{"id":3871,"date":"2018-01-25T15:11:09","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T15:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennywilson.org\/?page_id=3871"},"modified":"2024-11-20T13:51:17","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T13:51:17","slug":"the-rise-and-fall-of-the-1960s-counterculture-in-britain-and-america","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/kennywilson.space\/index.php\/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-1960s-counterculture-in-britain-and-america\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise and Fall of the 1960s Counterculture in Britain and America | Kenny Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The 1960s was a unique period when change was rapid and people\u2019s attitudes were challenged by increased affluence, the tensions and uncertainties of the cold war and the growth of mass media and leisure opportunities. This talk looks at one aspect of the 1960s: the development and differences of what happened socially and culturally <\/i>between those born before the start of the Second World War<\/i> and those born afterwards, especially about what is now referred to as the \u201cCounterculture\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what is the Counterculture<\/i>? What does it mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oxford <\/i>English <\/i>Dictionary<\/i> actually writes it with a hyphen i.e. \u201ccounter-culture\u201d and defines it thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA radical culture especially among the young that rejects established social values and practices; a mode of life opposed to the conventional or dominant.\u201d(OED)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This doesn\u2019t tell us a lot. In fact, the first use of the phrase \u201cCounter Culture\u201d<\/i> was used by Theodore Roszak<\/i> in 1968 in his highly influential book \u201cThe Making of a Counter Culture\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Writer and Philosopher Allan Watts<\/i> wrote of this book in the San Francisco Chronicle<\/i> in 1969:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you want to know what is happening among your intelligent and mysteriously rebellious children, this is the book. The generation gap, the student uproar, the New Left, the beats and hippies, the psychedelic movement, rock music, the revival of occultism and mysticism, the protest about our involvement in Vietnam, and the seemingly odd reluctance of the young to buy the affluent technological society- all these are here discussed, with sympathy and constructive criticism, by a most articulate, wise, and humane historian.\u201d(Allan Watts)<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What many people think of now as the 1960s C<\/i>ounterculture<\/i> is the period between approximately 1965<\/i> and 1973<\/i> when mostly white, middle class, and mainly young people decided to reject the established system and attempt to create an alternative society based on their ideas of love, sharing and communal values (among many other things). It emerged more or less consecutively in Britain<\/i> and America<\/i> but soon spread to many other parts of the World<\/i>, especially Western Europe, South America (<\/i>and Mexico), Australia <\/i>and Japan.<\/i> It also had a profound effect on Eastern Europe<\/i> to the consternation of the established Communist<\/i> powers there who saw it as a threat to their political hegemony and was ruthlessly repressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The name the Counterculture<\/i> gave itself at it\u2019s beginning was The Underground<\/i>, <\/i>something of a misnomer considering the theatricality and visibility of the movement in the West. However, in the East, it was a much more appropriate label with books and records being passed around clandestinely and a constant fear of arrest by the authorities. Czech poet, playwright and politician Vaclav Havel<\/i> has written extensively about the importance and the inspiration of the Counterculture, <\/i>and especially the music of the Velvet Underground<\/i> and Frank Zappa,<\/i> on the struggle of the Czech<\/i> people after the Soviet<\/i> invasion of 1968<\/i>. The \u201cPrague Spring\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An important rock group called The Plastic People of the Universe<\/i> (based on a song by Frank Zappa<\/i>) was formed by Milan Hlavasa<\/i> after hearing a recording of the Velvet Underground,<\/i> and achieved popularity on an underground level. Rock bands in Czechoslovakia<\/i> required a license from the government, and in those days of Communist <\/i>“Normalization”<\/i> the Plastic People’s was soon revoked. The band continued to play, but only at weddings (one of the few activities beyond the government\u2019s control) and at secret, one-time shows, advertised through paranoid word of mouth. The Plastics acquired a Warholesque<\/i> “artistic director,” the crazed alcoholic imp Ivan Martin Jirous<\/i>, and eventually replaced its English-language repertoire with a bunch of Czech originals derived from the poetry of various banned authors. The songs weren’t political in any conventional sense, but when the state dictates culture, all unapproved acts become political, like it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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