The teenagers of the 1960s wanted to check out the normality and the mainstream of American life after WWII had ended. These largely white, middle-class group of teens during this time believed that the “anvil of American industry and the brainpower of American technocrats who created ever-greater prosperity produced an impersonal machine that was concerned more with maintaining cold-war social stability than correcting society’s deficiencies” (Hamailton vi.). To make a change, kids acted out in small ways, like the way they choose to express themselves, by starting to wear loose fitting clothing with bright patterns, growing their hair long, experimenting with drugs, and listening to folk and rock music. They lived by the motto, “Make love,
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Which explains why these kids are choosing to start new beginnings that are against the ideas of their parents. Likewise, the teenagers of the 1960s were trying to rebel against normal society and do no more than that because they were simply careless. Teens would experiment with substances all the time. “Many teens at the time were vocal advocates for the legalization of drug use, and at times victims of addiction” (“University of Delaware”). They most commonly tried newly found synthetic compounds such as LSD, which is a hallucinogenic drug. Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary, said that the psychedelic ‘trip’ involved a return to childhood, and even to infancy. According to William Burroughs, drugs were a means of ‘deconditioning’ the mind, and throwing off the rigid, one-dimensional constraints of adulthood (Buckingham). Kids would try these drugs without putting a second thought into it because they wanted to feel that “psychedelic trip”. These drugs are promoted as being said to enhance your ability to do something better. For example, people were told that musicians can play and sing better music when on …show more content…
When someone does something as foolish as putting a drug like that into their body, they can not be responsible for doing anything other than plainly rebelling society. In contrast to the counterculture being merely rebellion, it could have also been more extreme than that because of their drive for social change. Many of the teens who participated in the counterculture were also very active in the political system. They took big steps in trying to support “the Civil Rights Movement which waged on from the mid-1950s to the late ‘60s, and also the Women’s Rights Movement emerged alongside counterculture” (qtd. Hayes paragraph 14). Many of them joined organizations and participated in marches, protests, and sit-ins to help advocate for the Civil Rights movement. These teens would even use art and music to raise awareness of racial injustice. All together these actions show effort into real change. These youngsters have taken steps into making the world a better place and followed through with them. That illustrates that they were much more than some rebellious kids. They established their stove for equality in
Which explains why these kids are choosing to start new beginnings that are against the ideas of their parents. Likewise, the teenagers of the 1960s were trying to rebel against normal society and do no more than that because they were simply careless. Teens would experiment with substances all the time. “Many teens at the time were vocal advocates for the legalization of drug use, and at times victims of addiction” (“University of Delaware”). They most commonly tried newly found synthetic compounds such as LSD, which is a hallucinogenic drug. Aldous Huxley and Timothy Leary, said that the psychedelic ‘trip’ involved a return to childhood, and even to infancy. According to William Burroughs, drugs were a means of ‘deconditioning’ the mind, and throwing off the rigid, one-dimensional constraints of adulthood (Buckingham). Kids would try these drugs without putting a second thought into it because they wanted to feel that “psychedelic trip”. These drugs are promoted as being said to enhance your ability to do something better. For example, people were told that musicians can play and sing better music when on …show more content…
When someone does something as foolish as putting a drug like that into their body, they can not be responsible for doing anything other than plainly rebelling society. In contrast to the counterculture being merely rebellion, it could have also been more extreme than that because of their drive for social change. Many of the teens who participated in the counterculture were also very active in the political system. They took big steps in trying to support “the Civil Rights Movement which waged on from the mid-1950s to the late ‘60s, and also the Women’s Rights Movement emerged alongside counterculture” (qtd. Hayes paragraph 14). Many of them joined organizations and participated in marches, protests, and sit-ins to help advocate for the Civil Rights movement. These teens would even use art and music to raise awareness of racial injustice. All together these actions show effort into real change. These youngsters have taken steps into making the world a better place and followed through with them. That illustrates that they were much more than some rebellious kids. They established their stove for equality in