Causes of the Counter-Culture

1231 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Importance of society

Causes of the Counter-Culture As the 1950’s rolled along and the 1960’s came into effect, the world was thrown into a topspin that would soon define every generation of youths. As the trends changed and the music got more complex a deeper metamorphosis was taking place inside every city and every person. To develop a counterculture in the 1960’s there had to be new ideas circulating that were counter-norm. These ideas were not developed right away for any one reason, though. Just like the times, the causes for this counter-culture were far more complex than anyone had seen before in the 20th century. Some could say it was because of a civil rights call or say it was because of the drugs, but I just don’t know if anyone could really pin it to one key cause. World War II was happening as the 1950’s were happening and it soon drew to a close. This brought more men home from the army and thus led to the “Baby boom.” The baby boom was started as part of a security aspect for if there was another war there would still be a child to carry on the name. However, many men from the army just missed their wives and decided to have a few kids. This was a big impact on the 1960’s because those youths involved in the baby boom were starting to become adolescents and young adults as the 1960’s counterculture ideas started. Another aspect of this baby boom was that they didn’t really recognize the hard work that their father had to endure to provide them with a good life. They saw everything getting better, but never understood that things would fall apart if you let it get that way. MacArtheism, an idea in the United States history when everyone was suspected to be a communist, sparked paranoia in everyon... ... middle of paper ... ...an that everyone from this culture could actually experience love, peace, and community for three days. Despite the rain, lack of toiletries and toilets, and lack of food most of the youth at the festival stayed throughout the whole thing. This along with many other things had opened up the youths’ eyes about a near perfect generation and about love. Each generation after the 1960’s has been compared to that generation. Most generations are trying to rekindle those feelings brought around by the 1960’s. Unluckily it has brought around a resurgence of those hard drugs that remain prevalent in the 21st century now. The music has also had a resurgence that has brought around the Grateful Dead and bands influenced by them like Phish, Moe, and Acoustic Hooka. All generations wish to strive to be more like that age when things seemed golden or was it a flashback?

Show More
Related

  • Sixties: Years That Shaped A Generation Summary

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    The emergence of the American counter culture in the 1960s was directly connected to the youth of the generation. They vehemently opposed fundamental economic, social, and political doctrines, which they believed previous generations of Americans blindly accepted. The anti-establishment crusade of the counter culture created a Civil War like divide with in the country between traditionalist and reformist. Because the cultural movement was led by young people who opposed authority, traditionalist belittled reformist by attaching a stigma of rebellious adolescent behavior to their cause. Traditionalist ignored the core message of social

    Read More

  • McCarthyism and the Media

    2469 Words  | 5 Pages

    The insistence upon normality and conformity was also portrayed metaphorically in numerous Sci-Fi movies of the time which exemplified xenophobia, the hatred or fear of strangers or foreigners or of anything strange or foreign. The ideas promoted by McCarthyism and the anti-communistic sentiment of the times were meant to push people away from non-conventional ways of thinking. Anything that was the slightest bit left or radical or even new could be construed as communistic. After Russia’s rejection of the Marshall Plan, a strong wave of communist fear began to sweep the nation and was being promoted by the U.S. government and the media. The early development of the Russian nuclear weapon brought grounds for suspicions of leaked information and the discovery and conviction of espionage for the Rosenbergs only fanned the flames of fear.

    Read More

  • The Impact of the Hippie on American Society

    2364 Words  | 5 Pages

    American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies’ solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely.

    Read More

  • Red Scare Essay

    2171 Words  | 5 Pages

    Former U.S. President Richard Nixon once said, “Communism is never sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.” From 1919 – 1921, a hysteria over the perceived threat of communism spread like wildfire across the nation. Known as the First Red Scare, the widespread fear of Bolshevism and anarchism quickly invaded the infrastructure of the U.S. government and radically influenced the American people. American citizens, such as Sacco and Vanzetti, were convicted and found crimes that evidence showed otherwise only because they supported anarchism. The US government arrested and deported radicals only because of their political standing. Although The First Red Scare may have begun as a cultural movement, private business owners actually catalyzed and facilitated the wide spread hysteria over communism.

    Read More

  • The Hippie and Other Movements in The 1970s

    1962 Words  | 4 Pages

    The 60s was the period of time when the baby boomers began to grow up and supplement their own ideas. The post World War II Baby Boom created 70 million teenagers for the sixties. This youth swayed fashion into their own favor by moving away from the conservative fifties. Also the fads and the politics of the decade were also influenced by the new generation.

    Read More

  • The Red Scare

    1068 Words  | 3 Pages

    The First and Second Red Scare of the United States paved the way for a long standing fear of communism and proved to be one of America’s largest periods of mass hysteria. Throughout the years authors and analysts have studied and formed expository albeit argumentative books and articles in an attempt to further understand this period of time; the mindset held during this period however is shown to be completely different compared to now.

