materialism and also the feeling that the culture itself didn't honor the human spirit and didn't honor creativity. >> in the early 1950s, the nation recognized in its midst the social movement called the beat generation. a novel titled "on the road" became a bestseller. >> when kerouac's book comes out, it became a revolution. it defined a new generation of what being beat means. and it defined it as a spiritual revolution. that if we're living in an age of conformity, if everybody's trying to work for the corporation, that you're losing a sense of self. >> i was traveling west one time at the junction of the state line of colorado. i saw in the clouds huge and massed above the theory golden desert of even fall, a great