THE NEW LEFT AND THE COUNTERCULTURE
Summary: Today we will look at the New Left and the counterculture, two developments of the 1960s that reflect the particular cultural location of the "baby boom" generation. While a majority of young Americans did not embrace either movement, both had tremendous cultural impact. Both movements also underwent a cycle of ascendance and decline during the 1960s. We will look at high points of both movements, such as the 1967 Spring Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam and the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and at low points, such as the 1970 shootings at Kent State and the 1969 Manson murders. In addition to lecture material, the Smithsonian exhibit of the work of photographer Lisa Law provides useful background on the counterculture. We will leave the consideration of Andy Warhol and Pop Art to be discussed in section.
I. Introduction
A. Political and cultural radicals highly visible minority of America's youth
B. The baby boomers as children of affluence
II. The New Left and the Vietnam War
A. Students for a Democratic Society
1. inaugural statement, "The Port Huron Statement" (1962)
"We would replace power rooted in possession, privilege, or circumstance, with power rooted in love, reflectiveness, reason, and creativity." -SDS, "Port Huron Statement"
2. emphasis on "participatory democracy"
3. influences
a. civil rights, disarmament, JFK-style civic idealism
b. Beats and pop-culture rebels of the 1950s
B. Some student radicals identified not with SDS but with "the Movement"
C. Movement gains momentum with escalation of war in 1965
D. Major protest years: 1967-68
E. Year of decline: 1970
1. violence at Kent State University on May 4, 1970
2. bombing of science building at University of Wisconsin that summer
3. new mood on campuses in the fall of 1970
F. Legacy
1. conservative backlash: Joe Kelly and Archie Bunker
2. prevailing interpretation: America's youth "preferred pot to politics"
III. Counterculture
A. Pursuit of altered states of consciousness and unconventional lifestyles
1. some joined communes or tribes
2. many rejected order, monogamy, social responsibility
B. Drugs were central to the counterculture
1. reflects influence of the Beat movement
2. LSD and mescaline drugs of choice
a. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters: "acid tests" and psychedelic craze
b. Grateful Dead: "acid rock"
C. Shifts in popular music mirror shifts in 1960s youth culture
1. from early-decade social engagement (Bob Dylan, "Blowin' in the Wind")
2. to Beatlemania in 1964
3. and finally to "sex and drugs and rock'n'roll"
4. high points of the counterculture:
a. Haight-Ashbury and New York's East Village, 1967
b. Woodstock, April 1969
5. low points:
a. Charles Manson and his "family" go on murder spree, 1969
b. Beatles disband, 1970
6. Joan Didion's perspective on the counterculture
"It would hardly seem an exaggeration to call what we see arising among the young a 'counter culture': meaning, a culture so radically disaffiliated from the mainstream assumptions of our society that it scarcely looks to many as a culture at all, but takes on the alarming appearance of a barbarian intrusion."