What makes Beatniks tick.

By HILARY KNIGHT
THL reason why I so glibly promised last week to write about the Beat Generation was that I had just been reading the spring number of an American quarterly called "Dissent" which carries an excellent section on "Thc Young" with many references, passim, to the Beatniks. And I think this is more reliable as a source than the popular press in this country which is always on the look out for news stunts without much reference to fundamentals (as with the Angry Young Men).
'Growing up absurd'
AN admirable article called "Growing up Absurd" by Paoli Goodman analyses the structure of American society and shows that its vast hulk is, as we should expect, within the Organisation that makes the country tick.
This Organised System he divides into three "statuses": (1) The Workers (2) The Organisation Men (3) The Managers.
Outside this System there are two groups: the Poor and the Independents.
Thc Independents are described as "the old-fashioned. the eccentric. the criminal. the gifted. the serious, the renders. the freelances. the infants. and so forth".
The Poor are graphically described as the out-castes.
And the Beatniks? They arc those young people who, disgusted by the Rat Race (as they call the Organised System). %mho:tar/Iv choose poverty outside the System.
Cultivating what?
"THESE early-disillusioned. hip young men are the Beat Generation, The organisation they have quit may be the armed forces or a university they cannot compound with . ." or a job. The voluntarily poor, as the Beatniks are, tend to link up with the involuntarily poor. Or, to put it otherwise, outsiders tend to link up with the outsiders hence the negro influence over the Beatniks. their cultivation of negro jazz. their negro jargon. and so on.
On the other hand, whereas the involuntarily paor "arc absolute sheep and stickers for the popular culture which they cannot afford, the movies, sharp clothes. cadillacsr, the Beatniks, of course. have turned against standard culture and would not have it if they could, What sort of jobs do they do so as to get the money (sometimes called "bread". sometimes "loot") by which they live?
Lawrence Lipton. in a book called "The Holy Barbarians". says that the Beatnik does not despise short-term work within the Organised System because he is not thereby involving himself in the Rat Race as he will quit as soon as he has his bread.
Paul Goodman. however. says. that the jobs preferred by the Beatniks are those practised by the real poor — farm labour. hauling boxes. janitoring. serving and dishwashing. For one thing. in them no questions are asked and no beards have to be shaved.
A spiritual tinge?
THE spiritual force behind Beat Generation seems (alas) Christianity. but Zen Buddhism -a Buddhist sect which according to my encyclopedia. "claims no canonical books, for thought is communicated by thought".
The way to the Good Life is by means of detachment from the comforts. pleasures and occupations of the common rim of men. But though the word "Beat", as of course you know. derives not from its "dead-beat" connotation, but from the Latin "beatus" (cf. "The Holy Barbarians"). I should make a rough guess that many of the Beatniks are no more aware of Zen Buddhism than the longhaired grubby young people in the' Paris cafes directly after the war were aware of the real meaning of Existentialism.
In the 'thirties. young people in revolt against society tended to became Communists. I find the present-day manifestation of revolt much more sympathetic. The Beatniks arc outside politics. They arc anti-segregation and anti-bomb but. as with the majority of American students. these basic clear-cut attitudes do not link up with practical programmes.
"There have been numerous hypotheses advanced as to why the contemporary rebellion has. instead of producing new revolutionary 'isms' remained entirely vapid." says Neil Friedman in :in article in "Dissent".
Why the word "vapid". I wonder? Contracting out seems to me as important a gesture us i me le ;ion in political actis
Racing against racers?
OF course the Beatniks have been so "written up", and so imitated by the squares. that they have become self-conscious and some of the purity of their original impetus has perhaps gone.
the The article quoted above points out: "Despite the hostile sermonnot ising it has evoked. the beat style has not been shunned by the campus squares: rather. it has been embraced by them. There is a general cultural fascination with the beatnik: coffee houses are overrun with people watching people watching people . . , Boatneck sweaters and sockless sneakers are publicly acceptable attire ... folk song albums by the Kingston Trio are at the top of the EP hit parade: churches and synagogues are holding 'beatnik dances': Hollywood has just issued Beat Generation' " It seems, in fact. as though the beatnik "has become caught up in hes Oen hind of tot race. an imitation of the Org. Man's rat race which he despises so much . " A pity:
Inheriting, the earth -----
IN another fascinating article. Ed Murray coins the word "Neatnik" (as a synonym for "square") and ends up: "The beatniks, hip to Zen Buddha and hooked on exhibitionism. may achieve hirvana and notoriety. but the neat — the neat shall inherit the earth."
Supporting this. he quotes a brief extract from a short story in a woman's magazine (the heroine is summing up her life): "1 live. I suppose. in the world of the
squares . . But where else can one live? Without the standards Greg (the 'hip cat' she 'dug' but didn't marry) so blithely ignored. there could he no family life. no industry. no community. no statism. Only anarchy."
My general comment? So long as there are neatniks. one feels sympathy for the beatniks,