Counterculture

When people in the early 2000s think about the 1960s, they might think first about the "hippies." Along with the civil rights movement, antiwar protests, and the Beatles, hippies were one of the most distinctive features of a very colorful decade. Hippies certainly attracted the attention of the media. Their distinctive appearance (bell-bottomed pants, brightly colored shirts, and long loose hair on both men and women), their drug use, and their psychedelic music provided powerful reminders of their rejection of the style and values of their parents. Yet the hippies were important for more than just their lifestyle and fashion choices. As members of a thriving and diverse counterculture, they expressed the deep dissatisfaction many other people felt with American culture in the 1960s. This chapter explores the meaning of the hippies' peculiar brand of cultural dissent.

Streams of Cultural Dissent

The hippies made up the most colorful, eye-catching, and nonpolitical subgroup of a larger group known as the counterculture. Although some histories use the term counterculture to refer only to the hippies, the counterculture included several distinct groups that criticized developments in American society and advocated for social change in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. This is a free excerpt. There are 6,012 words (approx. 20 pages at 300 words per page) in the full article.

One day you're a career 9-to-5er with a pending marriage. The next, you chuck it all for beads, bell-bottoms and free love. That's how things are for Harold Fine, a dedicated lawyer about to become a more dedicated dropout. Like the brownies served by Harold's new girlfriend, I Love You, Alice B. Toklas has a hidden magical ingredient: Peter Sellers, whose flower-power performance here is in the same league as Dr. Strangelove, Inspector Clouseau and other "best Sellers." Director Paul Mazursky and his co-writer Larry Tucker spread good vibes aplenty as Harold discovers tuning in and turning on can turn out daffily disastrous. Leigh Taylor-Young and Jo Van Fleet co-star in this Age-of-Aquarius time capsule that's timeless fun.

I Love You Alice B. Toklas DVD

It was a time when a generation rebelled and lost its innocence. From the Vietnam War to the struggle for racial equality to the birth of a counter-culture explosion, the 1960s was a decade of change, experimentation and hope that transformed an entire nation. The two-hour documentary features revealing interviews with the prominent figures of the era including: Barbara Ehrenreich, Daniel Ellsberg, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, Arlo Guthrie, Henry Kissinger, Norman Mailer, Robert McNamara, Ed Meese III and Bobby Seale.The Sixties - The Years That Shaped a Generation (2005)