Per our usual routine, post your question and 12-minute answer in the comments here.
See you Wednesday,
Kevin
Monday, October 7, 2013
Kerouac questions...
Per our usual routine, post your question and 12-minute answer in the comments here.
See you Wednesday,
Kevin
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Does living the beat poet life really qualify you as an environmentalist anymore? I understand that at the time his ideas were profound, preaching anti-materialism at the peak of American materialistic value, however this is not enviromental activism. How did Dharma Bums become a staple in environmental literature? And does it still fit into that category?
ReplyDeleteHypocritical?
ReplyDeleteThroughout this book it seems like the main players with the exception of Morley, Sean, and his wife Christine who were badasses were very hypocritical about their view of wilderness. Smith thrived on idolizing Japhy, this experienced, altruistic woodsmen, so much so that he would overlook that Japhy’s concepts were often contradictory to his own but would continue under the guise that they were two like-minded individuals. An example of this being Japhy’s statement of comparisons being odious (page 55), Smith blown away by Japhy’s open mindedness completely agrees and then goes on to consciously make the comparison anyways. Throughout this book are examples of allegedly mind blowing statements followed by complete contradictions, but the fact that everybody is “feeling fine” is enough to ignore the context of their conversation.
Japhy is not exempt from this contradictory train of thought. Throughout the book he references his logger background and the great feeling of chopping your first block in the morning. He then goes on to criticize the hunters for their harvests. It seems one who would adhere to the Buddhist principles that these folks revolve around would see the contradiction.
How can we relate Kerouac’s "One man practicing kindness in the wilderness is worth all the temples this world pulls” quote into current day environmental/wilderness issues?
ReplyDeleteAs both the creators of a lot of environmental devastation and people who find spiritual connection with the “natural” world, I at times find myself trying to find some sort of middle ground with my relationship to wilderness. The problem with this being just like the term “wilderness,” I think the word “kindness” is also subjective. While I may think practicing kindness in the wilderness means respecting flora and fauna, leaving no trace and other similar practices, another person may think the best way to practice kindness is to use wilderness as a resource. Does such a middle ground exist?
How is this wilderness related?
ReplyDeleteThe only piece of this novel was that made a big wilderness impression of me is when they climbed matterhorn. I find the ideals they talk about interesting and mostly confusing because in the larger portions of communication they are all usually drunk and most of the conversation consists of one of the main characters making some profound statement that confuses the hell out of me followed by another profound statement that seems to be contradictory to the first yet also still confuses the hell out of me. This novel while fun to read is hard for me to connect with the wilderness we have been talking about. The only part I could connect was when Smith was talking to his family about everything being an empty concept unless our mind makes it real. I believe this is easier to connect because wilderness was created by each person and each persons wilderness is different. by far the easiest read so far but some of the rants are a tad confusing and wordy.
I’m having a hard time formulating a clear question but here goes.
ReplyDeleteThe Beats seem to have expanded on ideas of writers like Whitman, Emerson and Thoreau and combined them with eastern philosophy to create a kind of American mountain/ wilderness mysticism that was their antidote to the 50’s consumer-culture boom. I think literature like this has colored how we construct wilderness and how we relate to it today by rejecting civilization and romanticizing wilderness. Which I don’t know if I think is all that constructive.
But maybe what the book brings to the mainstream reader is raising awareness of the importance of wilderness to spiritual/mental wellbeing. Is that true? I guess that’s my question.
I got swept up in the dharma bum lifestyle during a couple passages and got excited about wilderness adventures. I think that may be the most influential aspect of this book, getting people to go outside and create a relationship with wilderness or to remember their own experiences.
Does religion help or stifle the overall appeal and preservation of Wilderness/Nature?
ReplyDeleteWould this book be any different if the main character was of a different religious orientation, and if so can we draw conclusions to these points? Also does the preservation of wilderness come from the actual feelings of the people who wish to preserve it, or is it simply another part of their beliefs they wish to uphold in order to continue with the notion that they are pure to their faith?
How did idealism affect our concept of “wilderness”? Did it do more harm than good?
ReplyDeleteRay and his friends seem to have a very idealistic idea of wilderness. They often refer to is a this magical place where you can go to find yourself, and find some kind of truth that you can’t find in regular day life. This seems very familiar to the definitions we as a class came up with for wilderness. We too described it as this very magic place where you can go and feel that solitude. A lot of this, of course, is due to our cultural definition of wilderness, and the way that we have constructed it in our society. To me, the attitude found in this book harkens back to some of the thing we were talking about at the beginning of the semester about creating wilderness and how we decide which parts of the earth have this “sacred” quality to them. This idealism is really great in theory and his passion for the wild is contagious, but when you really think about what he’s saying, it’s pretty nuts. There are some things in this book that made absolutely no sense to me, and I’m really not sure if they even made sense to Kerouac. This kind of absurdist attitude the characters have seems to give a little bit of a bad name to wilderness. I imagine that if a person from that time period who wasn’t part of the beat generation met and talked to Ray and his friends they wouldn’t be persuaded by him at all, and may even leave the interaction with a bad taste in their mouth about wilderness in general. Are they really changing anything? It seems like, even though they seem to view the general population as conformist and elitist, they are being very elitist too. They don’t seem to attempt to try to explain their ideas about wilderness/life/religion etc. to other people in a way they might understand. Then they proceed to be surprised that no one is taking them that seriously. They critique the general population, but they don’t seem to be seriously trying to change anything for anyone else, they’re just trying to change things for themselves. It seemed a little hypocritical.
