Talk:William S. Burroughs

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the apolitical outlook of burroughs

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]

Influence on popular culture

Burroughs is frequently referenced, sometimes explicitly, in popular culture and there seems to be no mention of it in this article. To begin with, there are numerous band names - Steely Dan, Soft Machine, and numerous others that are Burroughs references. The term "Blade Runner" also has its origins in Burroughs work, albeit, it had a very different meaning from what the scriptwriters of the film turned it into. Nevertheless, if I'm not mistaken, some royalties had to be paid to Burroughs for use of the name. In addition, Burroughs seems to have had some role in coining the term "Heavy Metal", though he wasn't referring to a musical genre. I think this topic merits a subsection under "Legacy". Peter G Werner (talk) 19:29, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yage and ayahuasca

I haven't read The Yage Letters. It seems like reliable sources agree that when Burroughs wrote about yage, he meant ayahuasca, but does he explicitly say in his writings that they're different names for the same thing? Prezbo (talk) 16:08, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]