HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The counterculture of the 1960s was an
anti-establishment An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine ''New Statesman'' ...
cultural phenomenon that developed throughout much of the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
in the 1960s and has been ongoing to the present day. The aggregate movement gained momentum as the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
in the United States continued to grow, and with the intensification of the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, it would later become
revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...
to some. As the 1960s progressed, widespread
social tension Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience (such as a demonstration, riot, strike, or unlawful assembly) in which law enforcement has difficulty ...
s also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding
human sexuality Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
,
women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
, traditional modes of authority, rights of non-white people, end of racial segregation, experimentation with
psychoactive drug A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, psychoactive agent or psychotropic drug is a chemical substance, that changes functions of the nervous system, and results in alterations in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition or behavior. ...
s, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s. As the era unfolded, what emerged were new cultural forms and a dynamic
subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
that celebrated experimentation, modern incarnations of
Bohemianism Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people and with few permanent ties. It involves musical, artistic, literary, or spiritual pursuits. In this context, bohemians may be wanderers, a ...
, and the rise of the
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
and other
alternative lifestyle An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle perceived to be outside the norm for a given culture. The phrase "alternative lifestyle" is often used pejoratively. Description of a related set of activities as alternative is a defining aspect of certain ...
s. This embrace of experimentation is particularly notable in the works of popular musical acts such as
the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
and
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
, as well as of
New Hollywood The New Hollywood, also known as American New Wave or Hollywood Renaissance, was a movement in American film history from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types o ...
,
French New Wave French New Wave (french: La Nouvelle Vague) is a French art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentation and a spirit of iconocla ...
, and
Japanese New Wave The is a group of loosely-connected Japanese filmmakers during the late 1950s and into the 1970s. Although they did not make up a coherent movement, these artists shared a rejection of traditions and conventions of classical Japanese cinema in ...
filmmakers, whose works became far less restricted by
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
. Within and across many disciplines, many other creative artists, authors, and thinkers helped define the counterculture movement. Everyday
fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...
experienced a decline of the
suit A suit, lounge suit, or business suit is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt suit is similar, but with a matching skirt instead of tr ...
and especially of the wearing of
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
s; other changes included the normalisation of long hair worn down for women (as well as many men at the time), the popularisation of traditional
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
,
Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Peoples South Asia * Indian people, people of Indian nationality, or people who have an Indian ancestor ** Non-resident Indian, a citizen of India who has temporarily emigrated to another country * South Asia ...
and Middle Eastern styles of dress (including the wearing of
natural hair The natural hair movement is a movement which aims to encourage women and men of African descent to embrace their natural, afro-textured hair. It originated in the United States during the 1960s, with its most recent iteration occurring in the 200 ...
for those of
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
descent), the invention and popularisation of the
miniskirt A miniskirt (sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, separated as mini skirt, or sometimes shortened to simply mini) is a skirt with its hemline well above the knees, generally at mid-thigh level, normally no longer than below the buttocks; and a ...
which raised hemlines above the knees, as well as the development of distinguished, youth-led fashion subcultures. Styles based around
jeans Jeans are a type of pants or trousers made from denim or dungaree cloth. Often the term "jeans" refers to a particular style of trousers, called "blue jeans", with copper-riveted pockets which were invented by Jacob W. Davis in 1871 and paten ...
, for both men and women, became an important fashion movement that has continued up to the present day. Several factors distinguished the counterculture of the 1960s from the
anti-authoritarian Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" an ...
movements of previous eras. The
post-World War II baby boom The middle of the 20th century was marked by a significant and persistent increase in fertility rates in many countries of the world, especially in the Western world. The term ''baby boom'' is often used to refer to this particular boom, generally ...
generated an unprecedented number of potentially disaffected youth as prospective participants in a rethinking of the direction of the United States and other
democratic societies Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation ("direct democracy"), or to choose gove ...
.
Post-war In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
affluence allowed much of the counterculture generation to move beyond the provision of the material necessities of life that had preoccupied their
Depression-era The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
parents. The era was also notable in that a significant portion of the array of behaviors and "causes" within the larger movement were quickly assimilated within mainstream society, particularly in the US, even though counterculture participants numbered in the clear minority within their respective national populations.


Historical background


Post-war geopolitics

The
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
between
communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
and
capitalist state The capitalist state is the state, its functions and the form of organization it takes within capitalist socioeconomic systems.Jessop, Bob (January 1977). "Recent Theories of the Capitalist State". ''Soviet Studies''. 1: 4. pp. 353–373. This ...
s involved
espionage Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
and preparation for war between powerful nations, along with political and military interference by powerful states in the internal affairs of less powerful nations. Poor outcomes from some of these activities set the stage for disillusionment with and distrust of, post-war governments. Examples included harsh responses from the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
(USSR) towards popular
anti-communist Anti-communism is Political movement, political and Ideology, ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, w ...
uprisings, such as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
's
Prague Spring The Prague Spring ( cs, Pražské jaro, sk, Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Sec ...
in 1968; and the botched US
Bay of Pigs Invasion The Bay of Pigs Invasion (, sometimes called ''Invasión de Playa Girón'' or ''Batalla de Playa Girón'' after the Playa Girón) was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in 1961 by Cuban exiles, covertly fina ...
of
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
in 1961. In the US, President
Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
's initial deception over the nature of the
1960 U-2 incident On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. The single-seat aircraft, flown by American pilot Francis Gary Power ...
resulted in the government being caught in a blatant lie at the highest levels, and contributed to a backdrop of growing distrust of authority among many who came of age during the period. The
Partial Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all nuclear weapons testing, test detonations of nuclear weapons exce ...
divided the establishment within the US along political and military lines. Internal political disagreements concerning treaty obligations in
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...
(
SEATO The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in September 1954 in Manila, the Philipp ...
), especially in
Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, and debate as to how other communist
insurgencies An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irr ...
should be challenged, also created a rift of dissent within the establishment. In the UK, the
Profumo affair The Profumo affair was a major scandal in twentieth-century Politics of the United Kingdom, British politics. John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative Party (UK), Conservative government, had an extramar ...
also involved establishment leaders being caught in deception, leading to disillusionment and serving as a catalyst for liberal activism. The
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962, was largely fomented by duplicitous speech and actions on the part of the Soviet Union. The
assassination of US President John F. Kennedy John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was assassinated on Friday, November 22, 1963, at 12:30 p.m. CST in Dallas, Texas, while riding in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was in the vehicle wi ...
in November 1963, and the attendant
theories A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
concerning the event, led to further diminished trust in government, including among younger people.


Social issues and calls to action

Many social issues fueled the growth of the larger counterculture movement. One was a nonviolent movement in the United States seeking to resolve constitutional
civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of ...
illegalities, especially regarding general
racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
, longstanding
disfranchisement Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
of Black people in the South by white-dominated
state government A state government is the government that controls a subdivision of a country in a federal form of government, which shares political power with the federal or national government. A state government may have some level of political autonomy, or ...
, and ongoing
racial discrimination Racial discrimination is any discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, race or ethnic origin.Individuals can discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a certain g ...
in jobs, housing, and access to public places in both the North and the South. On college and university campuses, student activists fought for the right to exercise their basic constitutional rights, especially
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
and
freedom of assembly Freedom of peaceful assembly, sometimes used interchangeably with the freedom of association, is the individual right or ability of people to come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend their collective or shared ide ...
. Many counterculture activists became aware of the plight of the poor, and
community organizer Community organizing is a process where people who live in proximity to each other or share some common problem come together into an organization that acts in their shared self-interest. Unlike those who promote more-consensual community bui ...
s fought for the funding of anti-poverty programs, particularly in the South and within
inner city The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...
areas in the United States.
Environmentalism Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seek ...
grew from a greater understanding of the ongoing damage caused by
industrialization Industrialisation ( alternatively spelled industrialization) is the period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial society. This involves an extensive re-organisation of an econo ...
, resultant
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
, and the misguided use of chemicals such as
pesticides Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampric ...
in well-meaning efforts to improve the quality of life for the rapidly growing population. Authors such as
Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental m ...
played key roles in developing a new awareness among the
global population In demographics, the world population is the total number of humans currently living. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion in November 2022. It took over 200,000 years of human prehistory and history for the ...
of the fragility of our planet, despite resistance from elements of the establishment in many countries. The need to address minority rights of women, gay people, the disabled, and many other neglected constituencies within the larger population came to the forefront as an increasing number of primarily younger people broke free from the constraints of 1950s orthodoxy and struggled to create a more inclusive and tolerant social landscape. The availability of new and more effective forms of
birth control Birth control, also known as contraception, anticonception, and fertility control, is the use of methods or devices to prevent unwanted pregnancy. Birth control has been used since ancient times, but effective and safe methods of birth contr ...
was a key underpinning of the
sexual revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
. The notion of "recreational sex" without the threat of unwanted pregnancy radically changed the social dynamic and permitted both women and men much greater freedom in the selection of sexual lifestyles outside the confines of traditional marriage. With this change in attitude, by the 1990s the ratio of children born out of wedlock rose from 5% to 25% for Whites and from 25% to 66% for African-Americans.


Emergent media


Television

For those born after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, the emergence of television as a source of entertainment and information—as well as the associated massive expansion of
consumerism Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. With the Industrial Revolution, but particularly in the 20th century, mass production led to overproduction—the supp ...
afforded by post-war affluence and encouraged by TV
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
—were key components in creating disillusionment for some younger people and in the formulation of new social behaviours, even as
ad agencies An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...
heavily courted the "hip" youth market. In the US, nearly
real-time Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
TV news coverage of the
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
era's 1963
Birmingham Campaign The Birmingham campaign, also known as the Birmingham movement or Birmingham confrontation, was an American movement organized in early 1963 by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the integration efforts o ...
, the "Bloody Sunday" event of the 1965
Selma to Montgomery marches The Selma to Montgomery marches were three protest marches, held in 1965, along the 54-mile (87 km) highway from Selma, Alabama, to the state capital of Montgomery. The marches were organized by nonviolent activists to demonstrate the ...
, and graphic news footage from Vietnam brought horrifying, moving images of the bloody reality of armed conflict into living rooms for the first time.


New cinema

The breakdown of enforcement of the US
Hays Code The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the ...
concerning
censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...
in motion picture production, the use of new forms of artistic expression in European and Asian cinema, and the advent of modern production values heralded a new era of
art-house An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
,
pornographic Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of Human sexual activity, sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
, and mainstream film production, distribution, and exhibition. The end of censorship resulted in a complete reformation of the western film industry. With new-found artistic freedom, a generation of exceptionally talented New Wave film makers working across all genres brought realistic depictions of previously prohibited subject matter to neighborhood theater screens for the first time, even as
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
film studios were still considered a part of the establishment by some elements of the counterculture. Successful 1960s new films of the New Hollywood were ''
Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut (Champion) Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. The co ...
'', ''
The Graduate ''The Graduate'' is a 1967 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote it shortly after graduating from Wil ...
'', ''
The Wild Bunch ''The Wild Bunch'' is a 1969 American epic Revisionist Western film directed by Sam Peckinpah and starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Ben Johnson and Warren Oates. The plot concerns an aging outlaw gang on th ...
'', and
Peter Fonda Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fond ...
's ''
Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...
''.


New radio

By the later 1960s, previously under-regarded
FM radio FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is cap ...
replaced
AM radio AM broadcasting is radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation (AM) transmissions. It was the first method developed for making audio radio transmissions, and is still used worldwide, primarily for medium wave (also known as "AM band") transm ...
as the focal point for the ongoing explosion of
rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
music, and became the nexus of youth-oriented news and advertising for the counterculture generation.


