this topic range from Raymond
Williams to Stuart Hall. Another
Frankfurt School thinker who spoke
of freedom was Jurgen Habermas, to
him critical theory must be developed
in response to crises. In the beat
generation writers from Ferlinghetti
to Kerouac, we get both a philosophy
of freedom and a response to a crisis,
namely the crisis in society's values
post WW2. This sentiment was
typified in the words of W.H Auden
who stated: "...we shan’t, not since
Stalin and Hitler, trust ourselves ever
again: we know that, subjectively,
all is possible.". The alignment of the
beat poets with the Frankfurt school
was a token against Nihilism. An
intellectual pursuit of truth in a world
without the expectancy of truth,
normative values or a traditional
God.
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