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University Daily Kansan Thursday Sept. 22, 1967
A Beat Contribution
In recent years, a new and unusual philosophy has joined the mainstream of American culture. The tread of sandals is heard in the land. The Beatnik is afoot, and his influence on American thought is becoming more and more pronounced.
Based in San Francisco's North Beach and New York's Greenwich Village, the bearded prophets of the Beat Generation are wandering over the country, preaching the gospel of passivity and fomenting rebellion against the social pressures of our society. They flout conformity in their dress and speech. They speak to the outsider through the beat novelist Jack Kerouac, author of the now-celebrated "On the Road," who also serves to interpret the complex and varied beat philosophy to the beatniks themselves.
BEATNIKS COME IN ASSORTED sizes, colors and gradations of belief, but they all share a deep belief in the value of passivity as a weapon against what they consider a materialistic society. They live not to act, but to be acted upon. In playing this passive role, they hope to register protest against existing social conditions.
The doctrine of passivity is carried to the extreme. One young Beatnik interviewed by a reporter considered himself fortunate to have the perfect job, one which in no way violated his passivity. He was employed as a medical guinea pig.
Non-participation in any activity whatsoever is the mark of a purist. In the Coexistence Bagel Shop at North Beach, a mural depicting people in various stages of activity is painted over with the exclamations "No, No, No!"
MANY MEMBERS OF THE Beat Generation find justification for their outlook in Zen Bhuddhism, a sect which advocates withdrawal from society and introspection as a method of training
the mind to receive the solution to the mystery of the universe, whatever that may be. It is strange that the strict discipline of Zen should find adherents in a group where discipline is abhorred.
The influence of the Beat Generation has been gradual but profound. Its tendrils are beginning to creep into many facets of American life and thought that had always been inviolate. There has been a new breeze stirring, a mounting dissatisfaction with conformity, with materialism, with social customs.
The odd thing is that the Beatnik himself is a conformist and a materialist, and perhaps more so than the members of the society he deplores. He is a conformist in his thought and dress and speech, excluding freethinkers who have his goals but who fail to agree with him on method. He is at heart a materialist because he so strongly desires security. Society cannot give him security unless he conforms to its disciplines and methods. Unwilling to do this, he has retreated into the dream world of passivity, from which he issues languid derisions against the "outsiders" who have had the courage to make a niche for themselves in life without surrendering to the evils society inevitably breeds. He has immersed himself in that most secure of all places, the country of No Responsibility in the land of Lost Hope.
THE BEAT GENERATION is not just a collection of misfits. Many of them possess great talents and could contribute to the betterment of society. Their message is, in part, a valid one. There is much that needs correction in this country, and the beatnik has expressed his dissatisfaction with these evils in detail. But how much better off we all would be if the Beat Generation could bestir itself, enter the world it despises, and fight for the things it believes in?
Bill Blundell
"Carry On, Nurse," now showing at the Varsity Theatre, is undoubtedly one of the fall's funnier movies. The typical English film makes no effort at being subtle and is downright earthy at many times.
The show starts slowly but rapidly picks up steam. There is hardly a plot, but the story revolves around life in a London hospital. This movie is bound to appeal strongly to any college-age audience. The humor almost seems made for this type crowd. Wilfred Hyde-White, Shirley Eaton and Terrence Longdon star in the film,
but acting takes a back seat to the erratic action.
The entire film borders on the ridiculous. The setting is a public ward with a variety of patients, all of which are well enough to get out of bed at will, practice "do-it-yourself surgery," make passes at the nurses or place daily bets on the races. The nurses are good-looking, as would be expected, with the exception of the beginner who seems to have thumbs even upstairs.
A nuclear physics student, in the ward for an undetermined reason
except that he's sick, early terms his ward companions "sex-mad fools" but quickly falls in love with his best friend's girl — they never get past the stage of "Oh, Jill!" . . . "Oh, Oliver!"
Once the tone of the movie is set and the audience roars in laughter a few times, the evening's enjoyment is assured. This is the type show which is extremely hard to review, telling of incidents, as most of the happenings would not particularly be praised for their good taste. They could happen only in a hospital, and in a movie. The show will provide high entertainment for any college student and his date — a good escape for the student. Guaranteed laughs.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
CJP
ORTHERE'S FORESTRY - I MAY DECIDE TO GO INTO THE LIMBER BUSINESS $ ^{4} $ .