Changing lifestyles

Communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
,
collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...
s, and
intentional communities An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
regained popularity during this era. Early communities such as the
Hog Farm The Hog Farm is an organization considered America's longest running hippie commune. Beginning as a collective in North Hollywood, California, during the 1960s, a later move to an actual hog farm in Tujunga, California gave the group its na ...
, Quarry Hill, and
Drop City Drop City was a counterculture artists' community that formed near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado in 1960. Abandoned by 1979, Drop City became known as the first rural "hippie commune". Establishment In 1960, the four original foun ...
in the US were established as straightforward agrarian attempts to return to the land and live free of interference from outside influences. As the era progressed, many people established and populated new communities in response to not only disillusionment with standard community forms, but also dissatisfaction with certain elements of the counterculture itself. Some of these self-sustaining communities have been credited with the birth and propagation of the international
Green Movement Green politics, or ecopolitics, is a political ideology that aims to foster an ecologically sustainable society often, but not always, rooted in environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice and grassroots democracy. Wall 2010. p. 12-13. It be ...
. The emergence of an interest in expanded spiritual consciousness,
yoga Yoga (; sa, योग, lit=yoke' or 'union ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India and aim to control (yoke) and still the mind, recognizing a detached witness-consciou ...
,
occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...
practices and increased
human potential Human potential is the capacity for humans to improvement, improve themselves through studying, training, and Practice (learning method), practice, to reach the limit of their ability to develop aptitudes and skills. "Inherent within the notion of h ...
helped to shift views on organized religion during the era. In 1957, 69% of US residents polled by Gallup said religion was increasing in influence. By the late 1960s, polls indicated less than 20% still held that belief. The "
Generation Gap A generation gap or generational gap is a difference of opinions between one generation and another regarding beliefs, politics, or values. In today's usage, ''generation gap'' often refers to a perceived gap between younger people and their paren ...
", or the inevitable perceived divide in worldview between the old and young, was perhaps never greater than during the counterculture era. A large measure of the generational chasm of the 1960s and early 1970s was born of rapidly evolving fashion and hairstyle trends that were readily adopted by the young, but often misunderstood and ridiculed by the old. These included the wearing of very long hair by men, the wearing of natural or "
Afro The afro is a hair type created by natural growth of kinky hair, or specifically styled with chemical curling products by individuals with naturally curly or straight hair.Garland, Phyl"Is The Afro On Its Way Out?" ''Ebony'', February 1973. ...
" hairstyles by Black people, the donning of revealing clothing by women in public, and the mainstreaming of the psychedelic clothing and regalia of the short-lived hippie culture. Ultimately, practical and comfortable casual apparel, namely updated forms of
T-shirts A T-shirt (also spelled tee shirt), or tee, is a style of fabric shirt named after the T shape of its body and sleeves. Traditionally, it has short sleeves and a round neckline, known as a ''crew neck'', which lacks a collar. T-shirts are generall ...
(often tie-dyed, or emblazoned with political or advertising statements), and Levi Strauss-branded blue denim jeans became the enduring uniform of the generation, as daily wearing of
suit A suit, lounge suit, or business suit is a set of clothes comprising a suit jacket and trousers of identical textiles worn with a collared dress shirt, necktie, and dress shoes. A skirt suit is similar, but with a matching skirt instead of tr ...
s along with traditional
Western dress codes Western dress codes are a set of dress codes detailing what clothes are worn for what occasion. Conversely, since most cultures have intuitively applied some level equivalent to the more formal Western dress code traditions, these dress codes a ...
declined in use. The fashion dominance of the counterculture effectively ended with the rise of the
Disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...
and Punk Rock eras in the later 1970s, even as the global popularity of T-shirts, denim jeans, and casual clothing in general have continued to grow.


Emergent middle-class drug culture

In the western world, the ongoing criminal legal status of the recreational drug industry was instrumental in the formation of an anti-establishment social dynamic by some of those coming of age during the counterculture era. The explosion of
marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
use during the era, in large part by students on fast-expanding college campuses, created an attendant need for increasing numbers of people to conduct their personal affairs in secret in the procurement and use of banned substances. The classification of marijuana as a narcotic, and the attachment of severe criminal penalties for its use, drove the act of smoking marijuana, and experimentation with substances in general, deep underground. Many began to live largely clandestine lives because of their choice to use such drugs and substances, fearing retribution from their governments.


Law enforcement

The confrontations between college students (and other activists) and law enforcement officials became one of the hallmarks of the era. Many younger people began to show deep distrust of police, and terms such as " fuzz" and "pig" as derogatory
epithets An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...
for police reappeared, and became key words within the counterculture lexicon. The distrust of police was based not only on fear of
police brutality Police brutality is the excessive and unwarranted use of force by law enforcement against an individual or a group. It is an extreme form of police misconduct and is a civil rights violation. Police brutality includes, but is not limited to, ...
during political protests, but also on generalized police corruption—especially police manufacture of false evidence, and outright entrapment, in drug cases. In the US, the social tension between elements of the counterculture and law enforcement reached the breaking point in many notable cases, including: the
Columbia University protests of 1968 In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students disco ...
in New York City, the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, the arrest and imprisonment of John Sinclair in
Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...
, and the
Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...
at
Kent State University Kent State University (KSU) is a public research university in Kent, Ohio. The university also includes seven regional campuses in Northeast Ohio and additional facilities in the region and internationally. Regional campuses are located in As ...
in Kent, Ohio, where National Guardsman acted as surrogates for police. Police malfeasance was also an ongoing issue in the UK during the era.


Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, and the protracted national divide between supporters and opponents of the war, were arguably the most important factors contributing to the rise of the larger counterculture movement. The widely accepted assertion that anti-war opinion was held only among the young is a myth, but enormous war protests consisting of thousands of mostly younger people in every major US city, and elsewhere across the Western world, effectively united millions against the war, and against the war policy that prevailed under five US congresses and during two presidential administrations.


Regions


Western Europe

The counterculture movement took hold in Western Europe, with London, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Milan, Copenhagen and West Berlin rivaling San Francisco and New York as counterculture centers. The UK Underground was a movement linked to the growing subculture in the US and associated with the hippie phenomenon, generating its own magazines and newspapers, fashion, music groups, and clubs. Underground figure
Barry Miles Barry Miles (born 21 February 1943) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeare ...
said, "The underground was a catch-all sobriquet for a community of like-minded anti-establishment, anti-war, pro-rock'n'roll individuals, most of whom had a common interest in recreational drugs. They saw peace, exploring a widened area of consciousness, love and sexual experimentation as more worthy of their attention than entering the rat race. The straight, consumerist lifestyle was not to their liking, but they did not object to others living it. But at that time the middle classes still felt they had the right to impose their values on everyone else, which resulted in conflict." In the Netherlands, Provo was a counterculture movement that focused on "provocative direct action ('pranks' and 'happenings') to arouse society from political and social indifference". In France, the
General Strike A general strike refers to a strike action in which participants cease all economic activity, such as working, to strengthen the bargaining position of a trade union or achieve a common social or political goal. They are organised by large co ...
centered in Paris in May 1968 united French students, and nearly toppled the government.
Kommune 1 Kommune 1 or K1 was a politically motivated commune in Germany. It was created on 12 January 1967, in West Berlin and finally dissolved in November 1969. Kommune 1 developed from the extraparliamentary opposition of the German student movement o ...
or K1 was a commune in West Berlin known for its bizarre staged events that fluctuated between
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...
and
provocation Provocation, provoke or provoked may refer to: * Provocation (legal), a type of legal defense in court which claims the "victim" provoked the accused's actions * Agent provocateur, a (generally political) group that tries to goad a desired res ...
. These events served as inspiration for the "
Sponti The Spontis or ''Sponti movement'' was left-wing movement in West Germany in 1970s-1980s. the name is an abbreviation for the word "spontaneous", in reference to their preference of "revolutionary spontaneity of the masses" over theoretically- and p ...
" movement and other leftist groups. In the late summer of 1968, the commune moved into a deserted factory on Stephanstraße in order to reorient. This second phase of Kommune 1 was characterized by sex, music and drugs. Soon, the commune was receiving visitors from all over the world, including
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
.


In Eastern Europe

''
Mánička Mánička (in plural: máničky) is a Czech term used for young people with long hair, typically men, in Czechoslovakia through the 1960s and 1970s. Long hair for males during this time was considered an expression of political and social attitu ...
'' is a
Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places * Czech, ...
term used for young people with long hair, usually males, in
Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...
through the 1960s and 1970s. Long hair for males during this time was considered an expression of political and social attitudes in
communist Czechoslovakia The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, ČSSR, formerly known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic or Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 to 29 March 1990, when it was renamed the Czechoslovak ...
. From the mid-1960s, the long-haired and "untidy" persons (so called ''máničky'' or ''vlasatci'' (in English:
Mops MOPS (3-(''N''-morpholino)propanesulfonic acid) is a buffer introduced in the 1960s, one of the twenty Good's buffers. It is a structural analog to MES, and like MES, its structure contains a morpholine ring. HEPES is a similar pH buffering co ...
) were banned from entering pubs, cinema halls, theatres and using public transportation in several Czech cities and towns. Pokorná (2010) In 1964, the public transportation regulations in
Most Most or Möst or ''variation'', may refer to: Places * Most, Kardzhali Province, a village in Bulgaria * Most (city), a city in the Czech Republic ** Most District, a district surrounding the city ** Most Basin, a lowland named after the city ** A ...
and
Litvínov Litvínov (; german: Leutensdorf) is a town in Most District in the Ústí nad Labem Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 22,000 inhabitants. It is known as an industrial centre. Administrative parts Litvínov is made up of 12 town parts an ...
excluded long-haired ''máničky'' as displeasure-evoking persons. Two years later, the municipal council in
Poděbrady Poděbrady (; german: Podiebrad) is a spa town in Nymburk District in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 14,000 inhabitants. It lies on the river Elbe. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an u ...
banned ''máničky'' from entering cultural institutions in the town. In August 1966, '' Rudé právo'' informed that ''máničky'' in
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
were banned from visiting restaurants of the I. and II. price category. In 1966, during a big campaign coordinated by the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...
, around 4,000 young males were forced to cut their hair, often in the cells with the assistance of the state police. On August 19, 1966, during a "safety intervention" organized by the state police, 140 long-haired people were arrested. As a response, the "community of long-haired" organized a protest in
Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
. More than 100 people cheered slogans such as "Give us back our hair!" or "Away with hairdressers!". The state police arrested the organizers and several participants of the meeting. Some of them were given prison sentences. According to the newspaper ''
Mladá fronta Dnes ''Mladá fronta Dnes'' (''Young Front Today''), also known as ''MF DNES'' or simply ''Dnes'' (''Today''), is a daily newspaper in the Czech Republic.Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia refers to the events of 20–21 August 1968, when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was jointly invaded by four Warsaw Pact countries: the Soviet Union, the Polish People's Republic, the People's Rep ...
, the long-haired youth were one of the most active voices in the state protesting against the occupation. Youth protesters have been labeled as "vagabonds" and "slackers" by the official normalized press.


In Australia

'' Oz'' magazine was first published as a satirical humour magazine between 1963 and 1969 in
Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
,
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, and, in its second and better known incarnation, became a "psychedelic hippy" magazine from 1967 to 1973 in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. Strongly identified as part of the
underground press The terms underground press or clandestine press refer to periodicals and publications that are produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of a dominant (governmental, religious, or institutional) group. In specific rec ...
, it was the subject of two celebrated
obscenity An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be use ...
trials, one in Australia in 1964 and the other in the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
in 1971. '' The Digger'' was published monthly between 1972 and 1975 and served as a national outlet for many movements within Australia's counterculture with notable contributors—including second-wave feminists
Anne Summers Anne Summers AO (born 12 March 1945) is an Australian writer and columnist, best known as a leading feminist, editor and publisher. She was formerly First Assistant Secretary of the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of the Prime M ...
and
Helen Garner Helen Garner (née Ford, born 7 November 1942) is an Australian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist. Garner's first novel, ''Monkey Grip (novel), Monkey Grip'', published in 1977, immediately established her as an origina ...
; Californian cartoonist
Ron Cobb Ronald Ray Cobb (September 21, 1937 – September 21, 2020) was an American-Australian artist. In addition to his work as an editorial cartoonist, he contributed to major films including '' Dark Star'' (1974), '' Star Wars'' (1977), '' Alien'' (19 ...
's observations during a year-long stay in the country; Aboriginal activist
Cheryl Buchanan Cheryl is a female given name common in English speaking countries. There are several prevailing theories about its etymology. The most common is that it has Italo-Celtic roots and is an Anglicised version of either the French name Cherie (from L ...
(who was active in the 1972 setup of the
Aboriginal Tent Embassy The Aboriginal Tent Embassy is a permanent protest occupation site as a focus for representing the political rights of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people. Established on 26 January (Australia Day) 1972, and celebrating i ...
; and later partner of poet and activist
Lionel Fogarty Lionel Fogarty (born 1958), also published as Lionel Lacey, is an Indigenous Australian poet and political activist. Early life Fogarty was born in 1958 on an Aboriginal reserve at Barambah (now called Cherbourg) in Queensland, where he grew up. ...
) and radical scientist Alan Roberts (1925-2017) on
global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
—and ongoing coverage of cultural trailblazers such as the
Australian Performing Group The Australian Performing Group (APG) was a Melbourne-based experimental theatre repertory ensemble formed in an official capacity in 1970 from the La Mama theatre group. Created to address a dissatisfaction with Australia's theatrical climate, th ...
(aka Pram Factory), and emerging Australian filmmakers. ''The Digger'' was produced by an evolving collective, many of whom had previously produced counterculture newspapers ''Revolution'' and ''
High Times ''High Times'' is an American monthly magazine (and cannabis brand) that advocates the Legalization of non-medical cannabis in the United States, legalization of cannabis as well as other counterculture ideas. The magazine was founded in 1974 by ...
'', and all three of these magazines were co-founded by publisher/editor
Phillip Frazer Phillip Frazer (born 1 May 1946, in Melbourne, Australia) is a writer, editor and publisher. He was a founder of the weekly teen pop newspaper ''Go-Set'' in 1966, NOTE: This PDF is 282 pages. which was a popular Australian music paper from 1966 ...
, who launched Australia's legendary pop music paper ''
Go-Set ''Go-Set'' was the first Australian pop music newspaper, published weekly from 2 February 1966 to 24 August 1974, and was founded in Melbourne by Phillip Frazer, Peter Raphael and Tony Schauble. NOTE: This PDF is 282 pages. Widely described as ...
'' in 1966, when he was himself a teenager.


