Counterculture of the 1960s

A loosely organized movement of hippies, antiwar activists, and many young people whose values, behaviors, and beliefs were in contrast to those held by mainstream Americans. Their search for the “Good Society” involved experiments with drug use and alternative lifestyles.

Origins and History

Throughout history, there have been people who through choice or circumstance find themselves on the periphery of society. Some antecedents of the counterculture include nineteenth century American Transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Margaret Fuller and poets such as Walt Whitman. These philosophers and poets stressed the spiritual capacity of people and the importance of contact with nature and political involvement in progressive causes. After World War II, the Beat generation (which included writers such as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and Gary Snyder) professed world-weariness in a post-nuclear environment, endorsed the use of marijuana and amphetamines, and admired people on the fringes of American society, including African Americans and Mexican Americans. Norman Mailer'sThe White Negro (1957) defined the philosophy of these new “psychic outlaws,” stating that anticipation of apocalypse and existential anxiety are key elements of “hipness,” with its high regard for feeling and veneration of the present. A revival in the late 1950’s of folk and blues music, which often expresses the indomitable spirit of long-suffering people, further prepared the way for the birth of the counterculture.

Although the term was not yet used, the counterculture became a significant social phenomenon about 1964, when Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times They Are a-Changin’ ” was released. Young people gathered, often near universities, to listen to folk music in coffeehouses, smoke marijuana, and discuss such topics as the atomic bomb and other political and philosophical issues. They shared a view of society as increasingly mechanistic and conformist as well as willing to risk the dangers of nuclear holocaust. They objected to the nation’s racism and materialism and rejected the clean-cut appearances favored by their more conservative peers. Although on the surface America appeared to be politically and economically strong, some people believed that the country was spiritually impoverished and acting counter to its national commitment to freedom of thought and expression. At the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964, Mario Savio, leader of the Free Speech movement, spoke for many people: “There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; . . . and you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it . . . that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

Searching for the Good Society

Agreeing with Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver that “You’re either part of the problem or part of the solution,” the counterculture sought to form the nucleus of a new, reformed society, perhaps even a utopia. They reacted to the malaise of American society with political protests and a search for higher values. Some members of the counterculture studied Eastern religious philosophies such as Zen Buddhism or Taoism, which they found appealing because of their lack of dogma and their goal of spiritual enlightenment. Others experimented with drugs, initially marijuana, later LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), and amphetamines. LSD became a feature of countercultural communities in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco, Greenwich Village in New York City, and the University District in Seattle. By the summer of 1967, the Summer of Love, thousands of young people had moved to Haight-Ashbury, where they enjoyed a lifestyle that revolved around psychedelic drugs, free love, rock music, colorful clothes, and long hair. These young people, called hippies, promoted communal living and were fascinated with Native Americans (including the peyote cults that used drugs in their religious ceremonies). Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters (whose story is told in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, 1968) developed the acid tests, multimedia spectacles with dancing, rock music (initially supplied by the Grateful Dead), and light shows, intended to celebrate (and simulate) the use of LSD.

The fundamental principles of the hippies included individual freedom (“do your own thing as long as you don’t hurt anybody else”), peace and love, uninhibited sexuality, mind expansion, and elevation of the human spirit. Underground newspapers(such as The Helix in Seattle, The Great Speckled Bird in Atlanta, the San Francisco Oracle, and the Berkeley Barb) articulated the hippie philosophy, shared information about drug use, and provided news about countercultural activities as well as editorial opinion about the war in Vietnam and civil rights. Many hippies adopted the adage of Timothy Leary to “turn on, tune in, and drop out” by forming communes (ideally outside cities) and seeking closer contact with nature. Citing R. Buckminster Fuller’s dictum that “There is no such thing as genius; some children are less damaged than others,” some hippies started “free schools” stressing student autonomy, curricular experimentation, and a Romantic view of children.

Politics and the Counterculture

Although many hippies ridiculed political protest as a demeaning social “game,” others saw no contradiction between spiritual enlightenment and political involvement. Beat poet Snyder felt that both were essential for a meaningful life: People should aid those who suffer. The Yippies, led by Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, combined political protest and a playful, mocking attitude toward authority; they protested the Vietnam War and the upcoming election by nominating a pig for president and staging protests that led to what a government report later called a “police riot.”

At the height of the Vietnam War, the antiwar movement brought together a significant cross section of the U.S. population, including many students who participated in large rallies such as the Vietnam Moratorium on November 15, 1969. (After the U.S. invasion of Cambodia in 1970, more than a million students identified themselves as “revolutionaries.”) By this time, frustrated with the seeming futility of peaceful protest, a minority of antiwar activists concluded that violent revolution was the only way to stop the war and change society. Some members of Students for a Democratic Society established the Weather Underground (Weathermen), dropped out from society, and engaged in terrorist activities such as the Days of Rage in October, 1969. Most people in the antiwar movement remained committed to nonviolence.

Subsequent Events

Although the counterculture still exists, many of the overt characteristics and espoused causes of the hippies have disappeared or become part of the greater society. By the end of the decade, long hair and colorful clothes had become part of mainstream fashion. Casual drug use had led to addictions and other problems for many people, including many Vietnam veterans, giving rise to an antidrug faction that would gain strength in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Most of the free schools and rural communes the hippies had established did not last much beyond the 1960’s. Antiwar protests continued into the 1970’s. In May, 1970, for example, strikes and protests against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia were held on more than five hundred campuses and involved about half of the nation’s students.

Impact

The counterculture did not create the Good Society. Its members made numerous mistakes (some attributable to youth). Blaming social problems on the “establishment,” many countercultural youths fell prey to us-versus-them thinking. Many others moved successfully into conventional jobs, suggesting to cynics that alternative values were not deeply held. However, the counterculture left a significant heritage. Significantly, the counterculture helped in forcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam in the early 1970’s and in realizing civil rights in American society. Perhaps its greatest contribution was an “abundance” philosophy, the idea that there is enough to go around, which provided compensatory hope in apocalyptic times. This hope sustains many still seeking to create the Good Society. The human potential movement, which had its roots in the 1960’s, shared the counterculture’s positive view of human nature, although sometimes its adherents failed to see the accompanying need to work to improve society. A skeptical view of authority and truth and a cautiously optimistic view of human beings have influenced schools and the larger society. The exploration of alternative views of history (for example, the debunking of Columbus’s “discovery” of America) and a multicultural emphasis in curricula are part of the legacy of the counterculture. After the 1960’s, there was less emphasis on “absolute” truth and a greater propensity toward process in solving problems. Another inheritance from the counterculture is recreational drug use. Some states have periodically (and heatedly) debated the decriminalization of marijuana.

Additional Information

For primary documents from the counterculture, see The Sixties Papers: Documents of a Rebellious Decade (1984), edited by Judith and Stewart Albert; Jerry Rubin’s Do It! Scenarios of the Revolution (1970), and Abbie Hoffman’s Revolution for the Hell of It (1968). Secondary sources include Charles Perry’s The Haight-Ashbury: A History (1984), Todd Gitlin’s The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage (1987), William L. O’Neill’s Coming Apart: An Informal History of America in the 1960’s (1971), and Irwin and Debi Unger’s America in the 1960’s (1988).