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The War at HomeThe rise of the counterculture

reflected a loss of faith in the liberal reforms promoted by John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

As faith and idealism toward liberal reforms declined, radicalism grew among specific elements of American society. Many of these late 1960s radicals came from the frustrated civil rights advocates, frustrated war protestors, college students, Hispanic youth, feminists, gays, and youth culture in general. Radicals believed that the system

itself was too corrupt for the changes needed and it was time to tear it down and rebuilt it into a more democratic, inclusive (multicultural), peace-oriented, and egalitarian system.

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Street riot by members of the counterculture in Berkeley, California. By the late 1960s, the counterculture had shifted away from liberal democratic reforms and toward radicalism.

Black Power MovementThe Black Power movement was a

rejection of the liberal reformist assimilation ideal promoted by Martin Luther King, Jr.. They argued that assimilation robs black people of their own identity and heritage.

This movement focused upon black nationalism (or black identity), complete with their own black-run institutions. They argued that blacks had to learn to be self-sufficient and to fight oppression on their own terms. This included organizing community self-help groups in the inner cities, as well as an assertion that Black is Beautiful, a rediscovery of African names, and a celebration of Black culture.

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The Black Panthers were one of the outcomes of the Black Power movement. Formed in 1966, they advocated a militant defense of their right to determine their own destiny. But the military uniforms and open display of weapons made them a target of J. Edgar Hoover and others who were frightened they might start a race war.

The Student MovementCollege students paid

attention to the Black Panther Party. college students were

initially idealistic about changing the world.

Students were also influenced by youth culture themes that pitted the older generation’s values against the emerging values of the youth culture.

It would be the Vietnam War along with the restriction of free speech on college campuses that would galvanize the emerging student movement.

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Student protest buttons from the Berkeley campus of the University of California.

These SDS students were disturbed by many features of American life:The Bomb, the Cold War, militarism and imperialismBureaucracy and over-rationalizationThe concentration and centralization of power in Big

Government and Big Business, and the corresponding authoritarianism that comes with concentration of power

Organization Man style bland careerismThe blind conformity found on college campuses

along with in loco parentis and administrative authoritarianism

PovertyThe injustice of racism and the exploitation of people

and the environment by powerful corporations and governments

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The Student Movement In 1962, the baby boomers

were attending universities in huge, galvanizing numbers.

A college degree was now required for many middle class jobs.

Most students came from the growing middle class and had come from economically secure families. They could afford to think big.They were aiming for

something more than mere security – they were aiming for happiness and a humane social world.

Given their affluence, these students were more free to think critically about the shortcomings of the consumer society.

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In the colleges of the 1960s, there was a strong liberal arts tradition. Students learned about existentialism, classic literature, the Bill of Rights, and other ideas that encouraged a humanistic attitude toward life.

The Student MovementConsequently, these

idealistic young students discussed in their college campuses with a radical message: Many of the social problems

were built into established institutions which function to maintain the status quo and which were being run by a managerial elite, or what C. Wright Mills called the power elite.

Some students, frustrated with their bland school newspaper, began to publish these ideas in their own “underground” newspapers. This was the start of the Free Speech Movement. 7

The American sociologist C. Wright Mills studied American society in the 1950s and found that it was not the pluralistic democracy promoted in American grade schools. There were deep structural problems that required structural solutions.

The Free Speech Movement The free speech movement came

out of the student movement and began in Berkeley in 1964. It involved the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

On college campuses, an example of “institutional corruption” involved the rights of the students toward free speech.

Colleges had become over-rationalized administrative bureaucracies, with lots of formal rules and regulations imposed on students. In loco parentis gave the

administrators parental power over students.

At UC-Berkeley, the administration ruled that non-campus political literature could not be distributed on campus.

This seemed an open violation of academic ideals, so students dug in, just as the administrators did.

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The Free Speech movement started on the Berkeley campus of the University of California in 1964. Students were organized by the SDS, who understood that collective – not individual – actions would be more effective in changing the university’s rules.

Teach-Ins Vietnam was becoming increasingly

relevant on college campuses for several reasons: At that time college students were

deferred from the draft, so colleges had become “safe havens”

The draft politicized the war and forced young people to learn about Vietnam

College campuses themselves were controversial because they did military research and had Reserve Officer Training Cores (ROTC) offices.

By 1965, many campuses offered teach-ins on Vietnam, often sponsored by SDS. These teach-ins were initially

idealistic, but became futile as the antiwar protestors witnessed the escalation of the war. LBJ wasn’t listening.

By 1965 there were 175,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam, and Johnson was still rapidly escalating the war.

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This is a teach-in that occurred at UCLA. Students were frustrated that they were not being taught about Vietnam in their college classrooms. With the help of sympathetic teachers and administrators they organized these extra-curricular teach-ins to learn more about Vietnam history, U.S. policy in Southeast Asia, the Cold War, etc. The teach-ins often exposed the contradictions of U.S. policy in Vietnam.

The Anti-War MovementBy 1966, antiwar

protestors were matching the government’s escalation of the war with their own escalation of strategy: a draft resistance movement along with rising radicalism against the military-industrial complex.

Throughout 1966-1967, antiwar confrontations escalated. Government officials were confronted with mass protestors wherever they went. On college campuses, ROTC

programs were being challenged. These protestors were also questioning college military contracts.

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The Rise of the CountercultureThe Vietnam War provided

the galvanizing element that united the various protestors of the 1960s.

