Politics of the Counter-culture in Relation to Class and Gender - Essay Example

The vital role in the development of this counter-culture was played by the politics, influential individuals, the significant subcultures and cultural groups working against the dominant social behaviour and culture of the period. Counter-culture in the US referred to the extensive refusal of the mainstream social culture and norms of the previous decade, i.e. the 1960s. Significantly, this is identified with the emerging subculture of the youth who discarded the cultural standards of their previous generation and the youth culture in the US resulted in the cultural and political segregation of the youth.

The counter-culture in the UK can be realised as a reaction against the post-war social norms of the 1940s and 1950s and this was characterised by a counter culture of the youth. Whereas several societies have witnessed distinct of counter-culture in various forms, it referred more to a visible phenomenon affecting several spheres of the social life in the UK. Thus, the counter-cultural movement in the UK expressed the ethos, aspirations, and dreams of the particular subculture of the youth during the 1960s and 70s. . As such, psychedelic experience falls into place as one, but only one, possible method of mounting that exploration.

It becomes a limited chemical means to a greater psychic end, namely the reformulation of the personality, upon which social ideology and culture generally are ultimately based." (Whiteley, 81) Therefore, the politics of the British counter-culture needs to be comprehended in relation to race, class, gender and the freedom of the youth subculture. The counter-culture was the most prominent social reality of the 1960 in the US and the UK and the emerging youth culture proved significant contributor and sponsor of this movement.

Counter-culture is often related to class and gender and the movement mainly affected the youths of the period who longed for all sorts of freedom. The extensive popularity of the counter-culture was marked by the great interest in popular music, tastes, drug consumption, and art. The counter-culture also manifested its control over the media and publishing. In her book Promise of a Dream: Remembering the Sixties, Sheila Rowbotham gives a significant account of the emergence and spirit of the counter-culture which also signals the emergence of new interests and tastes among the popular culture.

"As 1966 drew to a close a counter-culture was emerging which was to run alongside the radical movement, sometimes interacting with it, sometimes diverging from it. A heady mix of music, drugs, art and underground papers was ready for take-off. The great congregation of people who showed up at the Roundhouse to launch International Times that October seemed to be the alternative manifest. The vast old round building, a former railway turning shed, in Chalk Farm, north London, belonged to