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Revision as of 17:18, 30 May 2004 by Herschelkrustofsky (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Counterculture is the term used to describe a significant cultural shift that began in the United States and Europe, beginning in the late 1950s and 1960s. While the term may be used generically to describe any cultural movement that runs contrary to prevailing norms (see Underground culture), this specific counterculture is historically significant, because it did in effect entirely displace the historically dominant cultural values, and superseded it as the dominant culture.
The roots of the counterculture may be found in the dying embers of the 19th century, when moral and cultural values which had their roots in the Renaissance, and were presumed to be universal, were beginning to be undermined by the Existentialist movement. The idea of progress was called into question; the idea that the universe was rational and purposeful began to be displaced. New political movements, such as Communism and Fascism, spread in the early 20th Century, leading to political violence and ultimately the horrors of World War II. The enormity of the crimes committed by states and individuals in this period, made possible the further spread of a deep cultural pessimism -- which was then compounded by the Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the world's population had to confront the possibility, that mankind had to become so irrational as to destroy itself through the use of nuclear weapons.
During this period, an organized force of intellectuals and institutions began to emerge, which advocated a new cultural paradigm, not based on the conviction (rooted in Monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam) that Man is inherently good, but rather on a reaction against that conviction as false or hypocritical. Institutions such as the Frankfurt School began to promote the idea, that any proposed universal values or collective mission for mankind, were inherently destructive, authoritarian, or proto-fascist.
A fascinating glimse into the mentality of the architects of the counterculture may be found in the following quotations from Encounter magazine, published by the Congress of Cultural Freedom. It is from a May 1956 review, by Isaiah Berlin, of Alexander Herzen's autobiography:
- The thesis which Herzen offered to the world comes to this, that any attempt to explain human conduct in terms of, or to dedicate human beings to the service of, any abstraction, be it never so noble--justice, progress,nationality--always leads in the end to victimization and human sacrifice ... always lead in the end to a terrible maiming of human beings, to political vivisection on an ever increasing scale,... and the replacing of an old tyranny with a new and sometimes far more hideous one--by the imposition of the slavery of universal socialism, for example, as a remedy for the slavery of the universal Roman Church.
- ...Herzen embodies his central principle--that the goal of life is life itself, that to sacrifice the present to some vague and unpredictable future is a form of delusion which leads to the destruction of all that alone is valuable in men and societies--to the gratuitous sacrifice of the flesh and blood of live human beings upon the altar of idealized abstractions.
- ...Let us encourage egoism instead of trying to suppress it.... Egoism is not a vice. Egoism gleams in the eye of an animal. It is wild, self-centred and salutary. Moralists bravely thunder against it, instead of building on it. What moralists try and deny is the great, inner citadel of human dignity. They want to make men tearful, sentimental, feeble, kindly creatures asking to be made slaves. But to tear egoism from a man's heart is to rob him of his living principles, of the yeast and the salt of his whole personality.
Sentiments like these, coming from august members of the intellectual establishment, began to find popular expression in the Beatnik, Hippie and Libertarian movements, and ultimately began to permeate every aspect of the culture of the Baby Boomers.