In those days he really didn’t know what he was talking about; that is to say, he was a young jailkid all hung-up on the wonderful possibilities of becoming a real intellectual, and he liked to talk in the tone and using the words, but in a jumbled way, that he had heard from “real intellectuals”—although, mind you, he wasn’t so naïve as that in all other things, and it took him just a few months with carlo marx to become completely in there with all the terms and jargon. what does this excerpt demonstrate about the culture of the beat generation? beats were often young people who had spent time in jail. beats remained detached from the world around them. beats wanted to fit into society’s traditional way of life. beats developed their own unique way of communicating.