VL to SL: Pynchon's Self-Characterization

[Terrance]

> 
> 2) The sentence about values is an endorsement of what the Beats stood for;
> it's *not* an endorsement of "conservatism", however that might be defined.
> (I.e., he is saying that the Beat movement was "a sane and decent
> affirmation of what *we all want to believe about* American values"; my
> emph.)

The Beats stood for conservative American values or what we all want to
believe about America.