Entre violence et non-violence : L'exemple des Beatles

Abstract

The Beatles, considered the most popular group of all time, have, through his career, spoken on behalf of a youth they represented, thus crystallizing the social aspirations of their time. But their career is marked by stages, and the group has moved between its beginnings, at the dawn of the sixties, and their psychedelic period, especially (between 1965 and 1967). At first sight, there seems to be a radical dichotomy between their Hamburg period, full of pure rock, amphetamines, violence, and that of 1967, absorbing of Zen currents, transcendental meditation, LSD. Other products, other practices, musical changes. From the time of the wild force of rock, the British branch off towards non-violence, introspection (at least temporarily). But should not it be seen in action, in imitation of the behavior of a whole in imitation of the behavior of a whole fringe of anti-establishment youth, a dialectical logic? A first step would call into question the hierarchical foundation of societies, going to break the frameworks of existence, an ontological revolt of being, while a second would consecrate the individual as his own foundation, the source of his own transcendence, which would emerge from the rubble of the old order annihilated. It is a possible symbolic reading, and the schema that underlies it may then be capable of being applied to other works, currents, or biographies of personalities.