On Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:30:45 GMT, Alexander Ar****is <invalid@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
wrote:
>On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 22:22:02 -0500, ++ <spasi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>I had forgotten how many gratuitous refences to genitalia he chucked
>>into Part I
>>
>Not just that, but it's overtly homo***ual.
>
>The whole poem is about mental illness. Was Ginsberg, a homo***ual,
>subconsciously likening homo***uality to mental illness?
I don't think it's that simple.
I'm not sure why you quoted it in relation to some of the prayers that
were
posted in arceo, unless it was the piling up of imagery that made a
similarity
from the point of view of literary technique.
Ginsberg was homo***ual, so some of the imagery is homo***ual, but it's
not
just about "mental illness", which is, in some ways, a social
construction.
Consider, for example, the USSR, where social deviants were regarded as
mentally ill, and often incarcerated in mental institutions. Yet the same
thing happened in the West, and in the 1950s, when Ginsberg wrote the poem
that was far more so than today.
Back then, for example, psychology text books often pronounced that
thinking
that your telephone was being tapped was a sign of paranoia (they probably
now
have a much longer name for what they called "paranoia" back then -- the
very
fact that the names of these "mental illnesses" keep changing shows how
subjective they are). Their reasoning was that a paranoid person was out
of
touch with reality. But in fact it was probably the psychologists who were
out
of touch with reality, or were being employed by "society" to write stuff
like
that to keep people out of touch with reality. Thinking that your
telephone
WASN'T tapped could be a dangerous delusion. I've read my own secret
police
re****ts (I was Enemy of the State No 1628) and have sometimes wondered
which
of my "friends" was the "delicate source" responsible for the
disinformation
contained in them.
Back in my youth I went to a church conference where a professor of
sociology
addressed a chuirch conference on the topic "The church and youth". He
said
what he said in his university lectures -- youth must adjust to society,
and
the task of the church was to help youth to adjust. I was no longer a
student
of his, and perhaps influenced by literature like "Howl": I asked him what
happens if society and its values is all screwed up, and the youth are
rebelling against these false values. He got a bit like the mad scientist
in
"Dr Strangelove" and insisted "youth MUST adjust", and I almost expected
his
right arm to shoot up in a Nazi salute. He even pronounced it "adchust",
like
a Hollywood German.
Perhaps back then most people would have considered professors of
sociology
(and professors of anything else) to be "the best minds of my generation",
but
Ginsberg is not thinking of them. And if you read the gospels Jesus did
something similar. According to conventional wisdom, the "best minds" of
his
generation were people like the Pharisees, the Saduccees and lawyers. But
he
often associated with the outcasts of society and sometimes even held them
up
as examples for his followers -- the whores, the tax farmers, the lepers,
the
ritually unclean, Samaritans, the Syro-Phoenecian woman, and even the
starving
hysterical ****d demoniacs.
At the church conference the speaker who followed the professor of
sociology
began by saying "Professor Engelbrecht has told us that youth is
revolting. I
am going to say that youth is not revolting enough."
For a Christian appreciation of beat generation writers see "Pilgrims of
the
Absolute" by Brother Roger, of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection:
http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/pilgrims.htm
where he also makes some comparisons with fools for Christ.
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
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