Peace, Love, and Prozac: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl

Peace, Love, and Prozac: Allen Ginsberg’s Howl

Americans used to be entertained by a flying nun and a talking horse; we are so sophisticated now watching people marry strangers and eat bugs for money (Degeneres 2003). Life has gone from Father Knows Best to stay-at-home dads (Maasik 27). God favors us. We are a fast food nation; McDonalds and Taco Bell have replaced home-cooked meals. The logo Starbucks makes us feel socially accepted after paying $4 for a urine-sized cup of coffee. More money is spent funding research for erectile dysfunction than a cure for Alzheimer’s; so a bunch of old men will have erections, but because of the Alzheimer’s, won’t know what they are used for (Johnston 2006). Books and writings are now Shakespeare with a strap-on (Williams 2002). More people vote for who they want kept on American Idol than who will be running our country (Johnston 2006). Procrastination is the American way (Degeneres 2003) along with wealth, obesity, and materialism. Now we have ADHD, OCD, ADD---all these three to four letter abbreviations because we don’t have the time or patience to say the whole word; in other parts of the world, we don’t have all these subtypes of diseases, we just have crazy people (Degeneres 2003). Kindness is considered sexual harassment. Monogamy is laughable, and divorce rates are over fifty percent. Only thirty to forty percent of Americans reach Paiget’s formal operational stage; only thirty to forty percent of Americans can think abstractly and apply the abstract concepts to concrete examples (Johnston 2006). We now have Go-Gurt…yogurt for people on the go; was there a mobility problem with yogurt? (Degeneres 2003) Most organization fund money to find a cure for cancer, but we spend millions of dollars to make yogurt in a pretty squeezable container. Individuality has come full circle and made us all the same by trying to be different. Only in the United States is anal floss (or as women like to refer to them as to make them feel sexier: thongs) a marketable product. Coca-Cola is the American beverage. Barbie is not just a toy anymore; it is a style for young girls (Maasik 276). I wonder if Hitler would have succeeded if he would have made a doll of his ideal person; would Jews run to buy blonde hair dye and blue contacts? Cell phones are the new diaphragm. Commercials used to be six minutes long telling us how good cigarettes and alcohol were. We are a Prozac nation (Degeneres 2003). We don’t have anxiety like we believe we do; go follow some pigmy around that is being chased by a lion…now that’s stress; you won’t find a pigmy on Zoloft (Degeneres 2003). The city-upon-a-hill nation has been burned to the ground and it is a race to trample everyone to be on top. Laziness is king, morals are overrated, and a young Allen Ginsberg was finding his soul.

Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926. He attended Columbia University where he met Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, and William Burroughs. These brilliantly intellectual minds changed the fate of the American society bringing forth the beat generation. Modern poetry was set to drums and smooth piano melodies. And from the Beat creation, “Howl” was born in the year 1956. After masturbating to William Blake’s poetry, Allen Ginsberg had a vision of inspiration. “Howl” was sanity and insanity’s love child, reason mixed with speculation in a sexual connotation. He wrote his magnum opus for Carl Solomon, a man he met in Columbia Presbyterian Psychiatric Institute; Ginsberg dedicated it to Kerouac, Cassady, and Burroughs allowing the 20^th century poet William Carlos Williams write the introduction. Three parts and a footnote came together to create “Howl.” American writer Allen Ginsberg’s part two of “Howl” is the most crucial section in this piece because of its ability to be relatable to Americans, the concept of Moloch is the subject and action of the piece.

In the first part of “Howl,” Ginsberg states that he “saw the best minds of [his] generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, / angel headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night” (page 9). In part one, the question “what destroyed the greatest minds of Allen Ginsberg’s generation?” is posed. The question is continued in part two rephrased and expanded asking, “What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?” (page 21). However, unlike part one, part two provides the answer: “Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! / Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war. Moloch the stunned governments! / Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!” (page 21).

Widely worshipped in the ancient Near East, Moloch, the Sacred Bull, was conceived under the form of a calf or an ox or depicted as a man with the head of a bull. Like some other gods and demons found in the Bible, Moloch appears as part of medieval demonology, as a Prince of Hell. “This Moloch finds particular pleasure in making mothers weep; for he specializes in stealing their children. It is likely that the motif of stealing children was inspired by the traditional understanding that babies were sacrificed to Moloch. The ancients would heat this idol up with fire until it was glowing, then they would take their newborn babies, place them on the arms of the idol, and watch them burn to death” (Wikipedia).

To Allen Ginsberg, Moloch was is this “prison” of “pure machinery;” Moloch whose smokestacks and antennae crown the cities!” (page 21). “Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen!” (page 22). Ginsberg transformed this old version of Moloch that not many people knew about or could have predetermined representations of this creature and transformed it into a modern destroyer. Moloch is this bloodless, sexless, incomprehensible thing that haunts the mind. The modern day interpretation of Moloch according to Allen Ginsberg is government, industry, war, economy, money, striving for success; Moloch is everything American. Moloch is America. Moloch is making one’s self from nothing at the expense of family love. Moloch is sabotaging others to get ahead. Moloch is the Atom Bomb and all other modern technology that hurts and spreads hate. Americans “broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! Lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!” (page 22).

