ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 considers the neoconservative response to the Beat Generation and counterculture as part of a conservative reaction against modernity. Chapter 2 shows how the countercultural rebellion was perceived as a form of nihilism understood as rebellion for its own sake, inspired by boredom. Following this logic, capitalism itself was questioned, particularly by Irving Kristol and Daniel Bell, as a form of nihilism. Capitalism erodes moral boundaries and has no inherent preference for anything other than the object of desire. I argue that both the counterculture and capitalism share an ethics of transgression and hedonistic excess that feed off each other to such an extent that we should consider post-Weberian capitalism as countercultural. For Kristol, the question was one of saving capitalism from itself by producing for it a moral foundation. However, in this period, Kristol was wedded to a patrician understanding of capitalism that was underpinned by Christian morality and respect for tradition. Kristol was unable to imagine a new form of morality from this position.