Upon returning from a year spent in the Middle East, a good friend of mine remarked that atheism tends to reflect the religion it is reacting against. That you could still see the remnants of old beliefs in the arguments against theism used by different groups. In this way ‘Christian atheists’ were reacting against Christianity, ‘Muslim atheists’ were reacting against Islam, and ‘Jewish atheists’ were reacting against Judaism (I’m not sure how else to term these groups, but I do realize there is contradiction in the names). All that to say, I approached this book in the same fashion. I suppose I would then ask, tying it into one of the central questions of the class (“what stories do we tell to help perpetuate life on the land?”), is it fair or too reductive to approach or characterize Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums as romantic reactions against American culture?
ReplyDeletePage 97 seems to highlight this tension best, “Dharma Bums refusing to subscribe to the general demand that they consume production and therefore have to work for the privilege of consuming, all that crap they didn’t really want anyway such as refrigerators, TV sets, cars, at least new fancy cars, certain hair oils and deodorants and general junk you finally always see a week later in the garbage anyway, all of them imprisoned in a system of work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume, I see a vision of a great rucksack revolution thousands or even millions of young Americans wandering around with rucksacks, going up to mountains to pray…”
I suppose I see it as in line with what Merchant talked about, of the movement for the appreciation for nature coming out of those who were not connected to it in their daily lives, those who were detached and living in cities.
The line at the end, “… went on down the trail back to this world,” seems to further reinforce this idea of separation.
Partially tangential, but this link is rather interesting, and I think others in the class might enjoy it: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/where-the-wild-things-are/?_r=0
It’s a photography series around the theme of the wilderman concept we discussed at the beginning of the term, and in a way may connect to the book.
Is climbing mountains (or being out in the wilderness) freedom?
ReplyDeleteThe Dharma Bum Ray has plenty of “enlightening” moments out in nature. He says that climbing mountains makes him feel great – and when he comes back from their first hiking trip with Japhy he writes that he has “never felt so much alive” – if I remember the book well.
Whenever he is out – even just meditating in the little forest out of his mother’s house, that is where he feels good. But, he also sees how harsh nature can be and swears when he climbs the mountains with Japhy or arrives at Desolation Peak. But he is never feeling depressed when he is outside.
While I didn’t really get whether the book is completely referring to the peace and love movement of the 60’s, whether it is almost a Romanticism novel, - or written by an ecologist – I felt that the message of being outside in the mountains with just a sleeping bag, a fire and some food that procures you real freedom really strong.
To me, this makes sense, I often feel liberated when I am surrounded by mountains. Is wilderness and nature freedom for you? Or happiness? Why do places out in nature have this effect of making things appear more clear, more real?
Is Society at large usually anti wilderness? Kerouac was a big player in the counterculture movement. Catholic in background, nomadic, infatuated with Eastern philosophy, Jack spent a large part of his life moving against the flow. If so, we can drop in some transitive-property logic. This book is in our Wilderness class. Kerouac's experiences inform the wilderness perspective. Kerouac was running counter to mainstream society. If Kerouac is writing for wilderness, wilderness is counterculture, mainstream culture is against wilderness. Maybe. Or perhaps, it's Jack himself that represents a cultural wilderness. He created an odd mix of Catholic and Buddhist influence. He represents somewhat the wilderness-as-medicine trope, but at the same time he and his compatriots treat it almost the same way that they do the cities and towns that they blow through.
ReplyDeleteWhat does Jack add to our understanding of Wilderness in the United States? Or perhaps he's represented because he made it "cool" to go out and hike, to appreciate the wilderness. Maybe he represents a growing fad of multicultural wilderness relationships in the States. As was discussed in our first books, Eastern religions seemed to avoid the black and white relationship that the Judeo-Christian model creates against nature. Did this fad leave a lasting influence? I don't think so. I think Dharma Bums serves as a good historical piece about the changing culture of the time. Or, I'll hold my tongue. People today practice yoga, and go on spiritual retreats to meditate on corporate expense. There are some eastern influences that have become popular, to the point where even "yuppie" culture embraces it. Has a symbiotic relationship between man and nature also colored today? I don't think it has.
Everyone of us has our own certain perspective on wilderness, but does religion play a negative or positive role in wilderness?
ReplyDeleteIn the reading Ray Smith aspires to be a Buddhist and meets many new friends along his travels. The whole time he is basically living the "American Dream" of partying with wine drinkers, going to poetry sessions, and going into the Sierras atop Desolation Peak. Technically that is his only true experience with wilderness. He tries to be a neutral and harmless foe that looks to seek knowledge in those he meets and thinks back to what would a Zen Buddhist do or say?
What do you think the general consensus of Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, Judaism, and or Buddhism is for the idea of wilderness based on Sacred stories and texts and oral traditions?
As a nature lover, how aware do I have to be of my own ignorance, privilege and entitlement?
ReplyDeleteI have trouble with this book, I often find the main character offense, selfish and above all foolish, but that just may be that his crusty version of environmentalism rings a little to close to home for me. I hope I don't sound like that big of a fool or romantic, yet I have to consider -- my end goal in virtually all pursuits is to sit on top of some mountain, cliff, hill or even rock so I can smile at the scene around me, descend and repeat the process again.
For the sake of an "odious" comparison, maybe I'm just another mountain goat.