The only way to escape this trap of Moloch, according to Allen Ginsberg, is through “Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies!” but these actions have “gone down the American river! Dreams! Adorations! Illuminations! Religions! The whole boatload of sensitive bullshit! Break through! Over the river! Flips and crucifixions! Gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despair! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! Down the rocks of time!” (pages 22-23). But, one cannot escape Moloch entirely…the only permanent solution is suicide. The ones who escaped Moloch, “They saw it all! The wild eyes! The holy yells! They bade farewell! they jumped off the roof! To solitude! Waving! Carrying flowers! Down the river into the street” (page 23).

Part three of “Howl” then changes the subject to focus on Carl Solomon. Part three reads, “I’m with you in Rockland where fifty more shocks will never return your soul to its body again from its pilgrimage to a cross in the void / I’m with you in Rockland where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist Golgotha” (page 25). While Allen Ginsberg was institutionalized, he met a man named Carl Solomon; Ginsberg went on to dedicate “Howl” Solomon. While Ginsberg touches upon personal experiences with Solomon in the institution, he also takes a larger perspective of the outside world saying, “I’m with you in Rockland where we hug and kiss the United States under our bed sheets that coughs all night and won’t let us sleep.” (page 26)

And finally the footnote begins with controversial lines stating, “The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and asshole holy!” (page 27). And “Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums” (page 27) continues the uneasy lines putting divineness along side sin and humanly body parts that are not necessarily seen as “holy” by most.

While part one, three, and the footnote play an intricate role in completing Ginsberg’s masterpiece, part two is vastly the most pertinent. Part one is most famous because of its historical relate-ability about characters Ginsberg was acquainted with, but part two is universal and timeless. Part three deals with a personal connection to Carl Solomon and how the United States was back in Ginsberg’s day with the electrical shocks to cure insanity; Moloch, doesn’t just deal with personal interactions in a mental institution and can’t be identifiable with all readers of “Howl.” And the foot notes, lastly, looks at more eternal and divine relations which exclude the non-religious readers from fully comprehending the part. Moloch is everywhere. Ever American is consumed in Moloch and it is understood by all Americans too well.

A legend was born in 1926; A legend died in 1997; A magnificent man who changed an entire generation died in the year 1997; A man whose controversial poetry, homosexually brilliant biography, and lasting legacy still are rigorously read, studiously studied, and immobily immortal died in the year 1997; Allen Ginsberg died in the year 1997, and the most crucial part of his legacy was the concept of Moloch which still controls the minds of Americans. We are trapped in this cycle of pointless loves. The luxuries and curses of money, machinery, and prosperity do not follow us to Heaven or the afterlife. The body is shed. Materials things are pointless the only thing that transcends the barrier of time and eternity are love and memories. The connections are relationships made are going to be taken with; husbands, wives, lovers are still with us. Memories of children, weddings, funerals, birthdays, rainy days, first jobs, high school, people who made small impacts on our lives on a day to day basis, recognition, our favorite song, our favorite power ranger, our most embarrassing moment are all carried with us…but not the evils and temptations of this entity we refer to as Moloch. Moloch is an evil beast to which the downfall of humanity is indebted. Part two is timeless. It applies to every time and generation in America. Moloch is what America was built on; and America will “die” by the hand of Moloch. Americans will be Americans. Death will rid us of Moloch when the time is right. Until then, we are stuck twisting and winding through the rules and mazes of the monstrous Moloch creation. Americans have always had a God complex about them. We are the chosen ones. We are to reign and set an example in our beloved city upon a hill. We burned witches. Our ancestors were so uptight that the English kicked us out to a land full of diseases and unknown lands. Americans have always been, well, unique, and so are the qualities, and reasoning, and laws that the great God-chosen America is built upon and that are still enforced in present day America.

Americans are also the biggest hypocrites; we claim to have separation of church and state…so why is “in God we trust” written on the dollar bill? If there is separation, why is it illegal for homosexuals to marry? Marriage is a religious practice and union, but the Bible claims homosexuality is wrong and marriage is controlled by the government. Is every other place in the world besides America making a mockery of us? America was built on laws, rules if one will, that makes our country great. In North Dakota “It is illegal to lie down and fall asleep with your shoes on” and “beer and pretzels can't be served at the same time in any bar or restaurant,” and “It is legal to shoot an Indian on horseback, provided you are in a covered wagon.” In Utah “No one may have sex in the back of an ambulance if it is responding to an emergency call.” And, in the great state of Texas, “It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel,” “It is illegal to sell one’s eye,” and “Up to a felony charge can be levied for promoting the use of, or owning more than six dildos” (Maasik 433). “Even Caligula is like ‘what the fuck are you doing?’ What’s next: Hannibal Lecture having his own cooking channel?” (Williams 2002). “We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. "I claim India for Britain!" And they're going "You can't claim us, we live here! All Five hundred million of us!" "Do you have a flag? ... No flag, no country!” (Eddie Izzard) It doesn’t scare me that Bush waved at Stevie Wonder, but that billions of dollars are spent in national defense and Bush almost chokes to death from a pretzel; our president, the man who is competent enough to be running our country, almost dies from snack food! And we thought Canadians are strange with their funny accents and silly currency called the Looney. Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party (Williams 2002). God bless the USA.