Counterculture

Question 1

Merle Haggard

Answer 1

Okie from Muskogee

Question 2

Ken Kesey & Merry Pranksters

Answer 2

Tom Wolfe - The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test (1968)

- part of New Journalism

Question 3

Thomas Frank: The Conquest of Cool

Answer 3

Traditional pessimistic view: that advertising exploited counter culture to aid expansion of consumerism (Also Age of Space American optimism) -

Consensual view 60s as time of fundamental cultural confrontation

Even conservative + left sides: place groups at centre + ignores corporate America.

Frank sees counterculture as stage in development of American middle class + post war capitalism as dynamic, authentic push away from ‘creative doldrums’

supported by Delmore Schwartz: rise of Beats - form of shadow boxing b/c at home anyone can be as Bohemian as anyone else not just an outside image that has to be cultivated.

yearning for authenticity, individuality + rebellion - shared by advertising executives.

Question 4

Michael Harrington

Answer 4

Counterculture is massification of bohemia of Greenwich village

• easy when bohemia = not the bourgeoise
• but when bourgeoisie became decadent Bohemia deprived of stifling atmosphere w/o which it could not breathe.

Question 5

Earl Shorris

Warren Hinckle

Answer 5

Supportive of Frank
‘counter culture as middle-class values’
Brand conscious

Question 6

Allan Bloom

Answer 6

The Closing of the American Mind (1986)
‘whether it be Nuremberg or Woodstock, the principle is the same.’

misdeeds of New Left + counterculture comparable to Hitler

period of dogmatic answers and trivial tracts

Question 7

Robert Bork

Answer 7

‘Slouching towards Gomorrah’:

revolutionary nihilism
era of moral turpitude

Question 8

Theodore Roszak

Answer 8

‘Youth and the Great Refusal’ (1968)

counter culture = ‘embryonic cultural base of New Left politics’

Question 9

Arthur Marwick

Answer 9

terminology: counter-cultural as opposed to counter-culture.