Latin America

In Mexico, rock music was tied into the youth revolt of the 1960s. Mexico City, as well as northern cities such as
Monterrey Monterrey ( , ) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León, Mexico, and the third largest city in Mexico behind Guadalajara and Mexico City. Located at the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental, the city is anchor ...
,
Nuevo Laredo Nuevo Laredo () is a city in the Municipality of Nuevo Laredo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The city lies on the banks of the Rio Grande, across from Laredo, United States. The 2010 census population of the city was 373,725. Nuevo Lare ...
,
Ciudad Juárez Ciudad Juárez ( ; ''Juarez City''. ) is the most populous city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is commonly referred to as Juárez and was known as El Paso del Norte (''The Pass of the North'') until 1888. Juárez is the seat of the Ju ...
, and
Tijuana Tijuana ( ,"Tijuana"
(US) and
< ...
, were exposed to US music. Many Mexican rock stars became involved in the counterculture. The three-day
Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro The Festival Rock y Ruedas de Avándaro (also known as the Festival de Avándaro or simply Avándaro) was a historic Mexican rock festival held on September 11–12, 1971, on the shores of Lake Avándaro near the Avándaro Golf Club, in a hamlet c ...
, held in 1971, was organized in the valley of Avándaro near the city of
Toluca Toluca , officially Toluca de Lerdo , is the States of Mexico, state capital of the State of Mexico as well as the seat of the Municipality of Toluca. With a population of 910,608 as of the 2020 census, Toluca is the fifth most populous city in M ...
, a town neighboring Mexico City, and became known as "The Mexican Woodstock". Nudity, drug use, and the presence of the US flag scandalized conservative Mexican society to such an extent that the government clamped down on rock and roll performances for the rest of the decade. The festival, marketed as proof of Mexico's modernization, was never expected to attract the masses it did, and the government had to evacuate stranded attendees en masse at the end. This occurred during the era of
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Luis Echeverría Luis Echeverría Álvarez (; 17 January 1922 – 8 July 2022) was a Mexican lawyer, academic, and politician affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who served as the 57th president of Mexico from 1970 to 1976. Previously, ...
, an extremely repressive era in Mexican history. Anything that could be connected to the counterculture or student protests was prohibited from being broadcast on public airwaves, with the government fearing a repeat of the student protests of 1968. Few bands survived the prohibition, though the ones that did, like Three Souls in My Mind (now El Tri), remained popular due in part to their adoption of Spanish for their lyrics, but mostly as a result of a dedicated underground following. While Mexican rock groups were eventually able to perform publicly by the mid-1980s, the ban prohibiting tours of Mexico by foreign acts lasted until 1989. The
Cordobazo The Cordobazo was a civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, at the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, which occurred a few days after the '' Rosariazo'', and a year after the global protes ...
was a civil uprising in the city of
Córdoba, Argentina Córdoba () is a city in central Argentina, in the foothills of the Punilla Valley, Sierras Chicas on the Primero River, Suquía River, about northwest of Buenos Aires. It is the capital of Córdoba Province, Argentina, Córdoba Province a ...
, in the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General
Juan Carlos Onganía Juan Carlos Onganía Carballo (; 17 March 1914 – 8 June 1995) was President of Argentina from 29 June 1966 to 8 June 1970. He rose to power as dictator after toppling the president Arturo Illia in a coup d'état self-named ''Revolución Argen ...
, which occurred a few days after the ''
Rosariazo The Rosariazo () was a protest movement that consisted in demonstrations and strikes, in Rosario, , between May and September 1969, during the military dictatorial rule of ''de facto'' President General Juan Carlos Onganía. The Rosariazo was ...
'', and a year after the French
May '68 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which h ...
. Contrary to previous protests, the Cordobazo did not correspond to previous struggles, headed by
Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
workers' leaders, but associated students and workers in the same struggle against the
military government A military government is generally any form of government that is administered by military forces, whether or not this government is legal under the laws of the jurisdiction at issue, and whether this government is formed by natives or by an occup ...
.Carmen Bernand, « D'une rive à l'autre », ''Nuevo Mundo Mundos Nuevos, Materiales de seminarios'', 2008 (Latin-Americanist Review
published by the
EHESS The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and ''grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...
), Put on line on June 15, 2008. URL : Accessed on July 28, 2008.


Social and political movements


Ethnic movements

The Civil Rights Movement, a key element of the larger counterculture movement, involved the use of applied
nonviolence Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...
to assure that equal rights guaranteed under the
US Constitution The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, in 1789. Originally comprising seven articles, it delineates the nation ...
would apply to all citizens. Many states illegally denied many of these rights to African-Americans, and this was partially successfully addressed in the early and mid-1960s in several major nonviolent movements. The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also called the Chicano civil rights movement, was a civil rights movement extending the Mexican-American civil rights movement of the 1960s with the stated goal of achieving
Mexican American Mexican Americans ( es, mexicano-estadounidenses, , or ) are Americans of full or partial Mexican heritage. In 2019, Mexican Americans comprised 11.3% of the US population and 61.5% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexica ...
empowerment. The American Indian Movement (or AIM) is a Native American
grassroots movement A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
that was founded in July 1968 in
Minneapolis, Minnesota Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
. A.I.M. was initially formed in urban areas to address systemic issues of poverty and police brutality against Native Americans. A.I.M. soon widened its focus from urban issues to include many Indigenous Tribal issues that Native American groups have faced due to
settler colonialism Settler colonialism is a structure that perpetuates the elimination of Indigenous people and cultures to replace them with a settler society. Some, but not all, scholars argue that settler colonialism is inherently genocidal. It may be enacted ...
of the
Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...
, such as
treaty rights In Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States the term treaty rights specifically refers to rights for indigenous peoples enumerated in treaties with settler societies that arose from European colonization. Exactly who is indigenou ...
, high rates of unemployment, education, cultural continuity, and preservation of Indigenous cultures. The Asian American movement was a
sociopolitical Political sociology is an Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro Level of analysis, levels of analysis. Interested in the ...
movement in which the widespread grassroots effort of
Asian Americans Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
affected racial, social and political change in the US, reaching its peak in the late 1960s to mid-1970s. During this period Asian Americans promoted
antiwar An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
and
anti-imperialist Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...
activism, directly opposing what was viewed as an unjust Vietnam war. The American Asian Movement differs from previous Asian-American activism due to its emphasis on
Pan-Asianism file:Asia satellite orthographic.jpg , Satellite photograph of Asia in orthographic projection. Pan-Asianism (''also known as Asianism or Greater Asianism'') is an ideology aimed at creating a political and economic unity among Asian people, Asian ...
and its solidarity with US and international Third World movements. "Its founding principle of coalition politics emphasizes solidarity among Asians of all ethnicities, multiracial solidarity among Asian Americans as well as with
African African or Africans may refer to: * Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa: ** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa *** Ethn ...
,
Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...
, and
Native Americans in the United States Native Americans, also known as American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other terms, are the Indigenous peoples of the mainland United States ( Indigenous peoples of Hawaii, Alaska and territories of the United State ...
, and transnational solidarity with peoples around the globe impacted by U.S.
militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...
." and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are Puerto Rican or of Puerto-Rican descent, who live in or near
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, and either call themselves or are known as
Nuyorican Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Ricans located in or around New York City, or of their descendants (especially those raised or currently living in the N ...
s. It originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods such as
Loisaida Alphabet City is a neighborhood located within the East Village in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Its name comes from Avenues A, B, C, and D, the only avenues in Manhattan to have single-letter names. It is bounded by Houston St ...
,
East Harlem East Harlem, also known as Spanish Harlem or and historically known as Italian Harlem, is a neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, New York City, roughly encompassing the area north of the Upper East Side and bounded by 96th Street to the south, F ...
, Williamsburg, and the
South Bronx The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...
as a means to validate Puerto Rican experience in the United States, particularly for poor and working-class people who suffered from
marginalization Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...
, ostracism, and
discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
. Young Cuban exiles in the United States would develop interests in Cuban identity, and politics. This younger generation had experienced the United States during the rising
anti-war movement An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to ...
,
civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
, and
feminist movement The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...
of the 1960s, causing them to be influenced by radicals that encouraged political introspection, and social justice. Figures like
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
and
Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...
were also heavily praised among American student radicals at the time. These factors helped push some young Cubans into advocating for different degrees of rapprochement with Cuba. Those most likely to become more radical were Cubans who were more culturally isolated from being outside the Cuban enclave of Miami.


Free Speech

Much of the 1960s counterculture 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
southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, was one early example. At Berkeley a 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. Other rebellious young people, who were not students, also contributed to the Free Speech Movement.


