Planetarism and eco humanism in the buddhist beat bards allen ginsberg and gary snyder an interdisciplinary thematic study on their literature philosophy and ecological perspectives

Abstract

The Beat Generation, also known as the Beat movement, were a group of American writers who emerged in 1950s. Among its most influential members were Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, William Burrough, William Carlos Williams and Lawrence Ferlenghetti. What could be loosely described as the underlying philosophy was visionary enlightenment, Zen Buddhism, environmentalism and Amerindian culture. The Beat Generation invented a literary collage movement as a counter-brain wash method for reversing effect of Mass media-Military-Industrial-Communist-Capitalist-CIA-KGB disinformation reality image bank. A common theme that linked them together was a rejection of the newlineprevailing American middle class values, deterioration of the Planet s health, the newlinepurposelessness of modern society and the need for withdrawal and protest. The Beats have tried to break the restraints imposed on the western man s mind by the official ways of thinking. They find the official morality unacceptable and tried to arrive at metaphysical and ethical enlightenment through the methods adopted by the oriental thinkers like Gauthama Buddha, and Zen ascetics. They begin with the problems the western civilization is encountering, like the one of war and ecological degradation and use the concepts of oriental civilizations to find causes and remedies of the miseries people and the planet have been ecountering. The mechanistic paradigm underlying the industrial society gives way to the newlineviirealization that we belong to a living, self-organizing cosmos. General systems newlinetheory, emerging from the life sciences, brings fresh evidence to confirm ancient newlineindigenous teachings; the earth is live, mind is pervasive, all beings are our relations. newlineThe Beats rediscovered this perennial truth which changed our views about the planet newlineand its life systems. The beats were a product of the Second World War and of the cold war.