The See word
"who were expelled from the academies for crazy & publishing obscene odes on the window of the skull" p. 9
Howl
And so Ginsberg's poem begins. The most brilliant minds of his time, he claims, are what the conformists (those not of his beat culture) see as deviants. All they do is smoke, rant about "crazy" ideas, and have sex all the time. Conformists do not want to listen to new ideas: new things are dangerous. No one wants to listen to one of these beatniks because they are nuts, the drugs and alcohol "must be causing" the hallucinations, the far-out ideas. Conformists do not want to admit the truth. Guess what?! People smoke, have sex, and drink. We do bad things sometimes! Everyone does! To conform is to go along with everyone else. If everypne around you does not behave in the way that these poets do, then their lifestyle is wrong. Denying the truth is a very dangerous thing. These counter-culture addicts that Ginsberg speak of, they are not dangerous: all they want is for the conformists to see and hear the truth about society. But the comformists do not want to listen.
The world is a harsh place, and people do not want to hear talk of words such as asshole, angels piercing people with swords in bathhouses (we can all make an educated guess as to what Ginsberg was inferring), naked, cocksmen, suicide, petticoat up-liftings, innumerable lays of girls, snatches, C*** ( I cannot bring myself to even type this word-to me it is the most foul word in the english language). As much as I hate c***, I fully accept its existence and people's rights to say it. Just because it does exist, doesn't mean I have to like it. But I won't deny the existence of the word, for that would make me a conformist. To all other fellow writers, I say be witty and controversial! Curse and speak of sex in your writings if you feel the need to do so in order to get you message across! And to those conformists: if you don't like it, don't read it. You can never erase it by denying its existence. This is not 1984: no one is going to erase words, thus erazing the existence of thought.
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Kevin "Kelo The Great" Hinton on The See word: As a member of the New York Be
Jennifer Prex on The See word: I agree. I may not be comforta
I agree. I may not be comfortable reading the most controversial writings, but I'm not really against them. This is a free country. People should be able to write about what ever they want to write about. It's a way of expression. And you're right. Not everything in this world is perfect...in fact a lot of things in the world today are pretty messed up. The best way to deal with it is not to ignore it, but to confront it.
As a member of the New York Beats, Gunsberg had taking some positions to stand up for free speech. I'm going back to journalism by asking how far it goes. Your free speech ends where it begins to harm. Disruption is different than harming. Ginsberg disrupted a system that is not exactly a perfect one (1960s America). In order for it to change there must be a disruption.
As a member of the New York Beats, Gunsberg had taking some positions to stand up for free speech. I'm going back to journalism by asking how far it goes. Your free speech ends where it begins to harm. Disruption is different than harming. Ginsberg disrupted a system that is not exactly a perfect one (1960s America). In order for it to change there must be a disruption.