EXCERPT FROM 'This is the Beat Generation' BY JOHN CLENNON HOLMES

Any attempt to label an entire generation is unrewarding, and yet the generation which went through the last war [WWII], or at least could get a drink easily once it was over, seems to possess a uniform, general quality which demands an adjective ... The origins of the word 'beat' are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw. It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul; a feeling of being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. In short, it means being undramatically pushed up against the wall of oneself. A man is beat whenever he goes for broke and wagers the sum of his resources on a single number; and the young generation has done that continually from early youth.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Presentation of Paper at the Pacific University Undergraduate Philosophy Conference




A paper I wrote last term for a Philosophy of Mind course has been accepted for presentation at this undergraduate conference, an honour with which I am quite pleased. It is entitled "Otto in the Chinese Room" and has to do with the idea of artificial intelligence and various understandings of "mind". Oregon, here I come!
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Rants, diatribes, jeremiads, romodomotads and any sort of passionate prose will be welcomed here.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Followers

annotationz from underground

My photo
chronicler of the bre@kBeat generation