New Left

The ''New Left'' is a term used in different countries to describe
left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
movements that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s in the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
. They differed from earlier leftist movements that had been more oriented towards
labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...
activism, and instead adopted
social activism Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
. The American "New Left" is associated with college campus mass protests and radical leftist movements. The British "New Left" was an intellectually driven movement that attempted to correct the perceived errors of "
Old Left The Old Left was the pre-1960s left-wing in the Western world, the earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had often taken a more vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on labor unionization and questions of social class in ...
" parties in the post–World War II period. The movements began to wind down in the 1970s, when activists either committed themselves to party projects, developed
social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. In Western and Asian cultures, the concept of social justice has often referred to the process of ensuring that individuals fu ...
organizations, moved into
identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
or alternative lifestyles, or became politically inactive. The emergence of the New Left in the 1950s and 1960s led to a revival of interest in
libertarian socialism Libertarian socialism, also known by various other names, is a left-wing,Diemer, Ulli (1997)"What Is Libertarian Socialism?" The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 4 August 2019. anti-authoritarian, anti-statist and libertarianLong, Roderick T. (201 ...
. The New Left's critique of the
Old Left The Old Left was the pre-1960s left-wing in the Western world, the earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had often taken a more vanguardist approach to social justice and focused mostly on labor unionization and questions of social class in ...
's authoritarianism was associated with a strong interest in personal liberty,
autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy, from , ''autonomos'', from αὐτο- ''auto-'' "self" and νόμος ''nomos'', "law", hence when combined understood to mean "one who gives oneself one's ...
(see the thinking of
Cornelius Castoriadis Cornelius Castoriadis ( el, Κορνήλιος Καστοριάδης; 11 March 1922 – 26 December 1997) was a Greek-FrenchMemos 2014, p. 18: "he was ... granted full French citizenship in 1970." philosopher, social critic, economist, p ...
) and led to a rediscovery of older socialist traditions, such as
left communism Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...
,
council communism Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to state socialism and advocated workers' councils and council democracy. Strong in Germany a ...
, and the
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines genera ...
. The New Left also led to a revival of anarchism. Journals like ''Radical America'' and '' Black Mask'' in America, ''
Solidarity ''Solidarity'' is an awareness of shared interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies creating a psychological sense of unity of groups or classes. It is based on class collaboration.''Merriam Webster'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio ...
'', '' Big Flame'' and '' Democracy & Nature'', succeeded by ''The International Journal of Inclusive Democracy'', in the UK, introduced a range of left libertarian ideas to a new generation.
Social ecology Social ecology may refer to: * Social ecology (academic field), the study of relationships between people and their environment, often the interdependence of people, collectives and institutions * Social ecology (Bookchin), a theory about the relat ...
,
autonomism Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendenc ...
and, more recently,
participatory economics Participatory economics, often abbreviated Parecon, is an economic system based on participatory decision making as the primary economic mechanism for allocation in society. In the system, the say in decision-making is proportional to the impact ...
(parecon), and
Inclusive Democracy Inclusive Democracy (ID) is a project that aims for direct democracy; economic democracy in a stateless, moneyless and marketless economy; self-management (democracy in the socio-economic realm); and ecological democracy. The theoretical p ...
emerged from this. A surge of popular interest in
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessa ...
occurred in western nations during the 1960s and 1970s. Anarchism was influential in the counterculture of the 1960s and anarchists actively participated in the late 1960s students and workers revolts. During the IX Congress of the Italian Anarchist Federation in
Carrara Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, west-northwest o ...
in 1965, a group decided to split off from this organization and created the ''Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica''. In the 1970s, it was mostly composed of "veteran individualist anarchists with a
pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...
orientation,
naturism Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms ar ...
, etc, ..."."Los anarco-individualistas, G.I.A ... Una escisión de la FAI producida en el IX Congreso (Carrara, 1965) se pr odujo cuando un sector de anarquistas de tendencia humanista rechazan la interpretación que ellos juzgan disciplinaria del ''pacto asociativo" clásico, y crean los GIA (Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica) . Esta pequeña federación de grupos, hoy nutrida sobre todo de veteranos anarco-individualistas de orientación pacifista, naturista, etcétera defiende la autonomía personal y rechaza a rajatabla toda forma de intervención en los procesos del sistema, como sería por ejemplo el sindicalismo. Su portavoz es L'Internazionale con sede en Ancona. La escisión de los GIA prefiguraba, en sentido contrario, el gran debate que pronto había de comenzar en el seno del movimiento
"El movimiento libertario en Italia" by ''Bicicleta. REVISTA DE COMUNICACIONES LIBERTARIAS'' Year 1 No. Noviembre, 1 1977
In 1968, in
Carrara Carrara ( , ; , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, in central Italy, of the province of Massa and Carrara, and notable for the white or blue-grey marble quarried there. It is on the Carrione River, some Boxing the compass, west-northwest o ...
, Italy the
International of Anarchist Federations Contemporary anarchism within the history of anarchism is the period of the anarchist movement continuing from the end of World War II and into the present. Since the last third of the 20th century, anarchists have been involved in anti-globalisa ...
was founded during an international anarchist conference held there in 1968 by the three existing European federations of
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, the Italian and the
Iberian Anarchist Federation Iberian refers to Iberia. Most commonly Iberian refers to: *Someone or something originating in the Iberian Peninsula, namely from Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and Andorra. The term ''Iberian'' is also used to refer to anything pertaining to the fo ...
as well as the
Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
n federation in French exile. During the events of
May 68 Beginning in May 1968, a period of civil unrest occurred throughout France, lasting some seven weeks and punctuated by demonstrations, general strikes, as well as the occupation of universities and factories. At the height of events, which ha ...
the anarchist groups active in France were
Fédération anarchiste ''Fédération Anarchiste'' (Anarchist Federation) is an anarchist federation in France, Belgium and Switzerland. It is a member of the International of Anarchist Federations since the latter's establishment in 1968. History The ''Fédér ...
, Mouvement communiste libertaire, Union fédérale des anarchistes, Alliance ouvrière anarchiste, Union des groupes anarchistes communistes, Noir et Rouge,
Confédération nationale du travail The CNT-F (Confédération nationale du travail) or National Confederation of Labour is a French anarcho-syndicalist union. It was founded in 1946 by Spanish anarcho-syndicalists in exile, and former members of Confédération Générale du Tra ...
, Union anarcho-syndicaliste, Organisation révolutionnaire anarchiste, ''Cahiers socialistes libertaires'', ''À contre-courant'', ''La Révolution prolétarienne'', and the publications close to
Émile Armand Émile Armand (26 March 1872 – 19 February 1962), pseudonym of Ernest-Lucien Juin Armand, was an influential French individualist anarchist at the beginning of the 20th century and also a dedicated free love/polyamory, intentional community, ...
. The New Left in the United States also included anarchist,
countercultural A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
and
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
-related radical groups such as the
Yippies The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on De ...
who were led by
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
, The Diggers and Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers. By late 1966, the Diggers opened
free stores Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a ...
which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art.. The Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers led by
Gerrard Winstanley Gerrard Winstanley (19 October 1609 – 10 September 1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founde ...
and sought to create a mini-society free of money and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for Profit (economics), profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, pric ...
. On the other hand, the Yippies employed theatrical gestures, such as advancing a pig (" Pigasus the Immortal") as a candidate for President in 1968, to mock the social status quo. They have been described as a highly theatrical, anti-authoritarian and anarchistAbbie Hoffman, Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, page 128. Perigee Books, 1980. youth movement of "symbolic politics". Since they were well known for street theater and politically themed pranks, many of the "old school"
political left Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
either ignored or denounced them. According to
ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast ''ABC World News Tonight, ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include Breakfast television, morning ...
, "The group was known for street theater pranks and was once referred to as the ' Groucho
Marxists Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectic ...
'."


Anti-war

In
Trafalgar Square Trafalgar Square ( ) is a public square in the City of Westminster, Central London, laid out in the early 19th century around the area formerly known as Charing Cross. At its centre is a high column bearing a statue of Admiral Nelson commemo ...
,
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1958, in an act of
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
, 60,000–100,000
protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of coopera ...
ers made up of students and
pacifists Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigne ...
converged in what was to become the " ban the Bomb" demonstrations. Opposition to the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
began in 1964 on United States college campuses. Student activism became a dominant theme among the baby boomers, growing to include many other demographic groups. Exemptions and deferments for the middle and upper classes resulted in the induction of a disproportionate number of poor, working-class, and minority registrants. Countercultural books such as
MacBird ''MacBird!'' is a 1966 satire by Barbara Garson. It was self-published ('Grassy Knoll Press') as a pamphlet, and the full text appeared in the December, 1966 issue of ''Ramparts'' magazine. It was staged in February, 1967. The play superimposes ...
by
Barbara Garson Barbara Garson (born July 7, 1941, Brooklyn) is an American playwright, author and social activist, perhaps best known for the play '' MacBird!'' Education and personal life Garson attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she e ...
and much of the counterculture music encouraged a spirit of non-conformism and anti-establishmentarianism. By 1968, the year after a large march to the United Nations in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and a large protest at the
Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...
were undertaken, a majority of people in the country opposed the war.


Anti-nuclear

The application of
nuclear technology Nuclear technology is technology that involves the nuclear reactions of atomic nuclei. Among the notable nuclear technologies are nuclear reactors, nuclear medicine and nuclear weapons. It is also used, among other things, in smoke detectors an ...
, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial.Robert Benford
The Anti-nuclear Movement (book review)
''American Journal of Sociology'', Vol. 89, No. 6, (May 1984), pp. 1456–1458.
Walker, J. Samuel (2004).
Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective
' (Berkeley: University of California Press), pp. 10–11.
Scientists and diplomats have debated the
nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
policy since before the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...
in 1945.Jerry Brown and
Rinaldo Brutoco Rinaldo S. Brutoco (born in Toronto, Canada on February 27, 1947) is an attorney and corporate executive. He was raised in Southern California and has remained in California ever since. Education In 1968, Brutoco graduated from Santa Clara U ...
(1997). ''Profiles in Power: The Anti-nuclear Movement and the Dawn of the Solar Age'', Twayne Publishers, pp. 191–192.
The public became concerned about
nuclear weapons testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine nuclear weapons' effectiveness, Nuclear weapon yield, yield, and explosive capability. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detona ...
from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the
Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...
. In 1961 and 1962, at the height of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, about 50,000 women brought together by
Women Strike for Peace Women Strike for Peace (WSP, also known as Women for Peace) was a women's peace activist group in the United States. In 1961, nearing the height of the Cold War, around 50,000 women marched in 60 cities around the United States to demonstrate aga ...
marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against
nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
. In 1963, many countries ratified the
Partial Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all nuclear weapons testing, test detonations of nuclear weapons exce ...
which prohibited atmospheric nuclear testing.Wolfgang Rudig (1990). ''Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy'', Longman, p. 54–55. Some local opposition to
nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns.Wolfgang Rudig (1990). ''Anti-nuclear Movements: A World Survey of Opposition to Nuclear Energy'', Longman, p. 52. In the early 1970s, there were large protests about a proposed nuclear power plant in
Wyhl Wyhl () is a municipality in the district of Emmendingen in Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It is known in the 1970s for its role in the anti-nuclear movement. Wyhl was first mentioned in 1971 as a possible site for a nuclear power st ...
, Germany. The project was cancelled in 1975 and
anti-nuclear The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
success at Wyhl inspired opposition to nuclear power in other parts of Europe and North America. Nuclear power became an issue of major public protest in the 1970s.Jim Falk (1982). ''Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power'', Oxford University Press, pp. 95–96.


Feminism

The role of women as full-time homemakers in industrial society was challenged in 1963, when US feminist
Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...
published ''
The Feminine Mystique ''The Feminine Mystique'' is a book by Betty Friedan, widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. First published by W. W. Norton on February 19, 1963, ''The Feminine Mystique'' became a bestseller, initially selling ...
'', giving momentum to the women's movement and influencing what many called
Second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in the early 1960s and lasted roughly two decades. It took place throughout the Western world, and aimed to increase equality for women by building on previous feminist gains. Wh ...
. Other activists, such as
Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...
and
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...
, either organized, influenced, or educated many of a younger generation of women to endorse and expand feminist thought. Feminism gained further currency within the protest movements of the late 1960s, as women in movements such as
Students for a Democratic Society Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was a national student activist organization in the United States during the 1960s, and was one of the principal representations of the New Left. Disdaining permanent leaders, hierarchical relationships ...
rebelled against the "support" role they believed they had been consigned to within the male-dominated New Left, as well as against perceived manifestations and statements of
sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers primari ...
within some radical groups. The 1970 pamphlet ''Women and Their Bodies'', soon expanded into the 1971 book ''
Our Bodies, Ourselves ''Our Bodies, Ourselves'' is a book about women's health and sexuality produced by the nonprofit organization Our Bodies Ourselves (originally called the Boston Women's Health Book Collective). First published in 1970, it contains information rel ...
'', was particularly influential in bringing about the new feminist consciousness.


