Howl by Allen Ginsberg

       I always find it interesting to think of the extent of power the government tries to exert over its' people. I suppose many would say that the government tries to do what is best for the majority, but it doing so is some opinion wrong? What if the majority is wrong, or not with the best interests of the "state?" Are we to follow what the majority says because they always rules over the minority, even if they are wrong? (So easy to write questions that are statements b/c of the past essay). I suppose the struggle comes with opinion. Who really is right? How can we say that killing is wrong when in someone's mind it may be completely right?
       This leads me to think of what was written in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl." It is incontrovertible to see that the speaker is describing all the flaws of the generation, but he is also calling on other members of society to think and act out. The speaker tells them to distribute, "Supercommunist pamphlets in Union Square," encouraging others to think outside what the government tells you to think and be defiant. Later on, however, he admits to the reader that people who rebel, "Were burned alive, " "Jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge," and, "Sang out of their windows in despair." This seems to suggest that rebellion should not be done. What is most interesting to me, however, is how the rebels were, "Run down by the drunken taxicabs of Absolute Reality." By thinking that there is one reality, people hold a sort of dominance over others, most clearly seen by the driver who believes in an absolute truth and drives the cab that kills people. The speaker is implying that people who hold an absolute truth are deadly and can of course be interpreted that the speaker thinks that there are different truths. This creates an underlying question that can possibly debunk the entire argument of the rebels, or Beat generation: if there are so many different opinions of the truth, how can they fight so ferociously to their own opinion? By doing so, aren't they just doing exactly what the taxicab driver is doing? It's is almost like the Beat generation is calling the norm insane when the the norm calls them insane. It is an endless circle. You really are insane when you deny your sanity, right?