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By M. K. McKinney Instructor of English
THE BARON IN THE TREES, by Italo Calvino, Random House,
$3.50.
The author was born in San Remo, Italy, in 1923. The jacket tells us that his parents were botanists and that they wanted him to be a scientist, but that he preferred to read novels and poetry. In 1943, when the Nazis occupied Northern Italy, he joined the partisans. His first book, in 1947, "The Path to the Nest of Spiders," dealt with the guerilla warfare which he knew at firsthand.
THE BARON IN THE TREES has nothing to do with the author's war experiences; it is fantasy. The book tells of the life Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò leads after he climbs into a tree to protest against his father's trying to force him to eat some beheaded snails. The rest of the story is about Cosimo's life in the trees — his defeat of pirates, his encouragement of an outlaw to intellectual pursuits, his love affairs. When I said above that this is about his life in the trees, I meant just that — literally.
The narrator is the Baron's brother, who was eight years old when the story opens. He says that "what I am about to tell — as also much else in this account of his life — he described to me afterwards, or I have put together from a few scattered hints and guesses." So the reader isn't surprised at some of the intimate details that are recounted up to the protagonist's death in 1820 at the age of 65.
The reader will notice that the price is over three dollars. This sum will buy a number of good paperbacks, and for that reason alone I would advise him to spend his money for them instead of for this book. If he can borrow this book, he should read it only for diversion. That is, if he can spare an hour or two from more worthy reading, he can get pleasure from this.
THE JACKET TELLS US, too, that this is a highly imaginative satire of eighteenth-century life and that it is reminiscent of Voltaire's romances. I see nothing particularly satirical here; in fact, it would be somewhat difficult to write a satire of a bygone age. As for this recalling Voltaire's romances, I am not prepared to say. I am acquainted only with "Candide," and I detect no effort to speculate on the origin of evil or on this best of all possible worlds.
"Except for a few aberrations, which came before he embarked on his quest for the Presidency, Kennedy's record in Congress is excellent. On most major domestic issues, he has been a voting, if perhaps not a militant, liberal. In the field of foreign affairs, he has ranged himself on the side of the half-dezen or so Senators, notably Hubert Humphrey, William Fulbright, and Wayne Morris, who have been struggling against almost hopeless odds for a more affirmative and creative American foreign policy.
From the Magazine Rack -
Liberals Betrayed
"... In nominating Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts for President, the Democrats did not choose their ablest leader. Rather they picked the man whose relentless, four-year quest for the nomination enabled him to turn loose on the convention floor a political organization that rumbled to victory with the shattering force of a fleet of bulldozers. It was a grim, ruthless, no-nonsense operation, more metallic than joyous, more mechanical than enthusiastic. James Reston of the New York Times expressed the judgment of many other correspondents when he observed that to the very end a doubt persisted "in every honest mind" among those who came committed to Kennedy.
"It was this absence of fire and ferver for the candidate who had the nomination in the bag that contributed so strikingly to the mood of apathy that dominated the convention proceedings from start to finish. On only two occasions, both involving Adlai Stevenson, did the convention break away from its contrived character and express an authentic note of deep dedication and affection — to the bitter annoyance of the Kennedy camp.
"We have enormous respect for Kennedy's mind. It is his heart that troubles us. His support of progressive principles is solid now, but too often it takes on the appearance of a passionless routine. What we miss most in him is a sense of profound commitment to a cause worth fighting for, a militant dedication to something greater than the single-minded pursuit of power. In this respect he seems remarkably akin to his Republican opponent. Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Kennedy's chances for victory in November may depend in considerable measure on his capacity to snap out of his seeming detachment by transforming his cool campaign for power to a militant crusade for principle.
"The character of the successful campaign in behalf of Kennedy's candidacy reflected, in many ways, the character of the man himself, cool, calculating, ruthless, resourceful, intelligent, tireless, and courageous. Behind the boyish smile lies an inner toughness and beneath the surface shyness a hard sophistication.
"Kennedy's first formal act as the Democratic candidate for President was hardly reassuring. His choice of Senator Lydon B. Johnson of Texas to be his running mate may have been a cunning stroke of political strategy, but it also contributed substantially to the image of a cool, crafty man on the make. It was a 'dream ticket' for those who seek political profit by facing both ways, but the liberal forces that had been attracted to Kennedy's banner could only conclude they had been betrayed."
(Excerpted from an editorial, "The Democrats' Dilemma," in the August 1960 issue of The Progressive.)