Free school movement


Environmentalism

The 1960s counterculture embraced a
back-to-the-land A back-to-the-land movement is any of various agrarian movements across different historical periods. The common thread is a call for people to take up smallholding and to grow food from the land with an emphasis on a greater degree of self-suffic ...
ethic, and communes of the era often relocated to the country from cities. Influential books of the 1960s included
Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental m ...
's ''
Silent Spring ''Silent Spring'' is an environmental science book by Rachel Carson. Published on September 27, 1962, the book documented the environmental harm caused by the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Carson accused the chemical industry of spreading d ...
'' and
Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...
's ''
The Population Bomb ''The Population Bomb'' is a 1968 book co-authored by Stanford University Professor emeritus Paul R. Ehrlich and Stanford senior researcher emeritus in conservation biology Anne Howland Ehrlich. It predicted worldwide famine due to overpopulatio ...
''. Counterculture environmentalists were quick to grasp the implications of Ehrlich's writings on
overpopulation Overpopulation or overabundance is a phenomenon in which a species' population becomes larger than the carrying capacity of its environment. This may be caused by increased birth rates, lowered mortality rates, reduced predation or large scale m ...
, the Hubbert "
peak oil Peak oil is the hypothetical point in time when the maximum rate of global oil production is reached, after which it is argued that production will begin an irreversible decline. It is related to the distinct concept of oil depletion; while ...
" prediction, and more general concerns over
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...
,
litter Litter consists of waste products that have been discarded incorrectly, without consent, at an unsuitable location. Litter can also be used as a verb; to litter means to drop and leave objects, often man-made, such as aluminum cans, paper cups, ...
, the environmental effects of the Vietnam War, automobile-dependent lifestyles, and
nuclear energy Nuclear energy may refer to: *Nuclear power, the use of sustained nuclear fission or nuclear fusion to generate heat and electricity * Nuclear binding energy, the energy needed to fuse or split a nucleus of an atom *Nuclear potential energy ...
. More broadly they saw that the dilemmas of energy and resource allocation would have implications for geo-politics, lifestyle, environment, and other dimensions of modern life. The "back to nature" theme was already prevalent in the counterculture by the time of the 1969 Woodstock festival, while the first
Earth Day Earth Day is an annual event on April 22 to demonstrate support for environmental protection. First held on April 22, 1970, it now includes a wide range of events coordinated globally by EarthDay.org (formerly Earth Day Network) including 1 b ...
in 1970 was significant in bringing environmental concerns to the forefront of youth culture. At the start of the 1970s, counterculture-oriented publications like the ''
Whole Earth Catalog The ''Whole Earth Catalog'' (WEC) was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand several times a year between 1968 and 1972, and occasionally thereafter, until 1998. The magazine featured essays and articl ...
'' and ''
The Mother Earth News ''Mother Earth News'' is a bi-monthly American magazine that has a circulation of 500,520 . It is published in Topeka, Kansas. Since its founding, ''Mother Earth News'' has promoted renewable energy, recycling, family farms, good agricultural ...
'' were popular, out of which emerged a back to the land movement. The 1960s and early 1970s counterculture were early adopters of practices such as
recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
and
organic farming Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...
long before they became mainstream. The counterculture interest in
ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
progressed well into the 1970s: particularly influential were New Left eco-anarchist
Murray Bookchin Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement, Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ec ...
,
Jerry Mander Jerry Irwin Mander (born May 1, 1936) is an American activist and author, best known for his 1978 book, ''Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television''. In a more recent book, ''The Capitalism Papers'', Mander argues against capitalism as a ...
's criticism of the effects of
television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
on society,
Ernest Callenbach Ernest Callenbach (April 3, 1929 – April 16, 2012) was an American author, film critic, editor, and simple living adherent. He became famous due to his internationally successful semi-utopian novel ''Ecotopia'' (1975). Life and work Born i ...
's novel ''
Ecotopia ''Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston'' is a utopian novel by Ernest Callenbach, published in 1975. The society described in the book is one of the first ecological utopias and was influential on the counterculture and the gr ...
'',
Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include ''Desert Solit ...
's fiction and non-fiction writings, and
E.F. Schumacher Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was a German-British statistician and economist who is best known for his proposals for human-scale, decentralised and appropriate technologies.Biography on the inner dustjacket ...
's economics book ''
Small Is Beautiful ''Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered'' is a collection of essays published in 1973 by German-born British economist E. F. Schumacher. The title "Small Is Beautiful" came from a principle espoused by Schumach ...
''. Also in these years environmentalist global organizations arose, as
Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth t ...
and
World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wor ...
(WWF).


Producerist

The National Farmers Organization (NFO) is a
producerist Producerism is an ideology which holds that those members of society engaged in the production of tangible wealth are of greater benefit to society than, for example, aristocrats who inherit their wealth and status. History Robert Ascher traces ...
movement founded in 1955. It became notorious for being associated with property violence and
threats A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for co ...
committed without official approval of the organization, from a 1964 incident when two members were crushed under the rear wheels of a cattle truck, for orchestrating the withholding of commodities, and for opposition to
co-ops A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
unwilling to withhold. During withholding protests, farmers would purposely destroy food or wastefully slaughter their animals in an attempt to raise prices and gain media exposure. The NFO failed to persuade the US government to establish a quota system as is currently practiced today in the
milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digestion, digest solid food. Immune factors and immune ...
, cheese, eggs and poultry supply management programs in Canada.


Gay liberation

The
Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the
Stonewall Inn The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the s ...
, a gay bar in the
Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...
neighborhood of
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. This is frequently cited as the first instance in US history when people in the gay community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted them, and became the defining event that marked the start of the
gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...
in the United States and around the world.


Culture


Mod subculture

Mod is a
subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
that began in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and spread throughout Great Britain and elsewhere, eventually influencing fashions and trends in other countries, and continues today on a smaller scale. Focused on music and fashion, the subculture has its roots in a small group of stylish
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
-based young men in the late 1950s who were termed ''modernists'' because they listened to
modern jazz Bebop or bop is a style of jazz developed in the early-to-mid-1940s in the United States. The style features compositions characterized by a fast tempo, complex chord progressions with rapid chord changes and numerous changes of key, instrumen ...
. Elements of the mod subculture include fashion (often tailor-made suits); music (including
soul In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being". Etymology The Modern English noun ''soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest attes ...
,
rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...
,
ska Ska (; ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a walki ...
, jazz, and later splintering off into
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
and
freakbeat Freakbeat is a loosely defined subgenre of rock and roll music developed mainly by harder-driving British groups during the Swinging London period of the mid-to late 1960s. The genre bridges British Invasion R&B, beat and psychedelia. Etymolo ...
after the peak Mod era); and motor scooters (usually
Lambretta Lambretta () is the brand name of mainly motor scooters, initially manufactured in Milan, Italy, by Innocenti. The name is derived from the word Lambrate, the suburb of Milan named after the river Lambro which flows through the area, and whe ...
or
Vespa Vespa () is an Italian luxury brand of scooter (motorcycle), scooters and mopeds manufactured by Piaggio. The name means wasp in Italian. The Vespa has evolved from a single model motor scooter manufactured in 1946 by Piaggio & Co. S.p.A. of ...
). The original mod scene was associated with
amphetamine Amphetamine (contracted from alpha- methylphenethylamine) is a strong central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is used in the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), narcolepsy, and obesity. It is also commonly used ...
-fuelled all-night dancing at clubs. During the early to mid-1960s, as mod grew and spread throughout the UK, certain elements of the mod scene became engaged in well-publicised clashes with members of rival subculture, rockers. The mods and rockers conflict led sociologist Stanley Cohen to use the term "
moral panic A moral panic is a widespread feeling of fear, often an irrational one, that some evil person or thing threatens the values, interests, or well-being of a community or society. It is "the process of arousing social concern over an issue", usua ...
" in his study about the two
youth subculture Youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Youth subcultures ...
s, which examined media coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s. By 1965, conflicts between mods and rockers began to subside and mods increasingly gravitated towards pop art and
psychedelia Psychedelia refers to the psychedelic subculture of the 1960s and the psychedelic experience. This includes psychedelic art, psychedelic music and style of dress during that era. This was primarily generated by people who used psychedelic ...
. London became synonymous with fashion, music, and pop culture in these years, a period often referred to as "
Swinging London The Swinging Sixties was a youth-driven cultural revolution that took place in the United Kingdom during the mid-to-late 1960s, emphasising modernity and fun-loving hedonism, with Swinging London as its centre. It saw a flourishing in art, mus ...
". During this time, mod fashions spread to other countries and became popular in the United States and elsewhere—with mod now viewed less as an isolated subculture, but emblematic of the larger youth culture of the era.


Hippies

After the January 14, 1967,
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
in
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
organized by artist Michael Bowen, the media's attention on culture was fully activated. In 1967,
Scott McKenzie Scott McKenzie (born Philip Wallach Blondheim III; January 10, 1939 – August 18, 2012) was an American singer and songwriter who recorded the 1967 hit single and generational anthem " San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)" ...
's rendition of the song "
San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair) "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" is an American pop music song, written by John Phillips, and sung by Scott McKenzie. It was produced and released in May 1967 by Phillips and Lou Adler, who used it to promote their Monterey ...
" brought as many as 100,000 young people from all over the world to celebrate San Francisco's "
Summer of Love The Summer of Love was a social phenomenon that occurred during the summer of 1967, when as many as 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behavior, converged in San Francisco's neighborhood of Haight-Ashbury. ...
". While the song had originally been written by John Phillips of
The Mamas & the Papas The Mamas & the Papas were a folk rock vocal group formed in Los Angeles, California, which recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968. The group was a defining force in the music scene of the counterculture of the 1960s. The group consisted of Am ...
to promote the June 1967
Monterey Pop Festival The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix ...
, it became an instant hit worldwide (#4 in the United States, #1 in Europe) and quickly transcended its original purpose. San Francisco's
flower children Flower child originated as a synonym for hippie, especially among the idealistic young people who gathered in San Francisco and the surrounding area during the Summer of Love in 1967. It was the custom of "flower children" to wear and distribute ...
, also called "hippies" by local newspaper columnist
Herb Caen Herbert Eugene Caen (; April 3, 1916 February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuous love let ...
, adopted new styles of dress, experimented with
psychedelic drug Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science o ...
s, lived communally and developed a vibrant music scene. When people returned home from "The Summer of Love" these styles and behaviors spread quickly from San Francisco and Berkeley to many US and Canadian cities and European capitals. Some hippies formed
communes An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, ...
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 Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
to "
Turn on, tune in, drop out "Turn on, tune in, drop out" is a counterculture-era phrase popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967, Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, ...
", hoped to change society by
dropping out Dropping out refers to leaving high school, college, university or another group for practical reasons, necessities, inability, apathy, or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves. Canada In Canada, most ind ...
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 The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Comm ...
, liberal, intellectual robots." As members of the hippie movement grew older and moderated their lives and their views, and especially after US involvement in the Vietnam War ended in the mid-1970s, the counterculture was largely absorbed by the mainstream, leaving a lasting impact on philosophy, morality, music, art, alternative health and diet, lifestyle and fashion. In addition to a new style of clothing, philosophy, art, music and various views on anti-war, and anti-establishment, some hippies decided to turn away from modern society and re-settle on ranches, or communes. The very first of communes in the United States was on a seven-acre tract of land in southeastern Colorado, named
Drop City Drop City was a counterculture artists' community that formed near the town of Trinidad in southern Colorado in 1960. Abandoned by 1979, Drop City became known as the first rural "hippie commune". Establishment In 1960, the four original foun ...
. According to Timothy Miller, Many of the inhabitants practiced acts like reusing trash and recycled materials to build
geodesic In geometry, a geodesic () is a curve representing in some sense the shortest path ( arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold. The term also has meaning in any differentiable manifold with a connection. ...
domes for shelter and other various purposes, using various drugs like marijuana and LSD, and creating various pieces of Drop Art. After the initial success of Drop City, visitors would take the idea of communes and spread them. Another commune called "The Ranch" was very similar to the culture of Drop City, as well as new concepts like giving children of the commune extensive freedoms known as "children's rights".


Marijuana, LSD, and other recreational drugs

During the 1960s, this second group of casual
lysergic acid diethylamide Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), also known colloquially as acid, is a potent psychedelic drug. Effects typically include intensified thoughts, emotions, and sensory perception. At sufficiently high dosages LSD manifests primarily mental, vi ...
(LSD) users evolved and expanded into a
subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
that extolled the mystical and religious symbolism often engendered by the drug's powerful effects, and advocated its use as a method of raising
consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
. The personalities associated with the subculture, gurus such as Timothy Leary and
psychedelic rock Psychedelic rock is a rock music Music genre, genre that is inspired, influenced, or representative of psychedelia, psychedelic culture, which is centered on perception-altering hallucinogenic drugs. The music incorporated new electronic sound ...
musicians such as the
Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
,
Pink Floyd Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
,
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
,
the Byrds The Byrds () were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1964. The band underwent multiple lineup changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn (known as Jim McGuinn until mid-1967) remaining the sole cons ...
,
Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...
,
the Doors The Doors were an American Rock music, rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential ro ...
, and
the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
, soon attracted a great deal of publicity, generating further interest in LSD. The popularization of LSD outside of the medical world was hastened when individuals such as
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
participated in drug trials and liked what they saw. Tom Wolfe wrote a widely read account of these early days of LSD's entrance into the non-academic world in his book '' The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test'', which documented the cross-country, acid-fueled voyage of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters on the psychedelic bus ''Furthur'' and the Pranksters' later "Acid Test" LSD parties. In 1965,
Sandoz Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loc ...
laboratories stopped its still legal shipments of LSD to the United States for research and psychiatric use, after a request from the US government concerned about its use. By April 1966, LSD use had become so widespread that ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'' magazine warned about its dangers. In December 1966, the
exploitation film An exploitation film is a film that tries to succeed financially by exploiting current trends, niche genres, or lurid content. Exploitation films are generally low-quality "B movies", though some set trends, attract critical attention, become hi ...
''
Hallucination Generation ''Hallucination Generation'' is a 1967 film by Edward Mann. Purportedly intended as a warning against the dangers of pill-popping Sixties hedonism along the lines of 1936's ''Reefer Madness'', the film's primary purpose appears to have been tit ...
'' was released. This was followed by '' The Trip'' in 1967 and ''
Psych-Out ''Psych-Out'' is a 1968 American psychedelic film about hippies, psychedelic music and recreational drugs starring Susan Strasberg, Jack Nicholson (the film's leading man despite being billed under supporting player Dean Stockwell) and Br ...
'' in 1968.


