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In sociology, counterculture is a term used to describe a cultural group whose values and norms of behavior run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Although distinct countercultural undercurrents exist in all societies, here the term counterculture refers to a more significant, visible phenomenon that reaches critical mass and persists for a period of time. A counterculture movement thus expresses the ethos, aspirations and dreams of a specific population during a certain period of time — a social manifestation of zeitgeist. In contemporary times, counterculture came to prominence in the news media as it was used to refer to the youth rebellion that swept North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand during the 1960s and early 1970s. Earlier countercultural milieux in 19th century Europe included the traditions of Romanticism, Bohemianism and of the Dandy. Another important movement existed in a more fragmentary form in the 1950s, both in Europe and the US, in the form of the Beat generation (Beatniks), who typically sported beards, wore roll-neck sweaters, read the novels of Albert Camus and listened to Jazz music. Counterculture is generally used to describe a theological, cultural, attitudinal or material position that does not conform to accepted societal norms. Yet, counterculture movements are often co-opted to spearhead commercial campaigns. Thus once taboo ideas (men wearing a woman's color — pink, for example) sometimes become popular trends. 1960s Counterculture in the USA Though parallel movements existed elsewhere, the 1960s counterculture began in the United States as a reaction against the conservative social norms of the 1950s, the political conservatism (and social repression) of the Cold War period, and the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam. It is sometimes discussed as the inheritor of "Beat Generation" sensibilities of the late 1940s and 1950s. In one view, the 1960s counterculture largely originated on college campuses. The 1964 Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley, which had its roots in the Civil Rights Movement of the American South, was one early example. At Berkeley a socially privileged group of students began to identify themselves as having interests as a class that were at odds with the interests and practices of the University and its corporate sponsors. However, other rebellious young people who had never been college students also contributed to counterculture development. The beatnik café and bar scene was a tributary stream. Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters helped shape the developing character of the 1960s counterculture when they embarked on a cross-country voyage during the summer of 1964 in a psychedelic school bus named "Furthur." Beginning in 1959, Kesey had volunteered as a research subject for medical trials financed by the CIA's MK ULTRA project. These trials tested the effects of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other psychedelic drugs. After the medical trials, Kesey continued experimening on his own, and involved many close friends; collectively they became known as "The Pranksters." The Pranksters visited Harvard LSD proponent Timothy Leary at his Millbrook, New York retreat, and experimentation with LSD and other psychedelic drugs, primarily as a means for internal reflection and personal growth, became a constant during the Prankster trip. The bus was driven by Beat icon Neal Cassady, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was onboard for a time, and the Pranksters dropped in on Cassady's friend, Beat author Jack Kerouac, thereby creating a direct link between the 1950s Beat Generation and the 1960's psychedelic scene. After the Pranksters returned to California, they popularized the use of LSD at so-called "Acid Tests," which initially were held at Kesey's home in La Honda, California, and then at many other West Coast venues. Experimentation with LSD and other psychedelic drugs became a major component of 1960s counterculture, influencing philosophy, art, music and styles of dress. As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, sexual mores, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychedelic drugs and a predominantly materialist interpretation of the American dream. The Vietnam war became an increasingly high-profile object of criticism, and opposition to the war was exacerbated by the compulsory military draft. In 1967 Scott McKenzie's rendition of the song "San Francisco" brought as many as 75,000 young people from all over the world to celebrate San Francisco's "Summer of Love." While the song had originally been written by John Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas to promote the June, 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, it became an instant hit worldwide ( The counterculture movement took hold in Western Europe, with London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Rome rivaling San Francisco and New York as counterculture centers. One manifestation of this was the general strike that took place in Paris in May 1968, which nearly toppled the French government. In Eastern Europe, young people adopted the song "San Francisco" as an anthem for freedom, and it was widely played during Czechoslovakia's 1968 "Prague Spring," a premature attempt to break away from Soviet repression. As this newly emergent youth class began to criticize the established social order, new theories about cultural and personal identity began to spread, and traditional non-Western ideas – particularly with regard to religion, social organization and spiritual enlightenment – were more frequently embraced. A number of new social