Amcult 208 1st Edition Lecture 9 Outline of Last Lecture I. The Beats BeginOutline of Current Lecture II. The White NegroIII. Up is Down and Down is UpIV. Who Were the Beats Part 2Current LectureThe White Negro: Mailer raises, for the first time, the idea that Negroes are the source of hip for beats- Emerging on the scene are the people Norman Mailer proclaims to be the “white negro”, the existence of a new kind of man:o The Hipster: knew from the atom bomb and the concentration camps that societiesand states were murderouso That under the shadow of mass annihilation one should learn what ghetto blacks already knew:  To give up “the sophisticated inhibitions of civilization” To live in the moment To follow the body and not the mind To divorce oneself from society and follow the rebellious imperative of the selfKerouac as White Negro- The Negro characteristics which Kerouac reverences are clearly stated in a well-known passage from On the Road- Hipsters, Mailer said, rejected middle-class values and took their cues for behavior from working-class Negroes- Hipsters with a middle-class background attempt to put down their whiteness and adopt what they believe is the carefree, spontaneous, cool life style of Negro hipsterso All white men have done is exploit other people, so let’s try something elseo Is it really terribly surprising that following WWII, a group of white guys asking what the hell is this all about?- They adopt their manner of speaking and languageo They start to use milder narcoticsThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute. Makes you feel good, looser, gets you to a better placeo Their appreciation of jazz and the blues Jazz: excitement and frenetic pace of the 20s, ecstatic beat Blues: deep, low, exploring parts of your soulo Their supposed concern with the good orgasm Using sex as a means of transcending reality Buddhists: living beings approach full enlightenment: at the moment of death and moment of orgasmo You are a miracle. To not respect yourself and the other miracles around you is not what you should do. You have been given this precious thing.- Mailer also said that the hipster, in attempting to emulate the Negro cultivated: o irresponsibility o spontaneityo emotionalism negroes realized that they might not be able to see that person again, wanted them to know that they are lovedo immediate impulse gratification maybe gratification is something that needs to be cherished  without tenderness, you have satisfactiono occasional use of drugso more liberal and open attitudes toward sexo interracial friendshipso the use of four letter wordsUp is Down and Down is Up- why shouldn’t we celebrate everything? Why shouldn’t we celebrate the common things and think of what an incredibly glorious thing this common thing is?- Lawrence Ferlinghetti gave a fine example of this attempt to reverse the roles of high andlow in his poem “Junkman’s Obligato”Who Were the Beats? Stanza 2- 1942: Jack Kerouac after over-indulging one night, enlisted in the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard all on the same day following the start of WWII.- 1943: Lucian Carr and David Kammerer enroll at Columbiao William Burroughs moves to New York, he already know Carr from St. Louiso Edie Parker, Kerouac’s girlfriend, introduces him to Carro Ginsberg meets Carr who introduces him to Burroughs and Kammerer- 1944: A New Vision: get together and discuss art, and writing and creativityo Kammerer introduces Borroughs to Kerouac, Carr introduces Kerouac to Ginsbergo They begin theorizing about a “New Vision” of art based upon three important concepts Naked self expression is the seed of creativity- Uncensored emotional honesty, stripping of ego and self-righteousness  The artist’s consciousness is expanded by a derangement of the senses Art eludes conventional morality- Let’s go running naked through the night like ecstatic beasts screaming “we’re here!!”- The “Dark Night of the Soul”o Concept goes back to Roman Catholic mystic St. John of the Cross 1542 It means a mystic spiritual path upon which one believes he/she has lost everything including the grace of God Psychologically, the “Dark Night” can mean the exhaustion of an old state and the growth of a new form of consciousness Where we feel like we are totally loss in the abyss, no one or nothing to depend upon except what we have within ourselves- Bruce was lost in the Himalayas hundreds of miles away from the nearest village, got sick with a fever, took shelter in a mud hut, hadhis dark night of the soul, literally no one in the world knew where he was.- Could feel aloneness of this planet spinning in the abyss of the universeo This is what Ginsberg and Kerouac were all about… reaching the bedrock of consciousness, which is the only place that true art can exist, and the only place where nothing but your inner self exists. No pretenses, no