What's There?

Ignition:

Up about five miles in the air, I look out a window and watch the earth scrolling below. A marvel of modern technology, and a feat of modernity: Commercial Flight. Witnessing the expansive land below safely nestled in my United Airlines seat I begin to absorb a greater understanding of the political economy and modernity (at least in the cultural sense) of the nation. It can't be helped. Everywhere I look now I see a great engine propelling us forward, but with uncertain ends. All of this: the airplane, the stewards, passengers, my small cup of ginger ale, a book about "Main St.": products of a great material state. But where we are being carried to, I do not know.

The Corporate Machine in the Garden:

Where I was being carried from was Michigan. A week earlier I was returning to the Motherland, visiting my parents, and introducing them to my girlfriend for the first time. My parents recently retired and permanently relocated to Roscommon, a very simple bucolic part of the state. Their "new" home is a hinterland ripped from the pages of Jefferson's notes. A place where tall verdant trees environ streets and most stretches of the highways (Mitt Romney even complemented them on their height in the last election). Where you can drink cool clean water from the tap worry-free, and turkeys roam freely at their leisure. Situated between two lakes, the one closest to the home (the same one we visited since I was an infant) is known for its beautiful clear waters, to the north and south, and rivers running to the east and west, this land is truly an American Pastoral.

Though upon returning to this small town Shangri-la I noticed familiar restaurants out of business, vacant lots, and a distinct presence of chain stores. The most obvious one appeared when we needed to purchase groceries for the week. Appearing juxtaposed against the greenness that surrounded it was the enormous Walmart. Even here in Jefferson's Ideal we met the corporate jötunn. It had followed us all the way out into the outer reaches, deeper into the American Mythology, trying to stamp its presence into the consciousness of the people with an avuncular tone whilst exploiting the ideologies of the American Ethos with low unbeatable prices; perhaps well aware of the giant footprint it was leaving, perhaps not.

I wondered if any corporate colossus understood the footprints they make. My answer was: most likely not, but there were a few. One such giant was a Michigan Man: Henry Ford.

Detroit Agonistes:

Ford was not oblivious to the destruction he and his peers' (Edison and Firestone, and then some) business of mechanization was doing to the "Americana" of the nation. That was, in large part, why he returned to his birthplace of Greenfield, Michigan and constructed a living, breathing monument to the American Pastoral he was helping eradicate. In many ways I see Greenfield Village as one of the first attempts from trusts to amalgamate their image with the American spirit. It is not only a place where visitors can tour the courthouse Abraham Lincoln practiced law in, or Noah Webster's home (where he wrote most of America's first dictionary), but also Ford's childhood home, his first factory, Edison's workshop, the Wright brothers' bike shop. The museum shows both the genesis of the United States hand-in-hand with the genesis of electric companies, Ford Motor Co., and commercial airlines.

I have no real objections to showing the innocuous (in many ways wholesome) beginnings of different corporate primogenitors. These corporate entities are, after all, American in origin (although very multi-national nowadays), so to include them in the nation's history is very natural--especially considering their influence during the Industrial Revolution and onward. It is not like they are altering historical records like Stalin. However, Greenfield Village is a palpable representation of companies public relations campaign (at times eerily close to a cult or personality) to ingratiate themselves with the general public. By channeling different aspects of the American Mythology (i.e. the American dream, Main St., the American Pastoral, etc.) trusts gain favor with the public. This strategy helps tremendously when the jötnar lift up their feet and move on, leaving only a footprint of what once was.

Footprints like Detroit.

On the last day of our trip, my parents took my girlfriend and me on a tour of Detroit. I hadn't been back in years. Needless to say, the terrible things one reads or sees about the city appeared true. Traveling down Woodward (the main vain) towards the heart of downtown, I noticed trash littering the sidewalks and gutters. Endless block after block containing abandoned, decrepit buildings or homes, and behind them vast empty lots, the occasional Victorian relic still standing with boarded windows, tall unkempt grass growing (stories of dead bodies being found in them), and the droves of poor black faces walking about with unknown destinations.

We passed The Spirit of Detroit, and he appeared to struggle under the invisible pressure of the city's plight. In the left hand was the god that forsaken him, and in the right was the family that abandoned him. The only places that remained to have any life were Comerica Park (where the Detroit Tigers play), Ford Field (home of the Detroit Lions), and GM's Renaissance Center (headquarters of the motor company, also contains hotels, restaurants, shopping center). But it is a gaunt remnant of its once healthy self.

