My ideas on the beat generation are still garbled, and not worthy of publication yet. Thankfully the submission date got postponed. I’m still unsure of what message the beats were trying to send. The counter culture vibe is the only clear thing that emerges, but the manner and message varies greatly between people. The reading I have done from the beats involves amusing tales of travels, drugs and sexual exploration. There is also an interest (in some authors) in the transcendental and spiritual. Particularly with dharma. The most interesting thing I have come across to write about on the Beats is that Kerouac’s interpretation of Dharma was fundamentally skewed. This statement threatens to undermine the basis of his novel the dharma bums. This is the only emergent point that I believe that I could get a paper going on, with a serious discussion of the sub culture and the rhetorical implications that the beats had. If this statement on Kerouac turns out to be correct, I think a full appraisal of the Beat’s message to the larger American culture is possible.