This chapter takes a look at Jack Kerouac, who provided the understanding of ‘Beat’ as ‘beatific’, and who also gave the fullest sense of what literature as spiritual quest might involve – although this aspect of his achievements is often neglected. It identifies the connotations of the word ‘Beat’ and tries to consider three aspects of Kerouac's work.

This chapter reviews a number of theories of punk's emergence. Punk was a response to alienation and domination on behalf of working-class youths, bolstered by indignation at the co-optation of previous youth rebellion. The idea that punk was a response to the alienation of working-class youth is associated with the Centre for Contemporary Culture Studies (CCCS). Punk was also a response to frustration at the state of popular music in the UK in the mid 1970s. Punk was inspired by a number of earlier attempts to recapture the vibrancy and excitement of pop's history. Punk was the product of Malcolm McLaren's entrepreneurial machinations and/or the charisma of John Lydon. The chapter considers factor which has figured strongly in post-strain sociological theories of collective action: opportunity. Punk was a response to new opportunities for innovation within the music industry.

This chapter elaborates upon the notion of music worlds through a discussion of the work of Howard Becker and other relevant writers. It addresses how these worlds come about and how, in particular, punk and post-punk came about. Both 'subculture' and 'world' were formulated in the work of the Chicago School sociologists. In British sociology, the concept of subculture acquired a more specific meaning, following its appropriation in the work of Birmingham's Centre for Contemporary Culture Studies (CCCS). Subcultures, as the CCCS define them, are networks of working-class youths characterised by: the music they listen to; styles of dress, argot and ritual; distinctive activities; territories which they claim as their own. The CCCS's chief concern is working-class youths' resistance to domination. Music is important to this when and to the extent that subcultures identify with specific musical genres.

This chapter reviews the lessons on the ‘Beat’ – or ‘beatific’ – vision that was discussed in the previous chapters. It examines the relationship between the fifties writers and the sixties songwriters, emphasising the power of popular song to make complex religious philosophies accessible and to make the spiritual dimension of existence seem immediate. The chapter also discusses the tensions that existed within the Beatles and Bob Dylan.

This introductory chapter discusses the Beat movement, examining the word ‘Beat’, which is generally acknowledged to refer to the beat of bebop music. It then defines several related terms, including ‘spirituality’ and ‘mysticism’, and next surveys five faiths from which the Beats took spiritual inspiration in their search for the beatific vision. The chapter ends with a section on the twofold assumption addressed in this book, which is that popular song is worth taking seriously, regardless of its status in society.

This chapter examines Alan Watts' relationship with the Beats, as well as Christianity, which is the dominant religion of North America, and its common points with the philosophies of Hinduism, Zen, Taoism and Buddhism. It takes note of Watts' doubts about the Beats' spiritual authenticity and discusses his philosophy, which is rooted in the tradition of the American Transcendentalists, where mysticism is considered to be the most important goal of religion.

For the first half of 1976, the UK's punk world was a network of interactivity involving no more than 100 people and a handful of focal places in central London. This chapter considers how London's punk world began to spread out, generating a national punk world. Media networks broadcast information regarding punk to individuals living both within and beyond London stimulates many to become involved and spark a process which led to the emergence of local punk worlds in cities across the UK. The chapter also considers the 'moral panic' which brought punk into the mainstream cultural arena, massively increasing rates of adoption and adherence among the youth population. Television, radio and other organs of the mass media are key elements in the broadcast networks responsible for diffusing culture during the punk era.

This chapter introduces Gary Snyder, who has had the reputation of being a serious, committed Buddhist. His poetry imparts religious knowledge and spiritual insight, and his dedication to Zen has gone hand in hand with ecological activism. The chapter reveals that Snyder demonstrated that spirituality may be complemented by political engagement, and also studies the dialectic between nature and vision.

This chapter demonstrates how the theory of micro-mobilisation applies to and explains the emergence of punk in London during 1976. The theory of micro-mobilisation begins with the claim that the collective action generative of a music world requires a critical mass of suitably motivated and resourced potential participants. The chapter offers a preliminary analysis of the social network which underpinned the London punk world. It argues that punk took shape in London appears to have had their own critical mass of proto-punks, because the critical mass of proto-punks in the capital formed a network. A network is a crucial prerequisite of any form of collective action. Manchester had a critical mass of proto-punks in the mid 1970s, which assembled to generate a punk world within months of first making contact with the London punks.

This chapter discusses the transition from punk to post-punk as it played out in three of the major geographical centres of post-punk innovation: Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. It focuses on four common academic themes: focal places, local culture, taste makers and the primacy of the network, support personnel, and cooperation, conflict and elites. The post-punk pioneers of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield tended to know others in their city, because their love of alternative music drew them to the same places. The relations were sustained, in some part, because they returned repeatedly to those same places. The chapter concludes by drawing out some of the qualitative similarities which have emerged in the networks of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. Competition and the dominance of certain factions were important elements in each of these networks.

This chapter offers a preliminary analysis of the post-punk worlds of Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. It develops this analysis by way of an examination of their formal network properties. The chapter focuses on the role of key elements of music worlds: resources, places and conventions. It begins with a discussion of basic network parameters. Network properties and structure are important, because they facilitate the collective action which, in turn, facilitates the emergence of a music world. Support personnel link to various different bands in a network such that they have a higher degree within the network and play a significant role in linking its various clusters together into a single component. They are the most central players in the network. The chapter provides the definitions of the key forms of node centrality, adding a brief definition of their corresponding forms of centralisation.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book conceptualises punk and post-punk as 'music worlds' existing both on the local, city level and also spanning towns and cities, on a national level by drawing upon Howard Becker's concept of 'art worlds'. It suggests that punk had a mixed-class base, but was largely white in its first incarnation and also a preserve of the young. The chapter argues the fact that Liverpool, Manchester and other cities have been the point of origin and geographical centre of different music worlds both before and after punk. Competition was equal to cooperation in the process whereby the network cultivated a punk world, as it would be in the networks of Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and all other towns and cities which were to host punk and post-punk worlds.