Detroit is like a dying feral dog. You watch it lying there, haggard and filthy, as it starts to breathe its last breaths. An overwhelming sense of guilt and sadness wash over you.  It watches you with such viridity, its eyes blameless, as it sighs with each exhale. You can't help but feel its death is all your fault. You've played some part in its demise.

Parting Thoughts:

And so as I slowly move through the air, looking down at this nation, I cannot help but think about the jötnar that walk above me. From up in this rarefied place I get a better view and understanding. The giants are even up here. I'm riding in one, sipping some of their product right now.

And that's the real shit-kicker: I participate in all of it. I am embedded. In some cases I really enjoy myself. I love Greenfield Village, and I didn't have second thoughts to purchasing chips and shampoo from Walmart. But when I witnessed Detroit, and saw what happens when the jötnar lift their feet and move on, what those footprints look like, I felt saddened because of the implications. That we are inextricably bound to these giants.

Where can we plant our feet? Where can we step that has not been stepped, or that is not occupied by the jötnar already? Where are we free to live from the shadow of these colossi? The answer I keep coming to is: Nowhere. So I have to assume that is the future. That is where we are heading towards.

And so I ask, "What's there?"

Exchange on Modernism

Below is a little conversation that took place on Facebook. I quoted Marshall Berman's 'All That is Solid Melts Into Air'--which is a really enjoyable read--and opined on the meaning of modernism (also read: modernity) in contemporary times. Some friends of mine chimed in... 

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(Me:) "To say that our society is falling apart is only to say that it is alive and well." - Marshall Berman, 'All That is Solid Melts Into Air' But I wonder if this still rings true. What can be said for modernism (either the adventurous or the routine) when places like Stockton, CA and Detroit simultaneously exist? These are the thoughts I have at half past midnight...

(Al:) The Roman empire fell amidst chaos and something evolving replaced it. Maybe we are at a similar spot on that historical timeline. Change is inevitable, be it the world in which we live or the human condition itself. Humans look at snapshots of their lives .. 2, 5, 10 years at a time and somehow feel that same stability should somehow naturally be perpetual, but instead it is the most unnatural thing that could be. The failures with Stockton & Detroit and approaching failures with dozens of other cities have direct cause and effect. A large segment of our society is too blind to see this cause. Once that segment becomes the majority, the city is doomed and will fail. We might be five years away or fifty from complete collapse in our government and society as we know it. It depends on this current rate of change. I for one remain hopeful it is reversible and self correcting. Thanks for the thought provoking post.

(Me:) Sure. I think Berman would agree with your basic idea of the ebb and flow of human history. What you’re getting at (in Bermanian terms) is “adventure modernism” (i.e. people are going to continue on, searching for the next great part of existence; the destruction they suffer is only at the result of creation; they are trying to not only look into the abyss, but go into it, and survive it, and come back from it with a better understanding, etc. etc.). In these terms, I think his point would be: the fact that there is unrest is a sign that people are toiling away, working towards the future, perpetually creating and destroying. We’re just witnessing that next paradigmatic shift, the next stage of modernism in the United States. As a result, some things are going to go to the wayside in order for the next “thing” to take the stage. And this may still be so.

But my point is simply this: I don’t see it. Detroit suffered for a new modernism—corporate capitalism, globalization, deindustrialization, the White Flight, etc. etc. all played huge factors to the decline of this once blossoming metropolis. For Detroit, and other (mainly Rust Belt) cities in the USA, it dies a slow and painful death so that the new modern life of the suburbs can arise. Smash cut to now where even the suburbs are declining—large swathes of homeowners underwater on their mortgages, houses foreclosed and left to rot, education systems defunded almost annually (ceremoniously depending on whom you ask), even what were once the Crystal Palaces of suburbia (the malls) are now vacant either of stores or people—across the nation in places like Stockton, Grand Rapids, MI, Lakewood, CO, Jefferson County, AL, Harrisburg, Boise, Central Falls, RI, and the list goes on. So with all this in mind, I ask myself: “What are we building towards? What is the next step in modernism?” And I find no satisfactory answer. The end of feudal society came about from the mobilization to cities, centuries later the destruction of slums in Paris, London, New York, Chicago, Tokyo, Beijing were to build new asphalt roads, concrete walkways, steel buildings, and more for greater modern cities, and in turn some of these like-cities were abandoned for the greater megastructures of the new modern exurbs/suburbs, but now we are witnessing urban AND suburban decay with no obvious paradigm to shift to next. I look around and I see paralysis at best, and retrograding at worst. The soil that used to be so loose has now ossified, and we find ourselves waste deep, stuck, waiting for some unknown future.