    Read More

  • The Causes of McCarthyism

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    The attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...

    Read More

  • The Counterculture Of The Late 60's

    802 Words  | 2 Pages

    The counterculture of the late 60’s on up to 1980 is prevalent to the history of media. New social forms arose, including the pop music of the British band the Beatles and the simultaneous rise of hippie culture. As the era continued, a vibrant youth subculture which emphasized creativity, experimentation and new manifestations of nonconformist/mellow lifestyles emerged. This emerging era influenced the media industry heavily. This short time frame in history was a definite media revolution. This era commercialized rock music, along with disco funk among other genres, the game show and variety show era, as well as popularizing mass media through magazines.

    Read More

  • Eclecticism Essay

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    With the post war baby boom of the 1940s resulting in a huge shift in age demographic, the 60s became a decade belonging to the new wave of youths. Liberated and hedonistic, this affluent generation shunned the values of their parents,

    Read More

  • Counterculture is a Fraud

    1352 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, not all counterculture movements have failed. Perhaps the three most cited examples of counterculture making a more than negligible impact are the rise of rock and roll music and electric guitars in the early fifties; the hippie, anti-war and free love movements of the late sixties; and the rise of grunge music, along with the attitude of rebellion and freedom of youth in the early nineties. These three movements were anything but failures: they all gave rise to icons – the Elvis Presleys, the Jimi Hendrixes, the Kurt Cobains – who are still revered today; and they all had a transformative impact on society, garnering mass media attention, massive followings, perhaps even bringing change among the masses, and creating ripples which emanated throughout society for years afterwards.

    Read More

  • Sexual Irreverence in Modern America

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    The 1950’s was a conservative period of time. The expectations of men and women were set very high. Females were supposed to dress and act very ladylike and men had a very simple but elegant style that consisted of a suit and tie. In the 1950’s, premarital sex was not accepted and if a young woman were to find herself pregnant she would be sent away or put into a special school for girls. After this conservative era, the free love 60’s followed. What caused the shift in attitudes toward peace, love and rock-n-roll?

    Read More

  • The Counterculture

    696 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the sixties, Americans saw the rise of the counterculture. The counterculture, which was a group of movements focused on achieving personal and cultural liberation, was embraced by the decade’s young Americans. Because many Americans were members of the different movements in the counterculture, the counterculture influenced American society. As a result of the achievements the counterculture movements made, the United States in the 1960s became a more open, more tolerant, and freer country. One of the most powerful counterculture movements in the sixties was the civil rights movement.

    Read More

  • The ‘60s: Culture and Music

    1486 Words  | 3 Pages

    The ‘60s were the age of youth, as millions of children’s from post World War II became teenagers and rebelled against the conservative fifties. Denying civil rights to African-Americans and liberation to teenagers in previous decades and Vietnam War, created a vortexes which lead to massive rebellion against the status qua. Music of the 1960s was characteristic of the revolution that was going on during the decade. It was a time of rebellion and counter-culture in which the teenagers and college students were critical of government, business, religious institution and other various aspects of life. Era marked by civil rights movement, Vietnam War, environment of drug abuse and sexual freedom formed new music like: folk rock, soul and psychedelic rock. These genres starkly contrast the teen idol music of ‘50s pop mainstream. Writes John Covach; “World was exploding, and rock musicians were listening more closely than ever.”(Covach, 152) Such stark contrast in pop music directly relay to changing social culture in America, which further echo’s the relationship between music and culture.

    Read More

  • The Hippie Counterculture

    2095 Words  | 5 Pages

    The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and the Vietnam War seemed to blend together to form a new counterculture in America, the hippie.

    Read More

  • The Hippie Subculture

    1428 Words  | 3 Pages

    The sixties was a decade of liberation and revolution, a time of great change and exciting exploration for the generations to come. It was a time of anti-war protests, free love, sit-ins, naked hippie chicks and mind-altering drugs. In big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Paris, there was a passionate exchange of ideas, fiery protests against the Vietnam War, and a time for love, peace and equality. The coming together of like-minded people from around the world was spontaneous and unstoppable. This group of people, which included writers, musicians, thinkers and tokers, came to be known as the popular counterculture, better known as hippies. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the late sixties was more than just a musical orgy. It was a time of spiritual missions to fight for change and everything they believed in. Freedom, love, justice, equality and peace were at the very forefront of this movement (West, 2008). Some wore beads. Some had long hair. Some wore tie-dye and others wore turtle-neck sweaters. The Hippie generation was a wild bunch, to say the least, that opened the cookie jar of possibilities politically, sexually, spiritually and socially to forever be known as one of the most memorable social movements of all time (Hippie Generation, 2003).

    Read More

More about Causes of the Counter-Culture

Open Document