Lunatics Taking Over the Asylum: Cultural Chaos in 1960s America

In this essay, the author

• Analyzes how the hippies' political education was partly attributed to the beats, who tried to instil pacifist values into the lives of young people during the previous decade.
• Opines that even the best looking apple can contain a worm. the sixties were dead. they may never have lived.
• Analyzes how malcolm mclaren described the 1960s as a journey, but the fundamental flaw is that it must end at some point. hopper builds on jack kerouac's homespun philosophy of travelling the ‘open road’ in search of spiritual enlightenment.
• Opines that the tone of the film, "night of the living dead," came from the anger of times. it was 1968 and nobody was in a gleeful mood about the world going.
• Analyzes how george a. romero unleashed night of the living dead, the first instalment in a trilogy of horror movies.
• Opines that marijuana, cocaine, and lsd can open up the doors of perception, but they can quickly close them again too.
• Analyzes how hunter s. thompson's semi-autobiographical novel fear and loathing in las vegas is a scathing attack on the myopic hippie dream and the futility of the 1960s.
• Explains that the trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. they had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid,.
• Analyzes how the characters' appetite for self-destruction is evident from the very first paragraph of fear and loathing in las vegas.
• Analyzes how kesey's work is challenging, but it is a complicated process trying to deduce what exactly he is saying here.
• Cites dillard, r. w., and waller's american horrors essays.
• Explains evans, harold, the american century – people, power and politics, an illustrated history.
• Cites forbidden: george romero and the dawn of the dead, prod. nick freand jones, bbc broadcasting, 2 february 1997.
• Explains that harris, oliver, the letters of william s. burroughs 1945 to 1959, 1993.
• Analyzes holmes, john clellon, ‘this is the beat generation’, new york times magazine, 16 november, 1952.
• Explains lee, martin a., and shlain, acid dreams: the complete social history of lsd, the cia and the sixties and beyond, 1985.
• Analyzes tytell, john, 'the beat generation and the continuing american revolution' in the rolling stone book of the beats.
• Cites peter bate's film, ‘charles manson — the man who killed the sixties.
• Argues that the 1960s formed one of the most culturally complex periods in america's history, and the analysis of this era is just as problematic.
• Argues that ginsberg's contribution to the development of the counterculture during this period was vital.
• Analyzes how ginsberg portrays american politicians as monosyllabic neanderthals who are eager to wage war at any opportunity.
• Opines that spiritual fulfilment is an elusive goal, if not one that is impossible to attain. kerouac dismisses the beat generation as a fad.
• Analyzes how romero reworked the paranoid cinema that was popular in american drive-ins during the 1950s and encapsulated the dark mood of 1960s society spinning out of control.
• Analyzes how thompson channeled this anger into works such as fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72, in which he unmasks american politicians to be corrupt fraudsters.
• Analyzes how ken kesey's novel, one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, employs the setting of a claustrophobic psychiatric ward monitored by oppressive staff
• Concludes that most of the texts mentioned in this piece close with the death of one or all of its protagonists.
• Cites carroll, e. jean, cavaney, graham, the priest they called him: the life and legacy of william s. burroughs.
• Cites galloway, david g., gilmore, mikal, and george-warren's the rolling stone book of the beats.
• Cites hoskyns, barney, howard, gerald, and howard in the sixties: art, politics and media of our most explosive decade.
• Cites ruland, richard, and malcolm bradbury, from puritanism to postmodernism: a history of american literature. thompson, hunter s., fear and loathing in las vegas.