movements had countercultural beginnings, including civil rights, environmentalism and feminism. The above introduces one way of looking at mid-1960s to mid-1970s counterculture development– simply (or mainly) an upwelling of youth. A quip from Winston Churchill is often paraphrased these days; it goes: "If you are not a socialist at 20, you have no heart, if you are one at 40, you have no brain"—indicating the anti-conventionalism of youth (and the typical disapproval of older citizens). During the period in question, new cultural forms emerged, including the pop music of the Beatles, which rapidly evolved to shape and reflect the youth culture's emphasis on change and experimentation. This was accelerated after 1964, when the Beatles were introduced to marijuana in a New York hotel room by Bob Dylan, another youth culture icon. Underground newspapers sprang up in most cities and college towns, serving to define and communicate the range of phenomena that defined the counterculture: radical political opposition to "the establishment," colorful experimental (and often explicitly drug-influenced) approaches to art, music and cinema, and uninhibited indulgence in sex and drugs as a symbol of freedom. Another way of viewing the counterculture is as 'the principle of expansion' as applied not to economies or political spheres of influence but to aspects of personal life and to creativity. The most visible radical element of this counterculture was the hippie. Some hippies formed communes to live as far outside of the established system as possible. This aspect of the counterculture rejected active political engagement with the mainstream and, following the dictate of Timothy Leary to "turn on, tune in, and drop out", hoped to change society by dropping out of it. Looking back on his own life (as a Harvard professor) prior to 1960, Leary interpreted it to have been that of "an anonymous institutional employee who drove to work each morning in a long line of commuter cars and drove home each night and drank martinis .... like several million middle-class, liberal, intellectual robots." The hippie ethic posed a considerable impediment to the success of alternative movements growing within the counterculture. At the extremes, "doing one's own thing" could lead to rejection of values imposed from without and adamant avoidance of other people's expectations. As a result, the individual tends to be isolated, which may or may not be much of a problem for that individual – but it does threaten collaborative actions or accomplishments. Musical and other performing groups formed within the counterculture. Many had a far shorter active existence than, say, the Grateful Dead (a rather unusual example of countercultural longevity). Of course, ephemerality has long been the case in the performing arts, and a short lifespan does not in itself indicate failure. Not all counterculture attempts to "think outside the box" or blaze new trails were restricted to art, music, literature and so on. The counterculture had representatives in the sciences, the trades, business, and law. Many counterculture participants were stable, dedicated, and persistent. Much was done in the area of the human interface with the natural environment (in connection with science, technologies, community planning, parks, and other spheres). While ad hoc action groups sprang up frequently, usually fading away just as quickly, some established themselves as ongoing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to working toward particular goals. The counterculture gave rise to many lasting NGOs. Counterculture's environmentalist component was quick to grasp the early (i.e., 1970s) analyses of the reality and the import of the Hubbert "peak oil" prediction — more broadly that the dilemmas of energy derivation would have implications for geo politics, lifestyle, environment, and other dimensions of the life of modern society. Social anthropologist Jentri Anders, based in California, has observed that a number of freedoms were endorsed within a countercultural community which she lived in and studied: "freedom to explore one’s potential, freedom to create one’s Self, freedom of personal expression, freedom from scheduling, freedom from rigidly defined roles and hierarchical statuses…" Additionally, Anders believed these people wished to modify childrens' education so that it didn't discourage "aesthetic sense, love of nature, passion for music, desire for reflection, or strongly marked independence…" In his 1986 essay From Satori to Silicon Valley, cultural historian Theodore Roszak pointed out that Apple Computer emerged from within the West Coast counterculture. Roszak outlines the Apple computer's development, and the evolution of 'the two Steves' (Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the Apple's developers) into businessmen. Like them, many early computing and networking pioneers – after discovering LSD and roaming the campuses of UC Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT in the late 60s and early 70s – would emerge from this caste of social "misfits" to shape the modern world. Like any culture, the 1960's counterculture produced its share of misfits. However, most people involved with the counterculture were not dedicated iconoclasts lacking qualities like loyalty or conscience. Most people engaged in conscious experimentation — with psychedelic drugs, with Eastern spirituality, with alternative lifestyles — while retaining many core values and social norms of their (often middle-class) upbringings. Then too, some individuals may not have identified with "the counterculture", despite the conclusions of outside observers. Perhaps some people who successfully achieved something in cooperation with others — or who, as '60s individualists were able to find a niche and pursue some career — never identified with the counterculture, or slowly distanced themselves from it. In any case, as members of the hippie movement grew older and moderated their lives and their views, and especially after all US involvement in the Vietnam War ground to a halt in the mid 70s, the counterculture was largely absorbed by the mainstream, leaving a lasting impact on philosophy, morality, music, art, lifestyle and fashion. The legacy of the 1960s Counterculture is still actively contested in debates that are sometimes framed, in the U.S., in terms of a "culture war." Jay Walljasper, a commentator and the editor of Utne Reader — though not himself from the so-called '60s Generation, and having grown up in American-Heartland farming country — has written, "From the great gyrations of the counterculture would come a movement dedicated to the greening of America. While many once-ardent advocates of radical ideas now live in the suburbs and vote Republican, others have held fast to the dream of creating a new kind of American society and they've been joined by fresh streams of younger idealists." Russian Counterculture Although not exactly equivalent to the English definition, the term "Контркультура" (Kontrkul'tura, "Counterculture") found a constant use in Russian to define a cultural movement that promotes acting outside usual conventions of Russian culture - use of explicit language, graphical description of sex, violence and illicit activities and uncopyrighted use of "safe" characters involved in everything mentioned. During the early 70's, Russian culture was forced into quite a rigid framework of constant optimistic approach to everything. Even mild topics, such as breaking marriage and alcohol abuse, tended to be viewed as taboo by the media. In response, Russian society grew weary of the gap between real life and the creative world. Thus, the folklore and underground culture tended to be considered forbidden fruit. On the other hand, the general satisfaction with the quality of the existing works promoted parody, often within existing settings. For example, the Russian anecdotal joke tradition turned the settings of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy into a grotesque world of sexual excess. Another well-known example is a black humor that dealt exclusively with funny deaths and/or other mishaps of small innocent children. In the mid-80s, the Glasnost policy allowed the production of not-so-optimistic creative works. As a consequence, Russian cinema during the late 80s to the early 90s was dominated by crime-packed action movies with explicit (but not necessarily graphic) scenes of ruthless violence and social dramas on drug abuse, prostitution and failing relations. Although Russian movies of the time would be rated R in the USA due to violence, the use of explicit language was much milder than in American cinema. Russian counterculture as we know it emerged in the late 90s with the increased popularity of the internet. Several web sites appeared that posted user-written short stories that dealt with sex, drugs and violence. Since stories were actually posted by editors, it's pretty clear what the characteristics of Russian counterculture were. The following features are considered most popular topics for the works: As with pornography, Russian counterculture has blurred borders and is hard to define. Generally, any content posted on a number of counterculture sites, like Udaff, Litprom or Fuck.ru is considered counterculture, although some of the stories there have nothing to do with all of the above apart from being counterculture-inspired. The interesting aspect is the influence of the contra-cultural developments on the Russian pop culture. In addition to traditional Russian styles of music like songs with jail-related lyrics, new music styles with explicit language were developed. The most known representative of such popular music is Russian band “Leningrad”. Counterculture in the Asian Context In the recent past Dr. Sebastian Kappen, an Indian Theologian, has tried to redefine counterculture in the Asian context. In March 1990, at a seminar in Bangalore, he presented his countercultural perspectives (Chapter 4 in S. Kappen, Tradition Modernity Counterculture, Visthar, Bangalore, 1994). Late 20th century Media Counterculture
Early 2000s Conservative Counterculture in the United States In the early 2000s many political writers have coined a new term, "Conservative Counterculture," which describes a growing youth movement in both the Catholic and Evangelical churches in the United States. This is a group of American teens and young people who no longer see themselves as part of the "MTV" establishment and who reject pre-marital sex, drugs, and alcohol. Polls in recent years have shown that more American teens are opposed to discrimination against religious people, abortion, affirmative action, and the silencing of freedom of speech for the sake of political correctness. The existence of a conservative youth counterculture is supported by the fact that a growing percentage of young people voted Republican in the 2000 and 2004 American elections, though a majority of young voters are still Democrats. Despite the emergence of a conservative counterculture in the early 2000s, a more liberal one seems to be coming into play as well. With an increasing number of young people questioning the government's positions on the Iraq War, gay marriage and other important issues, a new counterculture is emerging. This liberalism among youth can be seen through high school and college campus protests and a growth in the number in Gay-Straight Alliances. Bibliography | |||||||||
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