Psychedelic research and experimentation

As most research on psychedelics began in the 1940s and 50s, heavy experimentation made its effect in the 1960s during this era of change and movement. Researchers were gaining acknowledgment and popularity with their promotion of psychedelia. This really anchored the change that counterculture instigators and followers began. Most research was conducted at top collegiate institutes, such as
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
.
Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
and his Harvard research team had hopes for potential changes in society. Their research began with
psilocybin Psilocybin ( , ) is a naturally occurring psychedelic prodrug compound produced by more than 200 species of fungi. The most potent are members of the genus ''Psilocybe'', such as '' P. azurescens'', '' P. semilanceata'', and '' P.&nbs ...
mushrooms and was called the
Harvard Psilocybin Project The Harvard Psilocybin Project was a series of experiments in psychology conducted by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert. The founding board of the project consisted of Leary, Aldous Huxley, David McClelland (Leary's and Alpert's superior at Harvard ...
. In one study known as the
Concord Prison Experiment The Concord Prison Experiment, conducted from 1961 to 1963, was designed to evaluate whether the experiences produced by the psychoactive drug psilocybin, derived from psilocybin mushrooms, combined with psychotherapy, could inspire prisoners to ...
, Leary investigated the potential for psilocybin to reduce
recidivism Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of th ...
in criminals being released from prison. After the research sessions, Leary did a follow-up. He found that "75% of the turned on prisoners who were released had stayed out of jail."Lattin, Don. The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. New York: HarperOne, 2010. Print. He believed he had solved the nation's crime problem. But with many officials skeptical, this breakthrough was not promoted. Because of the personal experiences with these drugs Leary and his many outstanding colleagues, Aldous Huxley (''The Doors of Perception'') and Alan Watts (''The Joyous Cosmology'') believed that these were the mechanisms that could bring peace to not only the nation but the world. As their research continued the media followed them and published their work and documented their behavior, the trend of this counterculture drug experimentation began. Leary made attempts to bring more organized awareness to people interested in the study of psychedelics. He confronted the Senate committee in Washington and recommended for colleges to authorize the conduction of laboratory courses in psychedelics. He noted that these courses would "end the indiscriminate use of LSD and would be the most popular and productive courses ever offered". Although these men were seeking an ultimate enlightenment, reality eventually proved that the potential they thought was there could not be reached, at least in this time. The change they sought for the world had not been permitted by the political systems of all the nations these men pursued their research in. Ram Dass states, "Tim and I actually had a chart on the wall about how soon everyone would be enlightened ... We found out that real change is harder. We downplayed the fact that the psychedelic experience isn't for everyone."


Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters

Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
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 (bus), Furthur''. Beginning in 1959, Kesey had volunteered as a research subject for medical trials financed by the CIA's ''Project MKULTRA, MK ULTRA'' project. These trials tested the effects of LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other psychedelic drugs. After the medical trials, Kesey continued experimenting on his own, and involved many close friends; collectively they became known as the "Merry 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 Pranksters created a direct link between the 1950s Beat Generation and the 1960s psychedelic scene; the bus was driven by Beat icon Neal Cassady, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg was on board for a time, and they dropped in on Cassady's friend, Beat author Jack Kerouac—though Kerouac declined to participate in the Prankster 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. The cross country trip and Prankster experiments were documented in Tom Wolfe's '' The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test'', a masterpiece of New Journalism.


Other psychedelics

Experimentation with LSD, DMT, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, 3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine, MDA, Cannabis (drug), marijuana, and other psychedelic drugs became a major component of 1960s counterculture, influencing philosophy, Psychedelic art, art, music and styles of dress. Jim DeRogatis wrote that peyote, a small cactus containing the psychedelic alkaloid mescaline, was widely available in Austin, Texas, a countercultural hub in the early 1960s.


Sexual revolution

The sexual revolution (also known as a time of "sexual liberation") was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and state (polity), states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
from the 1960s to the 1980s. Birth control, Contraception and Combined oral contraceptive pill, the pill, public nudity, the normalization of premarital sex, homosexuality and alternative forms of sexuality, and the legalization of abortion all followed.


Alternative media

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. The papers also often included comic strips, from which the underground comix were an outgrowth.


Alternative disc sports (Frisbee)

As numbers of young people became alienated from social norms, they resisted and looked for alternatives. The forms of escape and resistance manifest in many ways including social activism, alternative lifestyles, dress, music and alternative recreational activities, including that of throwing a Frisbee. From hippies tossing the Frisbee at festivals and concerts came today's popular disc sports. Disc sports such as Flying disc freestyle, disc freestyle, double disc court, Guts (flying disc game), disc guts, Ultimate (sport), Ultimate and disc golf became this sport's first events.


Avant-garde art and anti-art

The Situationist International was a restricted group of international revolutionaries founded in 1957, and which had its peak in its influence on the unprecedented general strike, general wildcat strikes of May 1968 in France. With their ideas rooted in Marxism and the 20th-century European artistic avant-gardes, they advocated experiences of life being alternative to those admitted by the capitalism, capitalist order, for the fulfillment of human primitive desires and the pursuing of a superior passional quality. For this purpose they suggested and experimented with the ''construction of situations'', namely the setting up of environments favorable for the fulfillment of such desires. Using methods drawn from the arts, they developed a series of experimental fields of study for the construction of such situations, like unitary urbanism and psychogeography. They fought against the main obstacle on the fulfillment of such superior passional living, identified by them in advanced capitalism. Their theoretical work peaked on the highly influential book ''The Society of the Spectacle'' by Guy Debord. Debord argued in 1967 that spectacular features like mass media and
advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...
have a central role in an advanced capitalist society, which is to show a fake reality in order to mask the real capitalist degradation of human life. Raoul Vaneigem wrote ''The Revolution of Everyday Life'' which takes the field of "everyday life" as the ground upon which communication and participation can occur, or, as is more commonly the case, be perverted and abstracted into pseudo-forms. Fluxus (a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow") is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music, visual art, literature, urban planning, architecture, and design. Fluxus is often described as intermedia, a term coined by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins in a famous 1966 essay. Fluxus encouraged a "do-it-yourself" aesthetic, and valued simplicity over complexity. Like Dada before it, Fluxus included a strong current of anti-commercialism and an anti-art sensibility, disparaging the conventional market-driven art world in favor of an artist-centered creative practice. As Fluxus artist Robert Filliou wrote, however, Fluxus differed from Dada in its richer set of aspirations, and the positive social and communitarian aspirations of Fluxus far outweighed the anti-art tendency that also marked the group. In the 1960s, the Dada-influenced art group Black Mask declared that revolutionary art should be "an integral part of life, as in primitive society, and not an appendage to wealth."Hinderer, Eve
Ben Morea: art and anarchism
Black Mask disrupted cultural events in New York by giving made up flyers of art events to the homeless with the lure of free drinks.Stewart Home
"The Assault on Culture: Utopian currents from Lettrisme to Class War"
Introduction to the Lithuanian edition. (Ist edition Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London 1988.) . "In the sixties Black Mask disrupted reified cultural events in New York by making up flyers giving the dates, times and location of art events and giving these out to the homeless with the lure of the free drink that was on offer to the bourgeoisie rather than the lumpen proletariat; I reused the ruse just as effectively in London in the 1990s to disrupt literary events."
After, the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers, Motherfuckers grew out of a combination of Black Mask and another group called Angry Arts. Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers (often referred to as simply "the Motherfuckers", or UAW/MF) was an anarchist affinity group based in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
.


Music

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
's early career as a protest singer had been inspired by his hero Woody Guthrie, and his iconic lyrics and protest anthems helped propel the American folk music revival, Folk Revival of the 1960s, which was arguably the first major sub-movement of the Counterculture. Although Dylan was first popular for his protest music. the song Mr. Tambourine Man saw a stylistic shift in Dylan's work, from topical to abstract and imaginative, included some of the first uses of surrealistic imagery in popular music and has been viewed as a call to drugs such as Lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD. The Beach Boys' 1966 album ''Pet Sounds'' served as a major source of inspiration for other contemporary acts, most notably directly inspiring the Beatles' ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band''. The single "Good Vibrations" soared to number one globally, completely changing the perception of what a record could be. It was during this period that the highly anticipated album ''Smile (The Beach Boys album), Smile'' was to be released. However, the project collapsed and The Beach Boys released a stripped down and reimagined version called ''Smiley Smile'', which failed to make a big commercial impact but was also highly influential, most notably on The Who's Pete Townshend. The Beatles went on to become the most prominent commercial exponents of the "psychedelic revolution" (e.g., ''Revolver (Beatles album), Revolver'', ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' and ''Magical Mystery Tour'') in the late 1960s. Detroit's MC5 also came out of the underground rock music scene of the late 1960s. They introduced a more aggressive evolution of garage rock which was often fused with sociopolitical and countercultural lyrics of the era, such as in the song "Motor City Is Burning" (a John Lee Hooker cover adapting the story of the Detroit Race Riot (1943), Detroit Race Riot of 1943 to the Detroit riot of 1967). MC5 had ties to radical leftist organizations such as " Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers" and John Sinclair's White Panther Party,. Another hotbed of the 1960s counterculture was Austin, Texas, with two of the era's legendary music venues-the Vulcan Gas Company and the Armadillo World Headquarters-and musical talent like
Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...
, the 13th Floor Elevators, Shiva's Headband, the Conqueroo, and, later, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Austin was also home to a large New Left activist movement, one of the earliest underground papers, The Rag, and cutting edge graphic artists like The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers creator Gilbert Shelton, underground comix pioneer Jaxon (cartoonist), Jack Jackson (Jaxon), and surrealist armadillo artist Jim Franklin (artist), Jim Franklin. The 1960s was also an era of rock festivals, which played an important role in spreading the counterculture across the US. The
Monterey Pop Festival The Monterey International Pop Festival was a three-day music festival held June 16 to 18, 1967, at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by the Jimi Hendrix ...
, which launched Hendrix's career in the US, was one of the first of these festivals. The 1969 Woodstock, Woodstock Festival in New York state became a symbol of the movement, although the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival drew a larger crowd. Some believe the era came to an abrupt end with the infamous Altamont Free Concert held by the Rolling Stones, in which heavy-handed security from the Hells Angels resulted in the stabbing of an audience member, apparently in self-defense, as the show descended into chaos. The 1960s saw the protest song gain a sense of political self-importance, with Phil Ochs's "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and Country Joe and the Fish's "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die-Rag" among the many anti-war anthems that were important to the era. Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Although the music produced by free jazz composers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s. Each in their own way, free jazz musicians attempted to alter, extend, or break down the conventions of jazz, often by discarding hitherto invariable features of jazz, such as fixed chord changes or tempos. While usually considered experimental and avant-garde, free jazz has also oppositely been conceived as an attempt to return jazz to its "primitive", often religious roots, and emphasis on collective improvisation. Free jazz is strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane. Other important pioneers included Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Joe Maneri and Sun Ra. Although today "free jazz" is the generally used term, many other terms were used to describe the loosely defined movement, including "avant-garde", "energy music" and "The New Thing". During its early and mid-60s heyday, much free jazz was released by established labels such as Prestige, Blue Note and Impulse, as well as independents such as ESP Disk and BYG Actuel. Free improvisation or ''free music'' is musical improvisation, improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician(s) involved. The term can refer to both a technique (employed by any musician in any genre) and as a recognizable genre in its own right. Free improvisation, as a genre of music, developed in the US and Europe in the mid- to late 1960s, largely as an outgrowth of free jazz and contemporary music, modern classical musics. None of its primary exponents can be said to be famous within mainstream; however, in experimental circles, a number of free musicians are well known, including saxophonists Evan Parker, Anthony Braxton, Peter Brötzmann and John Zorn, drummer Christian Lillinger, trombonist George E. Lewis, guitarists Derek Bailey (guitarist), Derek Bailey, Henry Kaiser (musician), Henry Kaiser and Fred Frith and the improvising groups The Art Ensemble of Chicago and AMM (group), AMM. AllMusic Guide states that "until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate". The term, "jazz-rock" (or "jazz/rock") is often used as a synonym for the term "Fusion jazz, jazz fusion". However, some make a distinction between the two terms. The Free Spirits have sometimes been cited as the earliest jazz-rock band. During the late 1960s, at the same time that jazz musicians were experimenting with rock rhythms and electric instruments, rock groups such as Cream (band), Cream and the
Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California. The band is known for its eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, Folk music, folk, country music, country, jazz, bluegrass music, bluegrass, ...
were "beginning to incorporate elements of jazz into their music" by "experimenting with extended free-form improvisation". Other "groups such as Blood, Sweat & Tears directly borrowed harmonic, melodic, rhythmic and instrumentational elements from the jazz tradition". The rock groups that drew on jazz ideas (like Soft Machine, Colosseum (band), Colosseum, Caravan (band), Caravan, Nucleus (band), Nucleus, Chicago (band), Chicago, Spirit (band), Spirit and Frank Zappa) turned the blend of the two styles with electric instruments.N. Tesser, ''The Playboy Guide to Jazz'', (Plume, 1998), , P. 178 Since rock often emphasized directness and simplicity over virtuosity, jazz-rock generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late 1960s and early 70s: psychedelia, progressive rock, and the singer-songwriter movement. Miles Davis' ''Bitches Brew'' sessions, recorded in August 1969 and released the following year, mostly abandoned jazz's usual swing beat in favor of a rock music, rock-style Beat (music)#Backbeat, backbeat anchored by electric bass grooves. The recording "mixed free jazz blowing by a large ensemble with electronic keyboards and guitar, plus a dense mix of percussion." Davis also drew on the rock influence by playing his trumpet through electronic effects and pedals. While the album gave Davis a gold record, the use of electric instruments and rock beats created a great deal of consternation amongst some more conservative jazz critics.


