In Allen Ginsberg poem, he gave people his views of the 1950's. He depicted his era as an starving and partially poor time period that was over run by alcoholics, drugs, sex, and violence. In his opening he states, " I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed.. "(Ginsberg,1). In the beginning we really do not know who or what he would consider the "best minds of his generation", not until later on. The "best minds" depicted come to find out were not doctors, teachers, lawyers, or even bankers in the 1950's. I believe he did that on purpose that way, it could shine the light on people even with out titles or anything in front of there names they still see the things that go on in the world. I also believe the people he didn't believe to be the "best minds or his generation" where people who, stuck to the laws, followed all the rules, didn't think out side the box, listened and believed majority of what they were told by their government or people with some type of authority. His idea of the "best minds of his generation" where drug users, bums, dropouts of education, trouble makers, alcoholics, musicians, world travelers, and of course poets.
Throughout Ginsberg poem most of the lines began with the word "who" followed by a verb. Majority of his depictions went, "who did this and who did that" when it came to talking about a certain group of people or a person. On page 11, more of his depictions of what he believed "the best minds of his generation" did, he told how they would, "disgorged in total recall for seven days and nights with brilliant eyes". Pointing out how his "best minds" would be high trying to recall all what happened a few days and nights before hand. In my opinion I would not have wanted to do so much f anything that would make me have a time laps and not know what, when, where, and all I did the past few nights and days before. I feel consequences and reactions play big roles in my life so I would have had to have thought a lot about what I was gonna do before I acted.
Allen Ginsberg also spoke on his "best minds" disregard of the law, stating, "who bit detectives in the neck and shrieked with delight in a police car for committing no crime but their own wild cooking pederasty and intoxication" (Ginsberg,13). His view of these people seem to point at them either being crazy, too affected by whatever they had done, or they just did not care to act ensile anymore. As a person looking into the box of not knowing really what people went through back then, I do not know how I would have turned out during this time period. To be honest, I don't know if I could really blame those people for who they came out dealing with their crazed environment and dealing with law enforcement and laws I didn't understand.
-Does Allen view of his generations best minds seem obscure and seem wrong? Or does it seem logical from some points? explain.
-Do you believe times were harder back then or now, in comparing our most recent war?
-If they did so much traveling and had so many issues with this country what made them comeback, why didn't they stay where they traveled too?
In response to one of your questions,I believe times are harder now, we just have more amenities to comfort us. The wealth gap in comparison to the inflation of the value of a dollar means that we as individuals, especially poor ones, make less in comparison than even some of the poorest in the great depression. With increased loan interest, especially on college students, we have accumulated tens of thousands in negative wealth, as opposed from starting from a "zero" mark. However, we are more tolerant of our information, for example "Howl" and its usage of perverse terms would be much more accepted in today's society than it was in the 50's. I feel the messages of extreme reaction to poverty are also even more relevant to our time period than they ever were in the past, so its a very interesting retrospective read on what some folks were considering possible for cultural reactions.
ReplyDeleteAlso in response to your question, I think generally times were always hard, it's difficult to say that people struggle more in one time than the other. I think in todays society with some much awareness of things that's been a problem for decades it seems harder simply because people are becoming less complacent and fighting back, whereas in the 50s they just suppressed it and carried on with the times. I do agree with Dilland about the wealth gap and poverty and also the acceptance of material found suitable now being regarded as obscene back then.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both previous statements. Our distractions and constant pushes of "freedoms" are actually hurting our society. The problem is that the wages did not get accomodated with the steady inflation within the last fifty years. People in that era were able to save and hold onto so much money because back then a little was a lot because of the value of the dollar. Drugs were even cheaper. So now the same habits instilled into Americans and luxuries presented that are deemed as normal are what is keeping the poor and rich in such a divide. Most of the rich are those old money families and everyone else is upper poor or poorer. The middle class is a figment at this point since 97% owns 3% of the wealth and the other 3% have the 97%. Geinsberg was trying to point out this "capitalist machine" so that our generations wouldn't have to suffer accordingly.
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