1960's Counter Culture and its Saga

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1960's Counter Culture and its Saga

After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, America's hope for Camelot fades and life began to look a little more complicated. Congress deemed President Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" implausible as Johnson backed the country into a war that was not ours. Then, while many Americans began to realize that the War in Vietnam could not be won, there was major public outcry about ending our involvement in a war for the first time in the country's history. The liberals in the country failed to reach the working class, and President Richard Nixon, a conservative, ascended to the Office as a champion of the "silent majority." While the government was slogging our country through devastating affairs, the culture of the times was reinventing itself. Due to various movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement in the South, the Feminist Movement, and the Anti-Vietnam War Movement, Americans, especially energetic young citizens, began to learn that there was ground to be gained from being pro-active. Out of this feeling of possibility and need of young adults to be recognized by the government came the 1960s counter culture.

Too many factors figure into society to pinpoint one as the reason for the counter cultural revolution. Still, one of the major factors that contributed to the counter culture was the folk, rock, and "acid" music of the 1960s. The music also serves as a way to illustrate and explain the 1960's counter cultural phenomenon. Each variation of the music genre contributed to the way that Americans felt about themselves, their government and their society. As "mindless drivel," according to noted historian John McMillian, bombarded the airwaves and rose to number...

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...al rebellion. Instead, they took the movement out of the counter culture and made the struggle about telling the government to basically leave them alone. If they wanted to do drugs, the government should let them since it is their own bodies. If Jim Morrison wanted to masturbate onstage, he is affecting nothing besides his body, counter culturalists would argue. Therefore, in contrast to descriptions of the counter culture as a movement, it was really an outpouring of emotions of a group of people who wanted to either have their rights recognized or left alone. The counter culture decided that if the government cared little enough about them to send their peers into the Vietnam War, they should not have a say in how each person treats their mind and body. Musicians of the time helped clarify their message and reflected the message in their lyrics and actions.

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