That Fellaheen Feeling is an excellent article by JMSmith, go read it. I was thinking about this today in response to an article by WM Briggs about an Excess of Educated Men. (The connection between the two I cannot explain. The fruits of the connection are below).
JMSmith opens with this quote by Kerouac:
“This fellaheen feeling about life, that timeless gaiety of people not involved in great cultural and civilizational issues.”
And he has this to say about it:
There is no reason to suppose that the fellahin are especially given to anything that Kerouac would have recognized as “gaiety,” for most are by habit pious and austere, but the old dharma bum said they were gay because they were “timeless,” and he said they were timeless because he believed they had laid the burden of civilization down.
It seems to me that perhaps those sympathetic with the fellahin are allowed to lay down the burden of civilization; but it also strikes me that the burden of civilization must be borne by someone.
As the burden comes to be borne by fewer and fewer, the strain becomes greater. The challenge with a “social movement” like the beatniks, is that it creates a fad of laying down the burden of civilization. Suddenly a huge portion of society scorns the burden.
So those who carry the burden must necessarily act with greater severity to preserve civilization, lest Atlas shrug.
Thus: the fewer people there are who support “the burdens of civilization”, the more likely it is that those who do will become authoritarian and monarchical (in the rule-by-one sense).
Withdrawing from the “great cultural and civilizational” issues then seems to me like disclaiming responsibility for those issues. The disinterested become the chattel of the interested, who fight over the ability to push and pull those “timeless and gay” people how they please.
All this to say that withdrawing from civilization only withdraws one’s inputs into it’s direction, but does not prevent the outputs of civilization from affecting one’s daily life.
Condensing further: The Fellaheen Feeling is an absolute absence of control, an absolute obedience to being controlled.
Which JMSmith acknowledged at the conclusion of his article, with this quote from Rodman:
“Look at these Fellahin,
Cinders of men, poor over-roasted snipe,
Fuel for their fat masters”
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 