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I will have to reserve judgement since I have not read any of Kerouac’s work, but my sense from a distance is that he catered to narcissism and nihilism in a big way and is thus a suitable idol for the left.

For being such a devout Catholic, he put a lot of effort into promoting eastern religions as “hip,” turning young, impressionable skulls full of mush away from Christ.

Kerouac was in no way a nihilist. This is a brief passage from a piece called, "Alone on a Mountaintop," about a summer he spent as a fire lookout in the Cascade Mountains:

"Finally, the autumn rains, all-night gales of soaking rains as I lie warm as toast in my sleeping bag . . . and the mornings open cold . . . wild fall days with high wind, racing fogs, racing clouds, sudden bright sun, pristine light on hill patches and my fire crackling as I exult and sing at the top of my voice.

Outside my window, a windswept chipmunk sits up straight on a rock, hands clasped as he nibbles upon an oat between his paws - the little nutty lord of all he surveys.

Thinking of the stars night after night I begin to realize the stars are words and all the innumerable worlds in the Milky Way are words, and so is this world too."

Like many in the 50s and 60s, he did study Eastern religions, and much of his writing reflects a kind of pantheism and syncretism. He never totally left behind his Catholicism and its stories of the saints. His life was characterized by a battle between a kind of youthful exuberance and joy and an incurable melancholy which probably contributed to his drinking. But his writing was typically characterized by a joy in life, in little things, and in simple people like hobos and tramps.

In his final years he went back home to Lowell, married a local girl, and tried to return to his Catholic roots. When he passed away of an alcohol-related stomach ailment, I could imagine Jesus saying to him, "My son, you sinned much, but you loved much. You saw the passing beauty of the world, and took joy in it, and feared for its passing, which filled you with sorrow. Now you are home, and this beauty shall not pass."