response: " On the Beat Generation and San Francisco's Culture of Dissent"

I enjoyed Nancy Peters's essay, The Beat generation and San Francisco's Culture of Dissent. Because I grew up in San Francisco, I know I take it for granted. I always forget how much history the city has. 

In the essay,  Peters talks about how a great deal of the Beat era took place in North Beach. The only obvious trace of this now is City Lights Bookstore, unless you know where to look. In the present day,  that neighborhood is all bars and overpriced Italian restaurants. At night, North Beach crawls with drunk college students, and not intellectuals discussing literature in cafes. 

The Beat era was short lived ( it only lasted until the late 1950s) so the fact that there are few tangible elements left is not surprising. There is a quote from the Examiner in the essay that says: "The Beat attitude is integral to the Bay Area's identity (210)." This is very true, and I think it's interesting because the Beat period was so short. The Bay Area, and San Francisco especially, really is a "culture of dissent". San Francisco is one of the most (if not the most) liberal city in the United States. 

There is a quote on page 214 that talks about how "... high rents make the marginalized life of the independent writer and artist almost impossible." Despite all the wealth in the city, there is a strong aversion to corporations and a tendency to support local art and business. There is always an uproar when a corporation tries to set up in a neighborhood. When a Gap opened in my neighborhood, it was constantly graffitied and occasionally rocks were thrown in the windows. Eventually it moved out. Whether this was due to the corporation's decline in sales or not, I can't be sure.