Film

(See also: List of films related to the hippie subculture) The counterculture was not only affected by cinema, but was also instrumental in the provision of era-relevant content and talent for the film industry. ''
Bonnie and Clyde Bonnie Elizabeth Parker (October 1, 1910May 23, 1934) and Clyde Chestnut (Champion) Barrow (March 24, 1909May 23, 1934) were an American criminal couple who traveled the Central United States with their gang during the Great Depression. The co ...
'' struck a chord with the youth as "the alienation of the young in the 1960s was comparable to the director's image of the 1930s." Films of this time also focused on the changes happening in the world. A sign of this was the visibility that the hippie subculture gained in various mainstream and underground media. Hippie exploitation films are 1960s exploitation films about the hippie counterculture with stereotypical situations associated with the movement such as
marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...
and LSD use, sex and wild psychedelic parties. Examples include ''The Love-ins'', ''
Psych-Out ''Psych-Out'' is a 1968 American psychedelic film about hippies, psychedelic music and recreational drugs starring Susan Strasberg, Jack Nicholson (the film's leading man despite being billed under supporting player Dean Stockwell) and Br ...
'', '' The Trip'', and ''Wild in the Streets''. The musical play ''Hair (musical), Hair'' shocked stage audiences with full-frontal nudity. Dennis Hopper's "Road Trip" adventure ''
Easy Rider ''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...
'' (1969) became accepted as one of the landmark films of the era. ''Medium Cool'' portrayed the 1968 Democratic Convention alongside the 1968 Chicago police riots. Inaugurated by the New Andy Warhol Garrick Theatre, 1969 release of Andy Warhol ''Blue Movie'', the phenomenon of Erotic art, adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of ''The New York Times'', as "Golden Age of Porn#"Porno chic", porno chic", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn, began, for the first time, in modern American culture. According to award-winning author Toni Bentley, Radley Metzger 1976 film ''The Opening of Misty Beethoven'', based on the play ''Pygmalion (play), Pygmalion'' by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, ''My Fair Lady (film), My Fair Lady''), is considered the "crown jewel" of this 'Golden Age of Porn, Golden Age'. In France the french new wave, New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of Cinema of France, French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of classical cinematic form and their spirit of youthful iconoclasm and is an example of European art cinema. Many also engaged in their work with the social and political upheavals of the era, making their radical experiments with editing, visual style and narrative part of a general break with the conservative paradigm. The Left Bank, or ''Rive Gauche'', group is a contingent of filmmakers associated with the French New Wave, first identified as such by Richard Roud."The Left Bank Revisited: Marker, Resnais, Varda", ''Harvard Film Archive''

access-date: August 16, 2008.
The corresponding "right bank" group comprises the more famous and financially successful New Wave directors associated with ''Cahiers du cinéma'' (Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard). Left Bank directors include Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Agnès Varda. Roud described a distinctive "fondness for a kind of Bohemianism, Bohemian life and an impatience with the conformity of the Right Bank, a high degree of involvement in literature and the plastic arts, and a consequent interest in experimental filmmaking", as well as an identification with the political left wing, left. Other film "new waves" from around the world associated with the 1960s are New German Cinema, Czechoslovak New Wave, Brazilian Cinema Novo and
Japanese New Wave The is a group of loosely-connected Japanese filmmakers during the late 1950s and into the 1970s. Although they did not make up a coherent movement, these artists shared a rejection of traditions and conventions of classical Japanese cinema in ...
. During the 1960s, the term "art film" began to be much more widely used in the United States than in Europe. In the US, the term is often defined very broadly, to include foreign-language (non-English) auteur theory, "auteur" films, independent films, experimental films, documentaries and short films. In the 1960s "art film" became a euphemism in the US for racy Italian and French B-movies. By the 1970s, the term was used to describe pornography, sexually explicit European films with artistic structure such as the Swedish film ''I Am Curious (Yellow)''. The 1960s was an important period in art film; the release of a number of groundbreaking films giving rise to the European art cinema which had countercultural traits in filmmakers such as Michelangelo Antonioni, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Luis Buñuel and Bernardo Bertolucci.


Technology

Cultural historians—such as Theodore Roszak (scholar), Theodore Roszak in his 1986 essay "From Satori to Silicon Valley" and John Markoff in his book ''What the Dormouse Said'', have pointed out that many of the early pioneers of personal computing emerged from within the West Coast counterculture. Many early computing and networking pioneers, after discovering LSD and roaming the campuses of UC Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT in the late 1960s and early 1970s, would emerge from this caste of social "misfits" to shape the modern world of technology, especially in Silicon Valley.


Religion, spirituality and the occult

Many hippies rejected mainstream organized religion in favor of a more personal spiritual experience, often drawing on indigenous and folk beliefs. If they adhered to mainstream faiths, hippies were likely to embrace Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, Unitarian Universalism and the restorationist Christianity of the Jesus Movement. Some hippies embraced neo-paganism, especially Wicca. Wicca is a witchcraft religion which became more prominent beginning in 1951, with the repeal of the 1735 Witchcraft Act, Witchcraft Act of 1735, after which Gerald Gardner and then others such as Charles Cardell and Cecil Williamson began publicising their own versions of the Craft. Gardner and others never used the term "Wicca" as a religious identifier, simply referring to the "witch cult", "witchcraft", and the "Old Religion". However, Gardner did refer to witches as "the Wica". During the 1960s, the name of the religion normalised to "Wicca". Gardner's tradition, later termed Gardnerian Wicca, Gardnerianism, soon became the dominant form in England and spread to other parts of the British Isles. Following Gardner's death in 1964, the Craft continued to grow unabated despite sensationalism and negative portrayals in British tabloids, with new traditions being propagated by figures like Robert Cochrane (witch), Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and most importantly Alex Sanders (Wiccan), Alex Sanders, whose Alexandrian Wicca, which was predominantly based upon Gardnerian Wicca, albeit with an emphasis placed on ceremonial magic, spread quickly and gained much media attention. In his 1991 book, ''Hippies and American Values'', Timothy Miller described the hippie ethos as essentially a "religious movement" whose goal was to transcend the limitations of mainstream religious institutions. "Like many dissenting religions, the hippies were enormously hostile to the religious institutions of the dominant culture, and they tried to find new and adequate ways to do the tasks the dominant religions failed to perform." In his seminal, contemporaneous work, ''The Hippie Trip'', author Lewis Yablonsky notes that those who were most respected in hippie settings were the spiritual leaders, the so-called "high priests" who emerged during that era. One such hippie "high priest" was San Francisco State College instructor Stephen Gaskin. Beginning in 1966, Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" eventually outgrew the lecture hall, and attracted 1,500 hippie followers in an open discussion of spiritual values, drawing from Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu teachings. In 1970, Gaskin founded a Tennessee community called The Farm (Tennessee), The Farm, and he still lists his religion as "Hippie". Timothy Leary was an American psychologist and writer, known for his advocacy of psychedelic drugs. On September 19, 1966, Leary founded the League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion declaring LSD as its holy sacrament, in part as an unsuccessful attempt to maintain legal status for the use of LSD and other psychedelics for the religion's adherents based on a "freedom of religion" argument. ''The Psychedelic Experience'' was the inspiration for John Lennon's song "Tomorrow Never Knows" in The Beatles' album ''Revolver (The Beatles album), Revolver''. He published a pamphlet in 1967 called ''Start Your Own Religion'' to encourage just that (see below under "writings") and was invited to attend the January 14, 1967
Human Be-In The Human Be-In was an event held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park Polo Fields on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's Summer of Love, which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture a ...
a gathering of 30,000
hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
s in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park In speaking to the group, he coined the famous phrase "
Turn on, tune in, drop out "Turn on, tune in, drop out" is a counterculture-era phrase popularized by Timothy Leary in 1966. In 1967, Leary spoke at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and phrased the famous words, "Turn on, ...
". The ''Principia Discordia'' is the founding text of Discordianism written by Greg Hill (Malaclypse the Younger) and Kerry Wendell Thornley (Lord Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst). It was originally published under the title "Principia Discordia or How The West Was Lost" in a limited edition of five copies in 1965. The title, literally meaning "Discordant Principles", is in keeping with the tendency of Latin to prefer hypotactic grammatical arrangements. In English, one would expect the title to be "Principles of Discord".