This is what I was getting at last night. There is no pastoral left to escape to and build great structures upon anymore. We are left in our ruins now. Of course societies will continue to exist, in one form or another, but will they continue to modernize?

(Joe:) Greed was the catalyst for the fall of the Roman Empire and with history being cyclic, we are at the threshold of the same future for the same reason. Too much wealth in the hands of too few while the rest are left to grovel. It is easy to say "Well everyone has the same opportunity". You have to be an idiot to really believe that. And now, one of the popular trends is to suck the very life out of this country and take it off shore. So, what does the future hold? Well if we don't succeed in blowing up the planet, regardless of the depths to which society falls, there will always be a tomorrow and those individuals who will give their all to effect a resurection [sic] of the good life.

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Though it may appear as if Al and Joe were on different talking points than mine, I do think they were speaking about modernism--even if their comments were more politically motivated. 

Berman wrote 'All That is Solid...' in the seventies up to the early eighties (the book being published in 1982). In it, Berman argues against the notion that we were living in a "post-modern" USA. He wrote...

To be modern, I said, is to experience personal and social life as a maelstrom, to find one's world and oneself in perpetual disintegration and renewal, trouble and anguish, ambiguity and contradiction: to be part of a universe in which all that is solid melts into air. To be a modernist is to make oneself somehow at home in the maelstrom, to make its rhythms one’s own, to move within its currents in search of the forms of reality, of beauty, of freedom, of justice, that its fervid and perilous flow allows.

By this assertion, everything is modern. There can never be a next phase, no "post" anything. We have always been modern--err... starting with Baudlaire. Which is confusing because if we are to use his own logic--that everything eventually breaks down and becomes replaced (or in Marxist terms "all that is solid melts into thin air")--then "modernism" itself should be vulnerable to its own nature. Shouldn't it?

I'm going to refrain from answering for now.

Instead, I want to opine further on Berman's idea of modernism precisely as a positive event in human history. My initial post focused (perhaps loosely) on this thought. In reading Berman, I had the overwhelming impression that modernism was not only an unavoidable force of human nature, but that it was (more or less) the impetus for progressive change (i.e. change for the better of society). From paving the roads in cities in the mid-19th century to the creation of sprawling suburbs in the mid-20th century, and from Russian literature to the New Deal, these are all moments of modernism that highlight positive changes--even in oppressive "backwards" societies.* I have a problem with this.

For instance, Berman devotes a considerable amount of time on Russian literature (more precisely Russian life in St. Petersburg from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth--viewed through the literature). Berman lauds Russian writers like Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Nevsky, Dudkin, Mandelstam, et al. for their sharp wit in combating the oppressive realities of their lives. In his eyes, their literature is the basis for modernism--what he called the "modernist adventure"--and their writings were a sign that even in a place like oppressive Tsarist Russia (which he likened to many Third World countries of the twentieth century) such thoughts could exist. And they existed exactly because of a more modern city like St. Petersburg was created and allowed for such modernist thought to blossom. Huzzah!

That's really great and all, but... uh... like what about all those poor serfs (hundreds of thousands of them) who died in the mud of the Neva to create that great modernist city? What about the fact that the reason those serfs were working to death was because they were slaves to the nobility? Or that all this great literature is being primed by the subjugation of the lesser fortunate (the Clerk) at the hands of their masters (the Tsar)? (Dostoevsky knows something of that oppression... 'How are winters in Siberia?') Or that these lesser fortunate people--many who contributed most to the better future--suffered disproportionately as a result of it? Hey Berman! what about all the modernist serfs who built the future and who longed to go beyond the squalid conditions of oppressive Tsarist Russia... and then oppressive Stalinist Russia... and now oppressive Putinist Russia... where is their modernism? What positive outcome have they benefited from?**

