Talk:William S. Burroughs

Latest comment: 1 year ago by W1tchkr4ft 00 in topic the apolitical outlook of burroughs

Audio recordings and discography edit

There should be more info on Burroughs' spoken word recordings in this article: the infobox at the bottom already includes a number of them, but they are either not or barely mentioned in the article. At the least, the albums that are in the infobox should be compiled into a discography in the article, for the sake of consistency. Recordings like "The 'Priest' They Called Him" especially really exemplify Burroughs' influence in a broad range of media and his legacy, and therefore deserve to be mentioned in the main text.

AllArtAfterAll (talk) 13:01, 29 July 2022 (UTC)Reply

the apolitical outlook of burroughs edit

i get the feeling comments on burroughs politics are made by people that have not actually read his work, at least with any genuine interest. he was more interested in the visual arts, poetry, literature, the occult, science, then any kind of coherent political stance. what is said on this page is conjecture based on other things he has said that were not intrinsically political.

he never espoused coherent political convictions. the vague conjectures of him being to the right is not consistent with other things he has said, like his dislike of philistinism, bourgeois ethics, orthodoxy, consumer culture. he was always subversive. he was more philosophical than political, more interested in the bigger human questions not so much on what the right policy. although anyone from 1960 reading this would be in disbelief as at the time nixon was crusading the drug war, etc. Shhsbavavaa (talk) 02:47, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply

I disagree that Burroughs was 'to the right' also, but I think it would be a mistake in general to try to describe him as 'right wing', 'left wing', or even apolitical, and that a lot of things that he did hold interest and write on were intrinsically political. As politics are concerned when writing about Burroughs I think the take in this article should be to only discuss specific things that have been said instead of trying to attribute any over arching view. SP00KYtalk 17:35, 22 January 2023 (UTC)Reply