Words: 1703
The Revolution of a Counterculture I see an America full of different people wearing what they want, saying what they want, and being what they want to be. There was a time though, not so long ago, that this was not widely popular or accepted. The transition period from post-World War II America’s shared conventionality to the America you and I live in today was one of the most tumultuous and tormenting times in our nation’s history.
It was the closest thing to civil war our nation has seen since the actual civil war, and it was cultivated by a minority Of politically active, experimental college aged students. Suppose I owe these radical teenagers some sort of a thank you. Whether it is a good or a bad thing, our country and our lives would be different if they hadn’t introduced the defiance they did in the late asses. But why? Why did these young people care enough to riot the streets of major American cities? Why did they begin to challenge the standards of our nation’s music, and television, and fashion?
Why did they experiment with drugs and people and the American way of life? That is what I want to know- the why of the 1 sass countercultures revolution. Cost World War II America thrived with patriotism, the economy flourished, and the government was respected and loved by almost all Americans. The birth rate in the United States was rising, and would reach an all-time high during the late ass’s and into the ass’s. Children born between 1945 and 1950 would come to be labeled the “Baby Boomers”. The Baby Boomers were being raised in a post- war haven of sorts.
Parents of these children had been raised in a different world. During most of their lives the nation had been in war, the economy had been less than perfect. Naturally, they dreamed of a better life for their children, and the economy Ewing what it was meant they could satisfy those dreams. During the asses not only births would reach an all-time high, but college attendance would skyrocket as well. The baby boomers of the late ass and early ass’s were raised in a post-World War II nation that was, in the eyes of this vast and opinionated minority, unattractively marked by conformity and social complacency.
Throughout my whole research paper I came to realize one very important thing- not every young person from 1965-1972 was a member of some radical social movement organization or believed that LSI and acid rock were some sort of religion. Actually there was even a split between three groups of individuals, which would even be given their own names- the ” New Left”, the “Hippies” and the “Hippies”. When began my research was, like any modern day American would be, familiar with the term “Hippie”. Hippies are what most of us have come to learn them to be. They smoked weed, used LSI, and were all about free-love.
The term “Hippie” was completely new to me. Hippies were merely politically active Hippies. The New Left were still somewhat experimental college aged students, but they fought for more radically than Hippies. The New Left fought equality and civil rights. In my mind I came to think of these separate cultures as belonging to a spectrum of sorts. Nothing is perfect, and neither was the separation between Hippies, Hippies, and the New Left activists. There were revolutionaries at both ends of the spectrum, and people in between each bridge of countercultures.
On February 1, 1 960 four Negro students would enter the Woolworth store in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were well dressed, and refused to leave until served at the ‘ Whites-only’ lunch counter. In less than an hour, they would they would have a place in history, and little did they or anyone else now they would change the course of mankind’s political and social status for the rest of time. The Woolworth sit-ins would be repeated in twenty southern cities by the end of February. The sit-ins were a start to the revolution against the status-quo that would begin in the asses.
The combination of idealism, increasing anticipations, and a colossal baby boomer generation fueled “The Movement’, and the New Left would begin. (McMillan, 2000, p. 26) They would make their mark through anti-Vietnam protesting, riots against race and sex discrimination, and would fought endlessly for the free expressionism of their speech rights. Students who may have been relatively apolitical began to find themselves in the extreme elements of a political, free and easy college environment. Music and fashion would begin to change. No longer were you hearing lamenting love songs.
Folk singers would take over the top 40 charts, writing lyrics ban because of their anti-war themes. There were those who began to “not trust anyone over thirty”. This created a bridge between youth and authority that has not ended yet. Watch the ways my peers, and even I treat our parents. Ways that would to be acceptable sixty years ago. Though the New Left Movement would last only a decade, it would change American ethics and opinions forever. The New Left affected us in almost every way possible. We would not have the president we do now if not for them. I would not wear what do to school, or be paid what am if not for them.
The New Left is said to have died out in the asses, I disagree. Baby Hoffmann Youth International party or Hippies are what most of us would more commonly view as hippies. Hoffman described her party as a “blending of pot and politics. ” (McMillan, 2000, up. 6-67)Hippies loved their drugs, Earth, and their political views, alike. Hippies protested Vietnam and urged the nation for peace, love, and drugs. Hippies would become famous at the Democratic Convention in Chicago where the New Left and Hippies intermingled, and were tear gassed and beaten by the police together.
Before they were the butt of many jokes, Hippies alarmed many Middle Americans. Hippies were convinced that America was materialistic, competitive, and anxiety ridden. (McMillan, 2000, p. 65) Hippies were most successful in changing America because of their absolute indifference to political issues. Hippies found their release through drugs, free love, and music. LSI was the potato of the counterculture. F-room LSI words such as psychedelic are well known to day. Drug rates in the 1 9605 tripled that of the 1 sass. Weed, known as marijuana today, was also a staple to Hippie happiness.
With LSI came Acid Rock, and Bands such as the Grateful Dead. Music began to talk about things like sex and drugs through interpretive lyrics, like The Battles Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (L SD). Fashion changed from poodle skirts to the peasant blouse. Tribal prints and apparel were considered to be more peaceful than urban wear. Unknowingly our nation soaked up their slang, dress, and unconcerned attitudes. Hippies, real Hippies, were a small minority that gathered on the west coast, supremely on the intersection of Height and Suburb in San Francisco. Washburn’, as it was called, was the epicenter of the counterculture. It was described as an adult Disney Land where young people sought peace and love away from the rest of the world. By June 1966 15,000 Hippies were calling Washburn home. Washburn had its own underground newspaper, The Oracle, where 100,00 readers read about drug busts, love- ins, police activities, and rock concerts. There were free clothing and food shops, LSI trip rooms, and places to get drugs, and for lack of my willingness for further explanation whatever “else” these young people sought.
During my research, I could not understand why the police did not end this dirty and filthy cacaos. I watched a video on history. Com called Ask Steve. Steve mentioned the police did not crush this civilization because they did not want it to spread. Washburn even had social workers, The Diggers. The Diggers opened their own free food shops. They also brought an end to the stereotype, Hippie, by holding a formal mock rock funeral for the name. Diggers filled a coffin with dried marijuana and beard shavings, which were then lit on fire. They then headed for the seclusion, where they began communes.
Drugs and love were taught and practiced freely there. The Hippies and the communes faded into the legacy of the decade the same as the Battles and The Grateful Dead. But, like The Battles are still listened to, communes are still present in the South and along the Pacific Coast. They, however, are not still preoccupied with love and drugs. (McMillan, 2000, p. 69) The aftermath of the Countercultures revolution left the asses bruised and torn. By the end of the decade, the division had set a tone for public life that is still with us today.
The ass may not have caused such a cultural loss as we believe them to, it may simply be they were a sharp contrast to the ass. Either way, we lost the social conformity that was so encouraged in the ass. There are many comforts I owe to the cultural reformists of the ass. I wear my hair long and wavy because Hippie women made it common and okay. I wear jeans to school because college students started to introduce them into the educational environment during that decade. I listen to alternative music cause ass folk rockers started to introduce controversial topics to top 100 charts.
The Cultural Revolution made my life different, even if do not like to give such a radical and obscure people the credit for doing so. I said in my introduction that I wanted to know the why of the Countercultures Revolution. My honest and educated answer to that is, simply, because it needed to happen. Ages and views in the nation were dramatically divided in many instances, and somebody had to learn how to deal with it, and the revolutionists and authorities alike worked together, without knowing it, to do just that.