Counterculture of the 1960s

Counterculture Definition US History

The Beat Generation of the 1950s encapsulated a reaction against the established American order. Through their art, they questioned and openly challenged the post-war United States.

As Pop Art boomed and TV sets entered households, these artists sought to reconnect with the self. The Beat Generation set about breaking down taboos with spiritual, sexual, and drug-fuelled experimentation. They explicitly detailed their actions in their poems and novels to the dismay of the mainstream, who tried to censor them.

Fig. 1 - Allen Ginsberg, whose 1956 poem 'Howl' caused controversy for its open discussion of homosexual and heterosexual activities

There became an increasing set of issues to complain about and rally against for young people. The Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), which had its first meeting in 1960, provided an insight into the psyche of the movement in their 1962 manifesto (The Port Huron Statement), capturing their concerns with mainstream culture.

The middle-class 'baby boomer' student, afforded the luxury of introspection, morphed along with the Beat Generation into the 'hippy' counterculture. Much of this started on university campuses where the SDS were responsible for organising many of the early Vietnam Anti-war Protests. The youth of the 1960s were acutely aware of the generational chasm between them and their parents in a rapidly changing world.

This new counterculture also went on a journey through self-liberation, this time through music rather than literature. Threading this together was the psychedelic experience, and the questioning of reality, chiefly through LSD, which was legal until 1965.

US Counterculture 1960s

Several of the issues outside the mainstream present in the 1950s truly surfaced in the 1960s. There were some breakthroughs concerning Civil Rights for African Americans, anti-war and anti-nuclear concerns boiled over with the US involvement in the Vietnam War, and feminism and LGBT rights campaigns advanced.

With a mechanism to express these concerns and the erosion of traditional Christian values, the hippy movement was born. The SDS and the hippy movement were the youthful energy behind the desire for social change. They did not focus on one movement but came up with their own set of beliefs which challenged the mainstream and allowed them to fight for the causes mentioned above.

Counterculture Examples

Here are some examples of the hippy counterculture movement in action. Let's see how these events actively opposed the mainstream narrative.

Summer of Love (1967)

The Summer of Love was a gathering in the summer of 1967 in San Francisco. The Haight-Ashbury district of the city already had a reputation for hippies and people came from far and wide to make music, love and take drugs. They appeared with flowers in their hair to oppose the Vietnam War, an idea furthered by beatnik Allen Ginsberg.

In January 1967 there had been a concert in San Francisco that cemented the hippy message when Timothy Leary stated:

Travel was very much at the heart of the hippy values, borrowed from the beatniks, and they took this call to arms seriously, with over 100,000 descending on the city by the summer.

Woodstock Festival (1969)

Many of the sentiments of the Summer of Love crystallised during the Woodstock Festival in 1969 in the state of New York. Originally billed as 'An Aquarian Exposition: Three Days of Peace and Music', the message referred to the Aquarius star sign and a proposed seed change in human consciousness.

It ended up being a four-day celebration in August of 1969 attended by at least 400,000. Musicians and bands who inspired the hippy movement performed and once more the counterculture demonstrated that peace was possible, as their nation waged war.

Guitar icon Jimi Hendrix was the final performer of the festival. He produced a memorable, psychedelically-tinged version of the US anthem, 'The Star Spangled Banner', as he provocatively highlighted the negatives of his country,

Fig. 2 - Jimi Hendrix

Social Movements of the 1960s and 1970s

Now that we understand what made the 1960s hippy counterculture tick, we can go into greater depth about the development of social movements of that decade and the 1970s. Let's examine how counterculture impacted society and helped trigger some of the breakthroughs.

Below is a table outlining some of the key social movements in these two decades.

The SDS and hippy counterculture proved successful and influential because they did not prioritise one cause over another.

Fig. 3 - Harvey Milk memorial plaque

Basic and universal principles of introspection, peace, and tolerance lent themselves organically to these social movements, and more, including environmentalism and veganism.

The fact that the SDS disbanded in 1974, after a radical left-wing faction (the Weathermen) threatened these values, is a testament to this. Economic stagnation in the 1970s meant that the counterculture generation had to work and assimilate into normal society. The height of US counterculture was over.

Does counterculture exist today?

Today, counterculture has shifted, meaning that the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s have achieved great advances. In the space of around 50 years additional movements such as veganism, have become less and less marginalised. Counterculture does not have the same resounding anguish of the 1960s or 1970s, but there are still many behaviours outside of the mainstream narrative including homeschooling, off-grid lifestyles, and polyamorous relationships that represent a counterculture of sorts, in terms of actively opposing societal expectations.

Fig. 4 - Vegan logos such as this are increasingly common in restaurants and big-brand supermarkets

Are these countercultures akin to the hippy movement? We will let you decide.