Kerouac didn't start the Beat era with all his writings. He observed the early development of a fashion, one bent on experiencing everything without moral restraint. While the characters of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity move through the landscape with a hip grace, underlying their experiences is a compulsion toward self-satisfaction which negates real connections. Few relationships are meaningful or enduring, rather men are chosen as friends for their ability to provide mind-bending discussion and financial support while women are selected for financial support and sex. Communities are chosen for their bountiful supply of these men and women.
Kicks come before people.
Perhaps I'm too strident here, grasping at straws a little, making too much of it. But if the popularity and significance of novels is any indication of their relevance, and if Steinbeck and Kerouac captured their age as all great American novels do, then something happened between the dust-bowl '30s of Steinbeck and the beatnik '40s and '50s of Kerouac . The preacher nodded his head slowly. Every kid got a turtle some time or other. Nobody can't keep a turtle though.