Beatnik
The term "
beatnik" was coined by
Herb Caen in an article in the
San Francisco Chronicle on
April 2,
1958. Caen coined the term by essentially
Russifying the earlier term,
beat generation, after the first
sputnik mission. The description
beat generation was a label invented about
1948 by renowned author
Jack Kerouac. How Caen arrived at the term "beatnik" is conjecture
[Cannabis: A History (ISBN 0-312-42494-9), by Martin Booth, Picador USA, June 2005], but the
Soviet satellite
Sputnik had recently been launched, and this was during
McCarthyism, an era of intense anti-communist sentiment in the US. It may have been Caen's intent to portray the 'beats' of the
beat generation in a negative light by his new turn of phrase. Kerouac's earlier term had more positive connotations, associating the beat generation with words like the
musical definition of
beat, the
journalistic definition of
beat, and later having religious connotations with the word
beatitude.
Once the term beatnik had been coined, it gradually replaced the earlier term
beat generation, though historians still refer to the earlier term. Since 1958, the term
beatnik has been used to describe an anti-materialistic literary movement that began with Kerouac in 1948, stretching on into the 1960s. Many historians have asserted that the beatnik philosophy of anti-materialism, combined with its fundamental soul-searching ethos, may have influenced some of the lyrics of popular 1960s musical groups such as the early
Pink Floyd and
The Beatles, and was the precursor of the
hippie generation.
At the time that the term was coined, there was a trend amongst young college students and struggling writers to emulate writers such as Kerouac and
John Clellon Holmes. Emblematic of this new stereotype were men wearing
goatees and
berets, rolling their own cigarettes, and playing
bongos. Fashions for women included black
leotards and wearing their hair long, straight, and unadorned. This was a rebellion against the middle-class standards of the time which expected women to get
permanent treatments for their hair.
Participants in this subculture often preferred to drink
wine,
coffee, or
tea rather than more mainstream beverages such as beer or
hard liquor.
Marijuana use (or 'tea-smoking') was also associated with the beatnik subculture. During the 1950s
Aldous Huxley's popular
The Doors of Perception further influenced beatnik views on drugs.
The beatnik philosophy was generally counter-cultural, anti-materialistic, and stressed the importance of bettering one's
inner self over and above the importance of bettering one's
material standing in the world. Despite the attempts of several mainstream authors such as Caen to imply a connection with communism, there was no direct connection between the
beatnik philosophy (as expressed by the leading authors of this literary movement) and the philosophy of the
communist movement, other than the antipathy that both philosophies shared towards materialism and capitalism. This connection is questionable because of the distinctly spiritual element of the beatnik philosophy, as contrasted with the anti-spiritual views in
Marxist philosophy. For instance, some beatnik writers began to delve into Eastern religions such as
Buddhism or
Taoism.
Most beatnik politics tended to be
liberal; many beatniks supported causes such as
desegregation, and an openness to US
African-American culture and arts is apparent in beatnik music and literature, such as their love of
jazz. In this regard, beatniks were considerably ahead of their time given the often strained race relations in American society.
A classic example of the beatnik image is the character
Maynard G. Krebs played by
Bob Denver in the
Dobie Gillis television show that ran from
1959 to
1963. The general beat stereotype also owed something to some of the popular film actors emerging during the early and mid 1950s (for instance,
Marlon Brando and
James Dean) who had youthful, adventurous, "rebel" images. A sensationalist Hollywood interpretation of the sub-culture can be seen in the
1959 film
The Beat Generation, as well as
The Subterraneans (based on a Kerouac novel of the same name) and parts of
Funny Face.
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Beat generation*
Cool