Or to put this in terms that hit closer to home, what about the African American experience, Berman? The success of nascent United States (especially the South) is in large part thanks to slaves. But maybe that's unfair because modernism didn't start for Berman until the mid-nineteenth century... oh wait... they were still slaves in the 1850s! and then they were disproportionately poor and disenfranchised and terrorized for another one-hundred years, and for the last 50 years they've had the oddest looking equality I can think of. But let me provide some "modernist" specifics. The New Deal. Great modernist event. The creation of the welfare state that played a huge role in the prosperity of many Americans--essentially creating the middle class. What could possibly be wrong with that? Well... um... many of the programs were at the expense of blacks because of white supremacy. How 'bout that? Case in point: the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) provided cash benefits to farmers for work done in the field. However, a disproportionate number of blacks (yes, even more than poor white sharecroppers) were swindled out of their appropriations by the (white) landowners. If this sounds familiar, it's because similar instances happened with the Tennessee Valley Authority (the inspiration for the Marshall Plan), the Federal Land Bank, the Rural Electrification Administration, etc. etc. Or what about blacks living in urban US environments who suffered from the likes of the Robert Moseses of the nation (who constructed roads and buildings right through their neighborhoods--on towards a better future no doubt), or whites during the '50s and '60s who fled the urban areas, and took refuge in the suburbs, along with most of the work... but hey, you know, they have Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin to, like, write about their plight, so modernism still exists... and it's great!

This is all becoming a little too exhaustive and redundant. And I don't mean to go all Howard Zinn on Berman. I like the book. I like Berman's views of modernism. But perhaps what makes this all so frustrating is that Berman knows, is completely aware of what I'm writing about! The beginning of 'All That is Solid...' is about Goethe's Faust and the relation it plays with modernism/modernity and how Faust's accomplishments come at his own undoing (not to mention the deaths of innocent people). So Berman admits at the beginning of his book that we're talking about tragedy here! A tragedy brought upon by negligence that ultimately ends up spelling out "d-o-o-m."

This gets be back to answering that question I posed above.

Modernism has what I've started calling the "duality of construction"--which is to say, in modernity's construction of a better future it is simultaneously creating/meliorating new life, and destroying/exacerbating an old one. This even applies to itself. Even Berman admits this, though he believes modernism replaces itself with itself, and not some "other" epoch. But I'm not so sure. I believe that, like Faust, modernism can reach a point of limitation and then destroy itself.

And this brings me back to my original question, and Al and Joe's responses. When I asked "What can be said for modernism (either the adventurous or the routine) when places like Stockton, CA and Detroit simultaneously exist?" Al and Joe both gave (in their own way) witness to modernism's duality of construction. They both see the ebb and flow. The ability for humanity to create and destroy in an almost breathless daily fashion, indefatigably towards the unforeseen future. And in this sense, I believe they both still have faith in modernism--even in their own bleak ways.

But not me. Yes, the sun will rise and set until it explodes, but I'm curious as to whether or not it will rise on a modern United States or not. I for one am dubious. For good reason, too.

What good is modernism if people suffer for their entire lives as a result of it? What are we even creating things towards nowadays anyway? Tax cuts? Hyperloops? The new iPhone 6? What good are these new things if A) they only tend to benefit people who are already in a position to benefit from them? B) they aren't actual benefits? The tragic negligence seems afoot here too!

I'll go a further step and state that it is precisely this "tragic negligence" of modernity that causes the current state of paralysis, and because of it that modernism has fallen back on itself and is no more. We have allowed the suburbs and the urban environments to decay, and ourselves to slip into anomie, all for a future that appears to survive solely in the realm of "pop." For these reasons I do believe we are truly (now more than ever) living in a "postmodern" world.

I don't see this as a bad thing. I don't see it as a good thing. Like many postmodern things, I suppose it just is...
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* Note: Berman does not necessarily make note of suburbs or the New Deal in 'All That is Solid...' but I believe they fit well with his notion of modernism.
** And yes, I realize Russians no longer live like they did in the nineteenth century, but that doesn't mean oppression has disappeared... especially if you happen to be gay.

