A fascinating look at the devolution of culture  and the arts over time  through the lenses and timelines of Beat, Folk, and Rock ‘n Roll.

Superseding orthodox Marxism and other political and social movements, the
Beat Movement was the ovum of all later decadent movements in both cultures and music . The Encyclopedia Brittanica defined the movement as the “American social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred in the bohemian artist communities of San Francisco’s North Beach, Los Angeles’ Venice West, and New York City’s Greenwich Village. Its adherents, self-styled as “beat” (originally meaning “weary,” but later also connoting a musical sense, a “beatific” spirituality, and other meanings) and derisively called “beatniks,” expressed their alienation from conventional, or “square,” society by adopting a style of dress, manners, and “hip” vocabulary borrowed from jazz musicians.

“They advocated personal release, purification, and illumination through the heightened sensory awareness that might be induced by drugs, jazz, sex, or the disciplines of Zen Buddhism. The Beats and their advocates found the joylessness and purposelessness of modern society sufficient justification for both withdrawal and protest…”