Talk:Counterculture

Cleanup

I've cleaned up many comma splices, pattern problems, and moved sentences within the section to make things more clear. For instance, I moved the introduction of Hippies into the overall discription of the counterculture of the 60s where people are spoken about rather than have it next to a bunch of 60s musicians. I have combined the music and pop-art paragraph with the sentence on spirituality. I've taken a couple of areas where several words were used into a single word. I have concentrated on leaving the message and tone intact, trying to only improve flow. HIPPIES ROCC

Additional opportunities for cleanup remain. The phrase "Vietnam War" seems to be overused in this section. There are weasel words that need cleanup (i.e. "they have left a lasting mark on society that continues to inspire modern-day movements." --which movements?; "These demonstrations went on to create far-reaching changes affecting many aspects of society." --which changes, which aspects?). The answers may be obvious to the original authors, but not neccessarily to every reader. Citations are needed for many of the claims in this section, much of it reads like original research. Jamesfett (talk) 13:23, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Surrealism and Counterculture

The cultural impact of Surrealism persisted after its heyday. It remained attractive to leftist artists and writers who were not comfortable with the Stalinist cultural model. Among them is the Martinique poet and playwright Aimé Césaire who served on the editorial board of US surrealist journal VVV. Breton was an avid admirer of Césaire, whose 1955 "Discourse on Colonialism" was republished by Monthly Review. Along with CLR James, Césaire served as a revolutionary alternative to Stalinism for a generation of Caribbean intellectuals. Another editorial board member at VVV was Philip Lamantia, who was to become a leading figure of the new poetry of the 1940s and 50s that included the beats and the San Francisco Renaissance writers. Lamantia, in effect, represents a link between the counter-culture of the 1930s and that of the 1960s. Surrealist poetry and culture were read by young people in the 1950s and 60s, "who were searching for an alternative to the Rationalism of their time, which amounted to Cadillac tailfins, the H-Bomb, conformity and Madison Avenue for all practical purposes."

This subsection was removed from Sixties and seventies counterculture. See more on this on the Surrealism Talk page. Ought it not be included here in some form? -12.7.202.2 (talk) 21:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It is up to the person adding the material to show how it is relevant. The original poster did not do so, and neither have you. Most of this is not relevant to the subject of the counterculture. As I have said elsewhere, the part about Lamantia might be relevant in the article about the Beat Generation, but not here. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 01:27, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Warhol?

The following was stuck right in the middle of the '60s and '70s counterculture subsection, right in the middle of a paragraph on music, actually.

The pop-art culture led by Andy Warhol also played a part in social change in the United States by redefining what art was and what made it valuable. Warhol's mass-produced monographs and silk-screens, such as the iconic Campbell's Soup Cans, challenged the notion that art is only about certain subjects (i.e., wealthy patrons or pretty landscapes), or that art is a singular creation. An entire generation's liberal views about art and drugs found prominent expression in Warhol's paintings, films, and music.

This has no references, and extraordinary claims like this need a good source. ---<fontface="Georgia">RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 17:17, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

It is good that you removed that - because it is wrong. In fact, the one remaining reference to pop-art should be removed too.

The whole concept of "pop-art" is something that would have been considered "establishment" by the counter-culture. They rejected the whole idea of intellectual ideas about art, including both "pop-art" and what it replaced. Pop-art was something used by successful people of the day to make themselves look "hip" and trendy. More importantly, it was used by the Media as something they could use as a substitute (or a symbol) for actual counter-culture, because they knew that Average Joe could understand that Weird Paintings were, well, weird looking.

The terms "plastic hip" and "faux hip" describe this phenomenon well. Buying a pop-art painting allowed you to feel "trendy", without actually doing anything counter-cultural - in the same way that buying a nude statue allowed you to feel "naughty" without actually having to have sex with anyone.

In reality, pop-art was still an establishment product being sold commercially. At best, pop-art was a movement in art that happened to coincide with the time period of counter-culture, and utilized the counter-culture as a marketing gimmick.

BTW, this is from first hand experience at the time.

Oh, and in the removed paragraph, the sentence that says "An entire generation's liberal views about art and drugs found prominent expression in ..." the next word should not be "Warhol", but absolutely and without any question should be BOB DYLAN. (Although that oversimplifies things, since it was the early baby-boomers who were expressed by Dylan - those born before 1953, while those who were born in 1953 and later, viewed the Beatles as their spokesmen - and that is purely a time-related distinction, since both agreed on most of the relevant issues.)

effect of terming any social/-political movement as 'counterculture'

Is there no one who can add any research results about the effects of labeling trends as countercultures? Surely this is of interest to the topic, and some sort of research must have been done on the subject.

As I recall it, the expression rapidly became a self-identifying phrase by those it referred to. (Unlike "hippie" which was imposed from externally and only used ironically as self-identification.) There was a sharp drop-off of the term's use in mass media in the U.S. at some point in the '70s. As I recall at least one newspaper chain wrote an article (A bit Orwellian, I found it when I read it) stating they would thenceforth refuse to employ the expression "counterculture". Unfortunately it would be difficult (but possible) to track this down. The thinking behind this would make an outstanding addition to this article. talk) 00:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Unintelligible sentence (in the section on Russia)

"...use of explicit language, graphical description of sex, violence and illicit activities and uncopyrighted use of "safe" characters involved in everything mentioned." Wha?? 81.107.31.178 (talk) 10:15, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Redirect issue

I noticed that this page emphasizes it's distinction from "Fringe Culture," but "Fringe Culture" redirects to here, and this page makes no mention of fringe culture beyond the one sentence. Some clarification would be appreciated.

70.173.70.232 (talk) 06:44, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Combine

Could this article be combined with others that are similar? It seems that there is a lot of overlap. --RichardMills65 (talk) 03:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)