Criticism and legacy

The lasting impact (including unintended consequences), creative output, and general legacy of the counterculture era continue to be actively discussed, debated, despised and celebrated. Even the notions of when the counterculture subsumed the Beat Generation, when it gave way to the successor generation, and what happened in between are open for debate. According to notable UK Underground and counterculture author Barry Miles, "It seemed to me that the Seventies was when most of the things that people attribute to the sixties really happened: this was the age of extremes, people took more drugs, had longer hair, weirder clothes, had more sex, protested more violently and encountered more opposition from the establishment. It was the era of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll, as Ian Dury said. The countercultural explosion of the 1960s really only involved a few thousand people in the UK and perhaps ten times that in the USA—largely because of opposition to the Vietnam war, whereas in the Seventies the ideas had spread out across the world. A Columbia University teaching unit on the counterculture era notes: "Although historians disagree over the influence of the counterculture on American politics and society, most describe the counterculture in similar terms. Virtually all authors—for example, on the right, Robert Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, ''Slouching Toward Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline'' (New York: Regan Books,1996) and, on the left, Todd Gitlin in ''The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage'' (New York: Bantam Books, 1987)—characterize the counterculture as self-indulgent, childish, irrational, narcissistic, and even dangerous. Even so, many liberal and leftist historians find constructive elements in it, while those on the right tend not to." Screen legend John Wayne equated aspects of 1960s social programs with the rise of the welfare state, "I know all about that. In the late Twenties, when I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist myself—but not when I left. The average college kid idealistically wishes everybody could have ice cream and cake for every meal. But as he gets older and gives more thought to his and his fellow man's responsibilities, he finds that it can't work out that way—that some people just won't carry their load ... I believe in welfare—a welfare work program. I don't think a fella should be able to sit on his backside and receive welfare. I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living. I'd like to know why they make excuses for cowards who spit in the faces of the police and then run behind the judicial sob sisters. I can't understand these people who carry placards to save the life of some criminal, yet have no thought for the innocent victim." Former liberal Democrat Ronald Reagan, who later became a conservative Governor of California and 40th President of the US, remarked about one group of protesters carrying signs, "The last bunch of pickets were carrying signs that said 'Make love, not war.' The only trouble was they didn't look capable of doing either." The "generation gap" between the affluent young and their often poverty-scarred parents was a critical component of 1960s culture. In an interview with journalist
Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...
during the 1968 US presidential campaign, soon-to-be First Lady Pat Nixon exposed the generational chasm in worldview between Steinem, 20 years her junior, and herself after Steinem probed Mrs. Nixon as to her youth, role models, and lifestyle. A hardscrabble child of the Great Depression, Pat Nixon told Steinem, "I never had time to think about things like that, who I wanted to be, or who I admired, or to have ideas. I never had time to dream about being anyone else. I had to work. I haven't just sat back and thought of myself or my ideas or what I wanted to do ... I've kept working. I don't have time to worry about who I admire or who I identify with. I never had it easy. I'm not at all like you ... all those people who had it easy." In economic terms, it has been contended that the counterculture really only amounted to creating new marketing segments for the "hip" crowd. Even before the counterculture movement reached its peak of influence, the concept of the adoption of socially-responsible policies by establishment corporations was discussed by economist and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, Nobel laureate Milton Friedman (1962): "Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundation of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. This is a fundamentally subversive doctrine. If businessmen do have a social responsibility other than making maximum profits for stockholders, how are they to know what it is? Can self-selected private individuals decide what the social interest is?" In 2003, author and former Free Speech activist Greil Marcus was quoted, "What happened four decades ago is history. It's not just a blip in the history of trends. Whoever shows up at a march against war in Iraq, it always takes place with a memory of the efficacy and joy and gratification of similar protests that took place in years before ... It doesn't matter that there is no counterculture, because counterculture of the past gives people a sense that their own difference matters." When asked about the prospects of the counterculture movement moving forward in the digital age, former Grateful Dead lyricist and self-styled "cyberlibertarian" John Perry Barlow said, "I started out as a teenage beatnik and then became a hippie and then became a cyberpunk. And now I'm still a member of the counterculture, but I don't know what to call that. And I'd been inclined to think that that was a good thing, because once the counterculture in America gets a name then the media can coopt it, and the advertising industry can turn it into a marketing foil. But you know, right now I'm not sure that it is a good thing, because we don't have any flag to rally around. Without a name there may be no coherent movement." During the era, conservative students objected to the counterculture and found ways to celebrate their conservative ideals by reading books like J. Edgar Hoover's ''A Study of Communism'', joining student organizations like the College Republicans, and organizing Fraternities and sororities, Greek events which reinforced gender norms. Free speech advocate and social anthropologist Jentri Anders observed that a number of freedoms were endorsed within a countercultural community in which she lived 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 some in the counterculture wished to modify children's education so that it didn't discourage, but rather encouraged, "aesthetic sense, love of nature, passion for music, desire for reflection, or strongly marked independence." In 2007, Merry Prankster Carolyn Adams, Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia commented, "I see remnants of that movement everywhere. It's sort of like the nuts in Ben and Jerry's ice cream—it's so thoroughly mixed in, we sort of expect it. The nice thing is that eccentricity is no longer so foreign. We've embraced diversity in a lot of ways in this country. I do think it's done us a tremendous service." The 1990 Oscar-nominated documentary film ''Berkeley in the Sixties'' highlighted what Owen Gleiberman from ''Entertainment Weekly'' noted:


In popular culture

Films like ''Return of the Secaucus 7'' and ''The Big Chill (film), The Big Chill'' tackled life of the idealistic Boomers from the countercultural 1960s to their older selfs in the 80s alongside the TV series ''thirtysomething''. That generation's nostalgia for said decade was also criticized as well.Dullea, Georgia (June 4, 1989)
"3 Men of the '80s Say No to Nostalgia"
''Orlando Sentinel''.
Panos Cosmatos, director of the 2010 film ''Beyond the Black Rainbow'', admits a dislike for Baby Boomers' New Age spiritual ideals, an issue he addresses in his film. The use of psychedelic drugs for mind-expansion purposes is also explored, although Cosmatos' take on it is "dark and disturbing", a "brand of psychedelia that stands in direct opposition to the flower child, Psilocybin mushroom, magic mushroom peace trip" wrote a reviewer describing one of the characters who happened to be a Boomer:


Key figures

The following people are well known for their involvement in 1960s era counterculture. Some are key incidental or contextual figures, such as Beat Generation figures who also participated directly in the later counterculture era. The primary area(s) of each figure's notability are indicated, per these figures' Wikipedia pages. This section is not intended be exhaustive, but rather a representative cross section of individuals active within the larger movement. Although many of the people listed are known for civil rights activism, some figures whose primary notability was within the realm of the Civil Rights Movement are listed elsewhere. This section is not intended to create associations between any of the listed figures beyond what is documented elsewhere. (see also: List of civil rights leaders; New Left#Key figures, Key figures of the New Left; Timeline of 1960s counterculture). * Miguel Algarín (born 1941) (poet, writer) * Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) (athlete, activist, conscientious objector) * Saul Alinsky (1909–1972) (author, activist) * Ram Dass, Richard Alpert (professor, spiritual teacher) * Bill Ayers (born 1944) (activist, professor) * Joan Baez (born 1941) (musician, activist) * Dennis Banks (1937–2017) (activist, teacher, and author) * Sonny Barger (born 1938) (Hells Angel) * Syd Barrett (1946–2006) (musician) * Walter Bowart (1939–2007) (newspaper publisher) * Stewart Brand (born 1938) (environmentalist, author) * Lenny Bruce (1925–1966) (comedian, social critic) * Eric Burdon (born 1941) (singer) * William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) (author) * Jim Cairns (1914–2003) (anti-war politician) * George Carlin (1937–2008) (comedian, social critic) *
Rachel Carson Rachel Louise Carson (May 27, 1907 – April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist, writer, and conservationist whose influential book ''Silent Spring'' (1962) and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental m ...
(1907–1964) (author, environmentalist) * Neal Cassady (1926–1968) (Merry Prankster, literary inspiration) * Cesar Chavez (1927–1993) (labor leader, community organizer, and activist) * Cheech & Chong (comedians, social critics) * Jesús Colón (1901–1974) (writer) * Peter Coyote (born 1941) (Diggers (theater), Digger, actor) * David Crosby (born 1941) (musician) * Robert Crumb (born 1943) (underground comix artist) * David Dellinger (1915–2004) (pacifist, activist) *
Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member of ...
(born 1944) (communist, activist) * Rennie Davis (born 1941) (activist, community organizer) * Emile de Antonio (1919–1989) (documentary filmmaker) * Bernardine Dohrn (born 1942) (activist) *
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
(born 1941) (musician) * Daniel Ellsberg (born 1931) (whistleblower) * Sandra María Esteves (born 1948) (poet and graphic artist) * Bob Fass (1933–2021) (radio host) *
Betty Friedan Betty Friedan ( February 4, 1921 – February 4, 2006) was an American feminist writer and activist. A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, her 1963 book ''The Feminine Mystique'' is often credited with sparking the se ...
(1921–2006) (feminist, author) * Jane Fonda (born 1937) (actress, activist) *
Peter Fonda Peter Henry Fonda (February 23, 1940 – August 16, 2019) was an American actor. He was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda. He was a prominent figure in the counterculture of the 1960s. Fond ...
(1940–2019) (actor, activist) * Jerry Garcia (1942–1995) (musician) * Stephen Gaskin (1935–2014) (author, activist, hippie) * Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) (beat poet, activist) * Todd Gitlin (born 1943) (activist) * Dick Gregory (1932–2017) (comedian, social critic, author, activist) * Paul Goodman (writer), Paul Goodman (1911–1972) (novelist, playwright, poet) * Wavy Gravy (born 1936) (hippie, activist) * Bill Graham (promoter), Bill Graham (1931–1991) (concert promoter) * Germaine Greer (born 1939) (feminist, author) *
Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quoted ...
(1928–1967) (Marxist guerilla, revolutionary symbol) * Alan Haber (born 1936) (activist) * Tom Hayden (1939–2016) (activist, politician) * Hugh Hefner (1926–2017) (publisher) * Chet Helms (1942–2005) (music manager, concert/event promoter) *
Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
(1942–1970) (musician) *
Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...
(1936–1989) (Yippie, author) * John Hopkins (political activist), John 'Hoppy' Hopkins (1937–2015) (publisher, activist, photographer) * Dennis Hopper (1936–2010) (actor, director) * Dolores Huerta (born 1930) (labor leader and activist) * Yuji Ichioka (1936–2002) (historian and activist) * Mick Jagger (born 1943) (singer) * Brian Jones (1942–1969) (musician) *
Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known Rock music, rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage ...
(1943–1970) (singer) * Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) (author, early counterculture critic) *
Ken Kesey Ken Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. Kesey was born in ...
(1935–2001) (author, Merry Prankster) * Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014) (activist) * Paul Krassner (1932–2019) (author) * William Kunstler (1919–1995) (attorney, activist) *
Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a her ...
(1920–1996) (professor, LSD advocate) * John Lennon (1940–1980) and Yoko Ono (born 1933) (musicians, artists, activists) * Norman Mailer (1923–2007) (journalist, author, activist) * Charles Manson (1934–2017) (conspirator to mass murder) * Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) (anti-war politician) * Paul McCartney (born 1942) (Musician) * Michael McClure (born 1932) (poet) * Terence McKenna (1946–2000) (author, Marijuana, Psilocybin, DMT advocate) * Russell Means (1939–2012) (activist, actor, writer and musician) * Jesús Papoleto Meléndez (born 1950) (poet, playwright, teacher, and activist) *
Barry Miles Barry Miles (born 21 February 1943) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeare ...
(born 1943) (author, impresario) * Madalyn Murray O'Hair (1919–1995) (atheist, activist) * Jim Morrison (1943–1971) (singer, songwriter, poet) * Ralph Nader (born 1934) (consumer advocate, author) * Graham Nash (born 1942) (musician, activist) * Paul Newman (1925–2008) (actor, activist) * Jack Nicholson (born 1937) (screenwriter, actor) * Phil Ochs (1940–1976) (protest/topical singer) * Pedro Pietri (1944–2004) (poet and playwright) * Miguel Piñero (1946–1988) (playwright, actor) * Richard Pryor (1940–2005) (comedian, social critic) * Keith Richards (born 1943) (musician) * Bimbo Rivas (1939–1992) (actor, community activist, director, playwright, poet, and teacher) * Jerry Rubin (1938–1994) (Yippie, activist) * Mark Rudd (born 1947) (activist) * Ed Sanders (born 1939) (musician, activist) * Mario Savio (1942–1996) (free speech/student rights activist) * John Searle (born 1932) (professor, free speech advocate) * Pete Seeger (1919–2014) (musician, activist) * John Sinclair (born 1941) (poet, activist) * Grace Slick (born 1939) (singer, artist) * Gary Snyder (born 1930) (poet, writer, environmentalist) * Smothers Brothers (musicians, TV performers, activists) * Owsley Stanley (1935–2011) (drug culture chemist) *
Gloria Steinem Gloria Marie Steinem (; born March 25, 1934) is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism Second-wave feminism was a period of feminist activity that began in ...
(born 1934) (feminist, publisher) * Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) (journalist, author) * Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) (author, pacifist, humanist) * Andy Warhol (1928–1987) (artist) * Leonard Weinglass (1933–2011) (attorney) * Alan Watts (1915–1973) (philosopher) * Neil Young (born 1945) (musician, activist)


See also

* Beatnik * Bomb Culture * Flower power * Freak scene * Free love * Generation X * List of underground newspapers of the 1960s counterculture * Love-in * Mod (subculture) * Non-conformists of the 1930s * Protests of 1968 * Timeline of 1960s counterculture * War on Drugs * Yé-yé


References


Works cited

* * * . *


Further reading

* * * * Roche, Nancy McGuire, "The Spectacle of Gender: Representations of Women in British and American Cinema of the Nineteen-Sixties" (PhD dissertation. Middle Tennessee State University, 2011). DA3464539. * * Street, Joe, "Dirty Harry's San Francisco", ''The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics, and Culture'', 5 (June 2012), 1–21. * * * * * * * * *


External links


Lisa Law Photographic Exhibition at Smithsonian Institution (with commentary)

John Hoyland, ''Power to the People'', The Guardian, 15 March 2008





Online archive of underground publications from the 1960s counterculture

Scott Stephenson (2014) LSD and the American Counterculture, ''Burgmann Journal''

The Peanuts Club - a small part of the Sixties counter-culture

Collection: "U.S. Civil Rights Movement"
from the University of Michigan Museum of Art {{DEFAULTSORT:Counterculture Of The 1960s Counterculture of the 1960s, 1963 establishments in the United States 1960s 1974 disestablishments in the United States 1970s Anti-war protests British Invasion Counterculture Pacifism