Influence of Movements of the 1960s
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While there is truth in the statements cited to the effect that the counterculture and the upheavals of the 1960s were often hedonistic in nature rather than politically directed or directed toward improving society, it is not fair to say that these tensions produced no significant alteration of the structures of American society. There were really two levels to the tensions of the 1960s, one politically and socially directed toward effecting major changes and toward improving American life according to the tenets of the movement, and the other an imitation of aspects of the counterculture, aspects directed more toward shocking the establishment than to effecting change, and based more on hedonistic and selfish desires than on any desire to make relevant and lasting change. The levels were not always distinguished from one another and indeed were not always distinguishable, and the extinction of many of the large, overt aspects of the movement should not be mistaken for extinction of the whole movement or its aims. These survived in a variety of ways, and we can see the continuing influence of the sixties today in many different areas--civil rights, the women's movement, the New Age movement, ecological activism, and even the continuing and growing dissatisfaction with established political parties. The most notable and immediate survival was the continued agitation against the war in Vietnam, an agitation that lasted beyond "flower power" and hippie dress styles and
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that continue to this day.
Perhaps the most notable movement that emerged in part from the counterculture is the ecological movement which many of the radicals joined in the early seventies, as Gitlin notes: "Activists both hard-core and peripheral flocked to ecology-minded groups, especially those fighting nuclear power." In the two decades since, these groups have grown and have become more mainstream. They gained impetus from the counterculture's willingness to question the establishment. It was no longer right to simply accept that business and government were taking care of all problems and that the people should allow these institutions to be responsible. The counterculture had challenged this assumption and weakened it; it was put to death completely by the revelations of Watergate, after which trusting government to clean its own house was a naive act. The nuclear controversy has been given added impetus by Love Canal and Chernobyl, while the growing awareness on the part of the public about pollution and its effects--and its sources--destroyed the idea that business would deal with such problems without outsider pressure.
Judith Clavir Albert and Stewart Edward Albert note that the beginning of 1960s protest can
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Approximate Word count = 1551
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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