Cultural Oddities of the Beat Generation (An Excerpt from "David: 1966")

Cultural Oddities of the Beat Generation Seminar in Green Hall, Yale University at 6:00p.m. on September 4, 1963. Dr. Duke Macey

"Good evening, everyone. Thank you for coming. If it’s all the same, I’d like to jump right into this subject because I care to have time for much discussion. As I was able to gather from my quick survey of the room, we have a lot of ‘Old Guard’ and ‘New Guard’ representatives tonight. I’m glad you all came. So without further ado, let’s dig in. I should start this by explaining the meaning of the title of this seminar. At first glance, some have speculated this seminar was going to be a jeremiad on this next generation’s lack of respect, Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic, and so forth. But as I assured my students, this is more of an exploration of the Beat Generation's relationship with the new generation—the ‘New Guard’ as I refer to them—whilst within the reality envisioned by past generations—the ‘Old Guard.’ To put it another way: the Beat Generation appears to have imbedded itself in the New Guard, and seems to carry a significant weight within the New Guard in terms of behavior and ideology, and this seminar explores the oddities of said generation—both in the way the generation behaves, and how the generation is viewed. So I do not believe ‘oddities’ is being used in a pejorative sense as some may have feared… or hoped. Many of you who know me know I study the American ethos and have an affinity for literature, certainly fiction. Novelists, I believe, explore the attitudes and behaviors of culture (more broadly man’s nature). Either past or present, domestic or foreign, as they understand it, the good ones at least, novelists help readers interpret the world around them. And my students can attest that I enjoy introducing fiction in my course work as a tool for understanding not just American culture, but man’s nature—again in a much broader sense. For this seminar, I want to focus mainly on one book in particular: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road: to help us understand the Beat Generation’s cultural oddities. I want to turn our attention to this book as a paragon of the generation for two reasons: One, the book is constantly being referenced by my students and my peers, meaning it seems to have struck a significant chord with the New Guard; and Two, Kerouac’s influence on the Beat Generation, himself being likened to the primogenitor, and ‘king of the Beats.’ Of course there are plenty of other materials—books, writers, movements, so on and so on—that could have been referenced here, and many more are implemented in both my dissertation and ongoing manuscript, but since this seminar is only scheduled for an hour, I chose brevity. So here we go. Upon the book’s release just six years ago, Gilbert Millstein wrote in The New York Times: ‘Just as, more than any other novel of the 20’s, The Sun Also Rises came to be regarded as the testament of the ‘Lost Generation,’ so it seems certain that On the Road will come to be known as that of the ‘Beat Generation.’’ That’s some praise from Millstein. And from what nascent empirical data I have been able to collect, he’s right. On the Road resonates with those in the New Guard. Why is that? What influence can be found in the book? This leads me to my first point of behavior in the Beat Generation. More specifically I am referring to ideology when I speak of Beat behavior. After all, what is behavior if not action of thought? So what does On the Road teach us? What does it stand for? Well… I’ll try to make this as short as possible for the sake of brevity. A quick close reading of Kerouac’s novel shows us a penchant for iconoclasm, a romanticization of autonomy both in the form of anti-authoritarianism and sexual exploration, a rejection of materialism, an epistemological search through the bowels of these United States heavily guided by a mixture of drugs and Eastern religion—an interesting pairing. In short, the book is more about an existential journey in search for a new self after rejecting post-War affluence in the nation. And this seems to reflect the notions of those who lionize the book. People, mainly younger people, are enthralled by the concept of resisting the contemporary trends of our culture. Those who are fond of the Beat Generation do not care for the Joneses, let alone keeping up with them. They reject materialism; they are in favor of promiscuity; and have a more Emersonian approach to politics and religion than anything else. In fact, I think it is safe to assume that members of the Beats and New Guard are more contra mundum than compliant with the Old Guard’s culture. In an aside: one interesting point to consider when reading On the Road is the virtual absence of any father figure. Neither Sal nor Dean has any fatherly influence in their lives, so they have to create their own. They become the Founding Fathers of their own lives—so to speak. But I digress. The ideology of the Beats is apparent in Kerouac’s novel: one of freedom. Freedom from. Freedom to do. And this is where the cultural oddities come in to play. The ideology of the Beat Generation, and that of the New Guard, is quite different from coeval American culture. This brings me to my second point: how this generation is viewed. To say the least, Beats and the New Guard are met with disdain, and in some cases outright hostility, by the outside world. Certainly the reaction from Old Guard critics warrants this claim. Look no further than the rise in ‘beatnik’ stereotypes of this new generation in cartoons and reviews of literature or music, and harsh criticisms witnessed in films like The Beat Generation and The Beatniks. The oddities of the Beats are not welcomed by the Old Guard precisely because