AUTHOR OF BOOK ON RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS OF THE BEAT GENERATION TALKS TECH

I read John Lardas’s academic book on the Beat Generation ‘The Bop Apocalypse: The Religious Visions of Kerouac, Ginsberg, and Burroughs’. It’s an incredible study of the characters and time of the Beats’ subterranean homesick mission to be bodhisattvas of compassion and find the zen in 1950s American culture, Burrough’s idiosyncratic readings of Spengler’s ‘The Decline of the West’, and the battle against the forces of evil taking the shape of Blake’s infernal machines and the unholy Moloch. It was so good and influential to me that I’ve owned it and lost it twice. As I was looking into buying another copy, I found out about Lardas’s other books, which include Secularism in Antebellum America. and Neuromatic, or; A Particular History of Religion and the Brain.

Recognizing that this man is a thinker working on lines that parallel my own interests in writing, I became interested in reading his other works and did more looking into John Lardas. The talk linked, mainly about his book ‘Neuromatic’ came up, and I can say is a fascinating discussion. I’m writing a cyberpunk novel where my main character has an obsession with the Beat Generation and the views in The Bop Apocalypse are likely to show up in the story, and perhaps some insights from his other books as well. As Lardas says in the linked speech, he hopes his books provide leverage for those writing against those who would try to reduce consciousness to mere information streams. He seems a fascinating character.

The discussion of Neuromatic speaks to our current moment of popularized brain chips and a political culture steeped in social media and tech underpinned by the reductionism of the human. Scientism and technoculture bleed the body of health and the soul of life all in service of the almighty absolutist, fundamentalist brain. Welcome to the future, abandon all nuance all ye who venture here.

Visit John Lardas’s site, and read his books!