Counter-Culture-KM



While many young Americans in the 1960s sought to reform the system, others rejected it entirely and tried to create a new lifestyle based on flamboyant dress, rock music, drug use, and communal living. They created what became known as the counterculture and were commonly called hippies. Originally, hippies rejected rationality, order, and traditional middle-class balues. They wanted to build a utopia, a society that was freer, closer to nature, and full of love, empathy, tolerance, and cooperation. Much of this was a reaction to the 1950s stereotype of the white-collar "man in the gray flannel suit" who led a constricted and colorless life. As the counterculture grew, many newcomers did not understand these ideas. For them, what mattered were the outward signs that defined the movement - long hair, Natice American headbands, cowboy boots, long dresses, shabby jeans, and the use of drugs. Many hippies wanted to drop out of society by leaving home and living together in communes - group living arrangements in which members shared everything and worked together. Some hippies established rural communes, while others lived together in parks or crowded apartments in large cities. One of the most famous hippie destinations was San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. By the mid-1960s, thousands of hippies had flocked there.