their behavior is seen as contra to that of the current American way of life. The iconoclasm and anti-authoritarianism are interpreted as civil anarchism, the sexual indiscrimination is met with accusations of depravity and lacking rectitude, rejection of materialism is the promotion of Red state subversion, and finally: experimentation with drug use and Eastern religion are signs of the coming apocalypse. Quite simply put: the Old Guard does not appreciate the lack of reverence for their beliefs and traditions, their culture, and finds the behavior of the Beat Generation actually very un-American. But is it? Does the Beat Generation actually represent the perceived separation between Old and New Guard, this dichotomy of American and un-American activities? Does this generation even belong to either Guard, or is it some outlier, a signal of a coming shift in paradigms—from Old to New? Is this the link between evolutionary cultural trends? Let’s examine the novel a little further.  Once more for the sake of time, I will only be examining two parts of the novel: the sexual use of the female characters, and Jack Kerouac himself. I realize examining the author in a review of the novel maybe unfair, but in this context I think we can make an exception. After all, there is no novel without of the author. Ladies first. Reading this novel the sexual use of women is rather shocking. I use the term ‘use’ quite strategically here. The Old Guard is repulsed because they read two men traveling the country having pre-marital and extra-marital affairs with women almost at will. This ‘looseness’ disgusts them. Of course the New Guard is in jubilee over this celebration of sexuality. They read the passages as watermarks in revolts against (what they see as) a Victorian approach to sex. Upon a closer reading, though, I believe both views miss a shocking fact. And it is precisely the manner in which both men, especially Dean, use these women. There is also, of course, a richness of bravado and male companionship within the text. Men and women are represented in vastly different ways, and the behavior is much more in line with traditional Old Guard ideology than anything else. Look at how the women are portrayed or used. Marylou, Dean’s first ex-wife, is quote-unquote 'dumb.' Camille, Dean’s second, is obedient and does as she’s told. Rita and Lucille are both sexual conquests for Sal. The use of sex in the novel is not as much about freeing the persons from the cages of common day Victorianism, but a cruder form of it. That is to say women are being portrayed to behave in a certain subservient manner to that of men. And this is in direct conflict with what many of the New Guard believes. This brings me to my second observation about On the Road and more specifically the author. Many critics, peers, friends, students have noted, even lauded, the anti-materialistic notions of this novel, Mr. Kerouac, and the Beat Generation as a whole. If one takes a step back and observes the very macro-level event happening, then one can witness a great irony. What I mean is: Jack Kerouac has written his magnum opus about freedom from materialism and constraints of our culture, but how are we receiving this information? We all bought his book. We all participated in this act of materialism, and Kerouac is the direct benefactor of it! What irony. And to return to the novel very quickly, Sal seems so pleased in his challenging of social affluence. And that’s great. But it’s very easy to make claims against materialism when you are being propped up by a wealthy sponsor. This is not to suggest condemnation cannot come from within, but it is to point out that if one is promoting an alternative way of life, precisely contra to affluent living, then to make such claims and live in such a way whilst being simultaneously propped up by the very affluence one deposes is greatly hypocritical and deserving of critique. Which leads me to my final point about Kerouac: this is a man who shows clear signs of what I will call ‘traditionalism.’ That is: a classical understanding of how society functions based off actions and ideologies of previous generations. I do not think Kerouac belongs in the New Guard. He might very well be better placed in the Old. However, his behavior implores a much more erratic Old Guard understanding of society today. Therefore he is an outlier, and so too are the Beats. They exist on the outskirts of our nation’s culture. Beyond the realms of both New and Old Guards their behaviors often times are a confluence of many different portions of combatting cultures within the body and time of the nation—especially a state like the United States. This explains the oddities of the Beat Generation—their actions and the way they are perceived. They behave free of the actions of both Guards. With that being said, I believe we cannot outright condemn or celebrate On the Road. We must accept it for what it is: something ‘other’ that invokes the very basic, if not crude, aspects of United States ideology. For all its merits, this is also a book rich with obdurate, anti-intellectual, self-centeredness, and lacking the substance to justify many of the actions revealed. The Old Guard is right in its criticism, but they are also too myopic to be aware of their own flaws and likeness to the Beats. Just as the New Guard is too quick to champion the book for its promotion of the self over the forces of materialism and avarice, and ignores the blatantly seedier side, the materialism, hedonism, and ethically questionable behavior that the New Guard does not promote—at least ideally. What I believe On the Road, Kerouac, and the Beat Generation represent is the most basic behavior of man’s nature. A behavior that has lay dormant in the American ethos until recently being revived thanks to this post-War affluence. Thank you.”