The Important Role Of Counterculture In The United States

Culture plays an important role in continuing values in a society. Whether it is traditional or nontraditional, it offers people to be expressive, allowing them to be themselves in their own unique way. Most societies practice traditional values that have been passed on for generations to revive a specific culture. Others who practice uncommon values and beliefs have become a cultural subgroup outside the center of the dominant culture, called a subculture. Large societies are often built upon subcultures, or “groups of people with distinct sets of behaviors and beliefs that differentiate them from a larger culture.” They are known to be distinctively different from the norm, having extraordinary styles of activities, customs, and behaviors.
Varying from naturalists to punks to emos, the number of subcultures unexpectedly rose in American in the mid 1960’s due to the variety of social movements that took place. Although movements like the civil rights or the women’s rights greatly campaigned for human rights at that time, the counterculture movement substantially impacted the freedom for human expression. Counterculture, which is the rejection …show more content…
The hippie movement originally began in California and was mostly comprised of young, white middle-class youths between the ages of 15 to 25. Post-war baby boom generations made up for most of the population of the subculture which resulted in fresh, new beliefs in society. Counterculture, or the well-known hippie movement, was a new form of subculture that counteracted the mainstream American culture that began in 1964. They narrowed their revolutionary ideas to focus on cultural values rather than political institutions, believing in a non-materialistic world, most being vegetarian and eco-friendly. Believing in peace, love, and harmony, advocates saw themselves as part of a revolution that would bring social change to the