1960s Culture Vs Counter Culture

When I think about the 1960’s and the counterculture’s critique of American society and culture I think of how desperately wanted a change in the society and culture. The culture brought a plethora of alternatives such as feminism, anti – war, new left, anti – nuclear, civil rights, free speech, music, film, drugs, and the list goes on and on. Furthermore with these changes they were radical and revolutionary because it seemed like they wanted the ideas to happen immediately. The counterculture wanted new life and they were determined to bring these new ideas to life and with doing so it define them and the 1960’s simultaneously. If I were to boil down these many ideas into three categories it would be the hippies, the music, and the drugs – the fun stuff. The hippies pretty much embodied all the radical and revolutionary ideas of the 1960’s they believed in communal living and experimenting with psychedelic drugs. Furthermore they were really into the vibrant music scene during the time. Along with all these new radical ideas they had a different way of dressing also, one would say that they were quite fashionable. However, with all

Drugs had such a big impact in society in the 1960’s because they reached out to more people than just the hippies at the time. One who was uneducated about the 1960’s would only think that the hippies use to drugs – nope! And that is the fascinating thing about it that drugs heavily influenced musician greats such as Jimi Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane and other influential people such as Ken Kesey and his magic bus disciples (I like to call them that). If you were to walk down the street in the 1960’s and waved at someone that very someone would have been lost in his own Wonderland and I absolutely believe that is how heavily spread and influential drugs were back then! The 1960’s wouldn’t have been the 60’s without the