Retrospective Of Jack Kerouac's On the Road In The New Millennium

The holy scroll that was to become the seminal work in American cultural history, hammered out in a scant three weeks, changed the outlook of a new generation through a rebellion of will. Does the manuscript, Jack Kerouac's scream of consciousness On the Road, contain the same primal congruence that once forced a generation filled with silence to be heard? If the book were to have been published now, would it have the same, if any, impact on youth of today as it did throughout the immediate decades following it's inception? Would it have even been published in this modern market and, more importantly, would it have ever been written at all?
From the depths of Dementia Praecox throughout the convoluted spires of drug induced deceptions and truths, this hallowed writ came to be, scrolled from the mind and brought to life by the hand of perception. Yet, had Jack Kerouac started his adventures today, the outcome, I believe, would be quite different. The first and foremost being the state of his personality, which would have been detected and diagnosed very early in his life by some well meaning teacher, counselor or doctor. He probably would have joined the legion of Prozac Monkeys, placidly smiling their way through life's daily routines.
Let's just say, for the sake of argument, that he wasn't drugged into drooling acquiescence as the majority of the "free thinking" world is, would his work even be considered worthy of a publisher's glance? Probably not. His is not the commercial grade Pablum pushed upon the populace by Oprah and her ilk; spoon-fed sophomoric pap produced to tantalize and enthrall the reader with its black and white Chicken Soup for the soul.
Unable to even experience a fraction of the events that transpired on the road back in his age, the closely written notebooks would have yielded little of interest to even warrant a novel, let alone a blog entry. The landscape of America has turned quite thorny towards the individual wishing to throw conformity to the wind and open themselves up to the open road with its hail of stars cut so brightly into the night's sky. This industrialized country does not smile down upon the individual who would rather tread the tarmac in search of himself instead of to a Starbucks for a Double Mocha Latte. There must be something wrong with a consumer who does not consume, who would rather have the memory of a lightning forked downpour saturating them on a lonely stretch of Albuquerque highway then to recline in their La-Z-Boy, watching their wide-screen, plasma television spewing out their opinions for them.
Let's say that Jack's work was self-published on the internet. Would there be the same feeling of identity and angst that past generations held while it turned the cheap, yellowing pages? This is where things fall down a bit. I don’t feel that the emotionally challenged world of today would even recognize an original thought beyond the scope of instantaneous entertainment. How can a child of this new world find comfort within the musty, pulpy pages of a book when they cannot even begin to imagine Kerouac's world, as it has become only a wistful memory of yearning. That world, that era, that experience just does not exist anymore. Why hold the tattered pages of another soul's scribed scream when there is so much more to experience this very instant. How can a child open themselves to the cry of freedom when they do not even realize that they are shackled by their daily desires?
This youth, eugenically altered from lifetimes past, possess an inherent inability to experience events, even within their most private thoughts; they do not own the ability to be free. Decade after decade of conscious control has ingrained a Pavlovian salivation for all things desirous while breeding a pensive disdain for individual reasoning. This lack of freedom cannot be expressed more succinctly than through this youth's clamorous protests as to their genuine individuality. All things that define them are through appearance and ownership, not through any substantive difference in mindset or beliefs. Past generations held the mawkishly misinformed notion that they were striving for a universal harmony, a whole world of acceptance and understanding, when they really did not have any concept as to how large the world actually is. Time has since shrunk the planet considerably and most kids today have friends online from Malaysia, South America, Russia, wherever, yet they do not encircle the same ideological precept of a world as something to be experienced.
This is not in any way, shape or fashion a hate-laced rant against the child of today. This is an confession of what has been done, an acknowledgment for what has been perverted. We did this. We did this to our children. With each incremental step of every subsequent generation, sociological shifts and rifts within the fabric formed; a growth of identity and hope. With each passing year, the hope was quelled and the growth stunted until the human animal ceased trying to be, to become and to attain. What we are witnessing is the result of years of striking blows to the psyche of freedom and redemption and this is a devastating wound that will never truly be healed.