped creation of nature.

[Anonymous No.11013946]

>>11011178
>but the entire message of Howl seemed so contradictory
If you want straightforward answers you might be better off reading a book on algebra or somesuch topic. Literature, a reflection of life itself, trades on contradiction, complexity, nuance. De shit ain't simple

[Anonymous No.11015329]

>>11011178
It's Jewish cosmopolitanism: their alienation from the American volk and their contempt for them.

[Anonymous No.11015667]

>>11011878
everything he said is objectively true

[Anonymous No.11015758]

>>11013900
Youre a faggot for using pseud as an insult.

[Anonymous No.11015985]

>>11011635
>The self is the centre of the universe, not duty to country, responsibility to family or your job
Literally correct.

[Anonymous No.11016008]

>>11011662

Few things are more pathetic than a man lamenting his country's power.

[Anonymous No.11016023]

>>11016008
>lamenting that your country could literally start the apocalypse is pathetic

[Anonymous No.11016032]

>>11011178
So what do you consider a "meaningful" life, O Sage?

[Anonymous No.11016047]

>>11013201
Damn, you deluded paranoid anti-semites really have trouble with basic facts, don't you?

[Anonymous No.11016059]

>>11011863
Burroughs was raised catholic methodistic, predated Ginsburg and was arguebly a lot more "degenerate" than ginsberg
And Keruac was a way bigger influence on pop culture and he´s katholic as well
and if you think that jews had anything to do with sexual decadence in weimar, and if you think that the nazis weren´t sexual degenerates, you´re even dumb for /pol/ standards

[Anonymous No.11016119]

>>11016023
It's pathetic to care more about human existence than the might of your nation.

[Anonymous No.11016134]

>>11016119
>cucking yourself for an imaginary line some dudes have drawn in ancient times isn´t pathetic

[Anonymous No.11016157]

>>11016134
>Not realizing that the meaningful relationship to the entity that is the nation is far more worthwhile than the abstract invention of humanity forced on the world after wwii.

[Anonymous No.11016180]

>>11016157
> humanity is abstract but a nation is not
also
>hobbes in 2k18

[Anonymous No.11016198]

>>11016180
Meant to describe the nation as abstract too, but the nation is far more concrete than any social conception of humanity. The relationship one can have with the former will always be more fulfilling than that which can be had with the latter.
Also, Hobbsean pessimsim is really the only viable foundation for political organization.

[Anonymous No.11016229]

>>11016157
This is the dumbest fucking post I've read in a long time. Fuck I'm done with this place.

[Anonymous No.11016239]

>>11016229
You won't be missed now, nor when you're swallowed by the tide of your "fellow" man.

[Anonymous No.11016511]

>>11015985
>implying the self can fully know itself and find meaning using only itself as reference

[Anonymous No.11016533]

>>11016059
Nothing in your post is relevant or even makes a reasonable point. Ginsburg was a lightning rod for degenerates and helped them along, and jews had degenerated Germany before the third reich rose to power. If we got rid of jews today the west's jew-created degeneracy wouldn't end tomorrow. Try to think before you respond.

[Anonymous No.11017855]

>>11016533
anti semitism had been was on the rise in germany and austria since the 1870´s since they needed a boogeyman to distract from the foul compromise the people longing for a true republic had to make by getting either a institutional monarchy (germany) or nothing whatsoever (austria) after napoleon and the Völkerschlacht bei Leipzig as well as the german revolution in the 1840
even the greatest minds of the time, like for example the composer Strauß were accused of "subverting the germanic culture"
but sure, the jews were truly in power dispite all of this
i sometimes really wonder why i try to argue with people like you

[Anonymous No.11017865]

>>11017855
>anti semitism had been was on the rise in germany and austria since the 1870´s since they needed a boogeyman

Jews have been kicked out of 359 countries. This has occurred every time because of their wretchedness as a people. What you call "anti semitism" is a normal response to jewish behavior.