Countercultures; Impact on Socialization and Values in Society - Essay Example

COUNTERCULTURES Introduction A counter culture is a subculture that has values and norms of behavior are distinct significantly from that ordinary society, often in opposition to mainstream cultural mores. A countercultural movement defines the philosophy and ambition of a particular people for the period of a definite era. When an oppositional force reaches essential mass, countercultures can initiate dramatic cultural changes.The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or just the Klan, there are several Countercultures that possess the different character that are distinctive to others.

Their cultural relativism have been challenged by others, some of the countercultures that will be discussed in this essay are; Hippies, Gangs, KKK, and PETA (Nadu, 2013). A gang is persistently associated with people or with close friends or families with particular leadership and internal organization, identified with or alleging control over territory in a community and participating in either independently or collectively in violence among other forms of illegal behaviors (Frank, 1997). People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA; stylized PeTA) is an American organization that involves itself with animal rights found in the Norfolk, Virginia, and run by Ingrid Newkirk, who is its international president (Martin & Siehl, 1983).

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or just the Klan relates to the name of three different movements in the United States. The first was involved in the aggressive role against the African Americans in the south through the era of the Reconstruction in the 1980s and was dispersed in 1869. The one that followed was a vast, contentious, nationwide organization in the year 1920s. The present manifestation contains a number of small independent groups that use the KKK name (Nadu 2013). Hippie is a subculture that associates themselves as a youthful movement rising from the United States in the mid-1960s spreading to other countries in the world.

The word ‘hippie’ which originated from hipster that was primarily used to describe beatniks, the one that moved into the New York city’s Greenwich Village also San Franciscos Haight-Ashbury district. The Hippies formed their own communities, listened to psychedelic music; hold the sexual revolution, and usage of drugs like cannabis, LSD, peyote and psilocybin mushrooms to seek altered states of consciousness (Frank, 1997).Of all the counterculture stated above the Hippie precisely fits my values according to the FLDS situation.

This is evident because Hippie has its own social practices like FLDS, which are relatively distinctive to those of an ordinary society. The Hippie counterculture is described as having their own lifestyle such as have luxury bathtub at time, and they don’t like clean-up their bodies regularly. They stay in a group and very rare to found one member isolated alone; they are vegetarians (Martin & Siehl, 1983).ConclusionFrom the above discussion we can make a general deduction that there are existing countercultures that practice some behavior which other people consider them not being normal.

Some of the practices have attracted government attention like that of FLDS which violates the right of an individual in the name of being religious, most of the people especially children are innocently suffering only because they were born in that counterculture.ReferencesFrank, T. (1997). The conquest of cool: Business culture, counterculture, and the rise of hip consumerism. University of Chicago PressMartin, J., & Siehl, C. (1983). Organizational culture and counterculture: An uneasy symbiosis.

Organizational dynamics, 12(2), 52-64.Nadu, T. (2013). Archives for the day of: April 25, 2013. News, Views, 3, 3.