Word: purposelessness
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...restore happiness, Kerr prescribes purposeless fun. It should be as preposterous as possible, with rules as capricious as the one that dictates keeping the arms limp in an Irish jig. Art is the finest form of fun so long as it is not overburdened by a "message." Americans must learn to relax and surrender to contemplation, which is "almost like falling in love." When they have exhausted the pleasure of comic books, they will automatically graduate to Sherlock Holmes, then to Shakespeare, without having to ponder whether it has all been worthwhile...
This hardly means that Miller is merely a sensualist. The flesh is as great an illusion as any. Sought as an escape, it becomes as purposeless and mechanical as anything in modern civilization. Miller works through this point in the course of the book; underneath the chaos of episodes, his spiritual journey winds on past illusion after illusion, towards a greater value. By the end, he has attained consciousness of the value of human sympathy, which had gotten lost in the moral swamps of the early chapters...