Question

What were the cultural freedoms embraced by the counter-culture movement? How did this reflect a change in American values?

Answer 1

Counterculture

The American counterculture refers to the period between 1964-1972 when the norms of the 1950s were largely rejected by youth.A counterculture developed in the United States in the late 1960s, lasting from approximately 1964 to 1972, and coinciding with America’s involvement in Vietnam. It was characterized by the rejection of conventional social norms—in this case, the norms of the 1950s. The counterculture youth rejected the cultural standards of their parents, specifically regarding racial segregation and initial widespread support for the Vietnam War.As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in American society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, sexual mores, women’s rights, traditional modes of authority, and a materialist interpretation of the American Dream. Thanks to widespread economic prosperity, white, middle-class youth—who made up the bulk of the counterculture—had sufficient leisure time to turn their attention to social issues.

Unconventional appearance, music, drugs, communitarian experiments, and sexual liberation were hallmarks of the 1960s counterculture, most of whose members were white, middle-class, young Americans. Hippies became the largest countercultural group in the United States. The counterculture reached its peak in the 1967 “Summer of Love,” when thousands of young people flocked to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. The counterculture lifestyle integrated many of the ideals of the time, including peace, love, harmony, music, and mysticism. Meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs were often embraced as routes to expanding one’s consciousness. Spiritually, the counterculture included interest in astrology, the term “Age of Aquarius,” and knowing people’s astrological signs.