The counterculture was very broad. It was a loose group of single-interest subcultures which came together because of rising alienation from established institutions. Most of these groups had

started out idealistic about the prospects for reform, but had become frustrated with the establishment’s slow pace of change. The escalation of the war provided a dramatic example of the establishment’s failure to change.

Much of this confrontation was over deep core values about what America stood for.

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Virtually everyone at this late 1960s rock concert had at least some countercultural values in common. Almost all were opposed to U.S. policy in Vietnam, and this united them. Most were also distrustful of establishment authority figures, and most believed in the issue of empowerment, or taking control of one’s own life. But Vietnam had a visceral reality, given the escalation of the war and the draft.

The CountercultureThe counterculture developed

its own music, fashion and lifestyles to symbolize its alternative value system.

Many stopped wearing formal clothing and embraced inexpensive loose-flowing dresses and casual jeans and t-shirts as their “anti-fashion” fashion statements.

More than anything else, the counterculture stood for freedom and empowerment (against the authoritarian establishment).

By the mid-1960s, Vietnam, along with the lifestyle elements symbolizing personal freedom (sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll) united the disparate elements of the counterculture.

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The counterculture rejected many of the mainstream values and institutions of Western culture, preferring a more humanistic value system. Even the traditional marriage was questioned. This is a photo of a hippie wedding, and you can see that they have reinvented the ceremony.

The CountercultureThe music of the counterculture had

become increasingly political with anti-establishment messages. Folk artists, with their emphasis on

substantive lyrics, were at the crest of the wave in the early and mid-1960s. Artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, and Simon and Garfunkel spoke to youth culture alienation and the alienation of social marginals.

By the mid to late 1960s pop-rock bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones would join in and the counterculture would become a force that could not be ignored.

The capital of the counterculture was San Francisco, with Haight Ashbury the center of the hippie element and Oakland, only 20 miles away, the center of the antiwar radical element.

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The Grateful Dead at their Haight-Ashbury house. Communal living and sharing created a sense of tribe, which was something missing from the mainstream suburban culture.

The Women’s Movement The women’s movement was another

element of the counterculture that emerged in the early 1960s but which did not clearly galvanize until the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Although women’s roles had changed toward wage work since World War II, there was no corresponding shift in women’s ideals.

Sexism, the belief that women are naturally inferior to men, was still popular during the 1960s. The prevailing attitude was that women belonged in family roles. Sociologists term this the “cult of

domesticity.” Women are viewed as exclusively mothers and wives, with “opposite” characteristics compared with men: If men are rational, then women must be emotional; and if men are strong then women must be weak. If men are the leaders, then women are the followers. Her “natural” place is in the home.

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Betty Friedan, the author of the 1963 book, The Feminist Mystique, attends a women’s protest march in 1970 as the women’s movement is taking off.

The Women’s Movement In the 1960s, most jobs were

still sex-segregated. Women suffered under a patriarchal system that paid men higher wages.

By the 1960s, most middle class women had at least a part-time job, yet these jobs continued to be “women’s jobs” that paid low wages and offered little upward mobility.

Many women were so deeply ingrained into the ideology of traditional gender roles that they considered it heresy to question them. The woman was supposed to “stand by her man.”

At that time, unlike the civil rights movement, there was no critical mass of protestors to provide an alternative ideology.

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During the 1940s the government promoted Rosie the Riveter as a symbol of women’s strength in the industrial workforce. Women were getting mixed messages in the post-war period as well.

The CountercultureIn 1967, the women’s

movement was viewed largely as a side-show. The ultimate impact of women’s liberation would not be felt until the 1970s.

William Chafe argues that there were three pivotal movements during the 1960s that would shape the society: the civil rights movement, the student-antiwar movement, and the women’s movement. 16

Summary of Value DifferencesMainstream Culture VS The Counterculture

Emphasis on IndividualCompetitionAchievementGroup superiority

valuesConformity/obedienceMaterialism and moneyAuthoritarianismMilitarism/imperialismRationality/

bureaucracySelf-disciplineDelayed gratification

CommunityCooperationHappinessEquality & social

justiceFreedomSpiritualism, sharingDemocracyDiplomacy/sovereigntyEmotionality/tribalismLaid back, go with the

flowImmediate gratification

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The Counter-response Some of the backlash was due to

blue collar workers feeling threatened by minority gains. Now their jobs were less secure

because they would have to compete with blacks and women.

By the late-60s, Vietnam had caused inflation which threatened the incomes of Americans.

Some of the blue collar backlash was also due to the nature of the counterculture. Many working class workers resented these middle class “spoiled” students who were not taking school seriously. This helps explain why there

were so many police riots directed against the counterculture. Part of this was generational hostility, and part was class hostility.

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The police tend to be members of the working class and they also tend to be older than students, who tend to be members of the middle class. Class, age, race, and other tensions polarized Americans during the 1960s. The reactionary counter-response tended to come from the working class, older people, traditional values and religious groups, and conservative males.

The Counter-responseThe “Silent Majority” of Americans

sensed a crisis in values. Every day they turned on the TV to

see protestors challenging traditional values and beliefs. Yet during unstable times many

people have a tendency to cling to these traditional values.

They believed their sacred values of blind patriotism, religion, monogamy, hard work, consumerism, traditional sexuality, know-your-place ethnicity, conformity to Biblical and political authority, and traditional gender roles were under attack.

By 1968 they began to rally around the flag with messages like “America – love it or leave it.”

WHAT ARE SOME COUNTER CULTURE GROUPS TODAY?

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