SUMMARY This book is an attempt at a global outlook on the process, socio-cultural determinants, and consequences of the youth rebellion which reached its culmination in 1964 — 1970. The youth movement in the U.S.A., Great Britain, France, Holland, Italy, and West Germany is analyzed. In these countries contestation had much in common and the conflicts under study were most pronounced. We were especially interested in the cultural aspects of the movement, i.e. that fragment of the events and that specific ideological and artistic creativity which have come to be called counterculture. Our aim was to show that the youth movement consists — despite its multiple forms of expression and its ideological inconsistencies — in entirely questionning the capitalist system, the achievements and developmental objectives of the so-called technological civilization and culture. The latter are questioned in the name of such values as egalitarianism and communality but also freedom and inviolability of individual life, self-actualization, and self-expression as opposed to the stiff rules of the game obligatory in the social system against which the fight is launched, consumer attitudes, and the prevalence of possessions which limit relationships with nature and with other human beings. The book consists of three parts. Part One presents the events as if from without; it is an attempt to reconstruct the progress of the fight along with the most significant facts and at determining the scope of the phenomenon. In this part we present the main sources of protest and the mechanisms of dissemination of its range and causes. A characteristic phenomenon here is the overlapping of simultaneously developing conflicts varying extremely in generality: international and national conflicts (e.g. racial conflicts in the U.S.A.) and local ones (e.g. with university authorities, professors, and even parents) unmasking the brutality of the governing machine. The movement developed in a similar manner in both areas: from pacifist and anti-imperialist manifestations, from fighting for greater access to active participation in decisions concerning one’s own environment, to questioning the basic principles of the social status quo and primary cultural values. Through political combat its participants learned to discern causes from effects and to see the common social background underlying both the great international conflicts and the small ones restricted to campus or school territory. Part Two is devoted to various dimensions of self-reflection within the movement. It attempts to answer the question against what and in the name of what is counterculture fighting? We have distinguished the following basic assumptions of the movement: to relate politics to culture, not only by means of stating negative facts within the existing status quo but also by establishing a program of action; to question the very bases of culture, its ethos, and basic model under the charge that it no longer supplies instruments for cognition, explains reality, nor serves interpersonal communication effectively. We present the directions and forms of criticism of culture, as well as the new proposals put forward by the contestants, in our analysis of the programs and activities of the most well-known groups (varying in the level of self-identification and internal consistency), e.g. the Dutch Provos, the Situationists, the American Diggers and Hippies, etc. In this part we attempt to present counterculture as a movement in which new forms of expression are developed: a language of its own, new values, and new ways of practising them. The most important channels of expression of counterculture are music, theatrical performances, and everyday life led according to norms of coexistence and patterns contradictory to generally observed models. Hence we present the principles of „new art”, the shattering of the ,.old” language and its patterns of thinking, the establishing of a dialogue with the audience, the overcoming of the division between artist and audience, and the propagation of contesting ideas. The Woodstock Festival and the Festival of Life in Chicago — a culmination in the development of the music and theatre movement of the counter-culture — were a good illustration of these principles. We also draw attention to experiments in new forms of everyday life, customs, and interpersonal relationships, initiated by communities and more casual groups, aimed at developing their own consciously chosen life-style. Counter-culture, in its questioning of the cultural status quo, its negation, its motto of „Starting everything anew”, revealed a considerable similarity, not only in the direction of its critique but also in its forms of expression, to other, much earlier, waves of criticism of contemporary civilization. The contestants’ criticism did not go any further in substance and sharpness than the rebellion against social reality manifested in literature as early as the first half of the twentieth century as well as in certain artistic trends (e.g. Dadaism, surrealism) to which, incidentally, the contestants of the sixties consciously refer. Many threads of criticism in the counter-culture are also a repetition of critical analyses springing from the area of American sociology (e’g. Mills, Riesman, Fromm, Marcuse). And so counter-culture is original not for the discovery of new conflicts in the contemporary world nor for new interpretations of these conflicts but for its attempts at drawing practical conclusions from verbally expressed dissatisfaction. We are thus looking for the sources that inspired the youth movement or the common threads of social criticism formed in youth or other circles. Part Three answers the question concerning the significance of the contesting movement among the meaningful phenomena of contemporary civilization and culture in general. This movement, despite its many inconsistencies, political immaturity, and limited social scope, is a social movement in the first phase of crystallization, in the phase of establishing a utopia. Communities, attempts at creating new religions based on Oriental traditions, and mystical and drug experiences are examples of such utopiae, both experienced and practiced. These utopiae differ from other attempts at developing an image of a better world, familiar in history and constantly renewed, in that they arise from action, accumulating new experiences and ideas from day to day. They are formed anonymously and collectively by an experiencing community. They are not final and closed visions but, on the contrary, they leave room for trying out new ideas. In the utopianism of the movement lies at the same time its weakness and its strength since the animation of imagination enabling it to transcend current structures of thought and reality meets the expectations of our times. In our reflections on the evaluation of the significance and perspectives of the movement we come to the conclusion that it is directed against the bases of capitalism and reflects the changes taking place within the social classes and strata in the West. The increase in the number and importance of the salaried and hired workers with higher education, stratification within the so-called white-collar workers leading to the formation of narrow privileged groups connected with the governing machine, and the great number of workers deprived of the possibility of influencing decisions, even those directly concerning their own environment, must lead to the uncovering of new conflicts within Western societies. Groups with highly developed aspirations and social awareness are in a situation inconsistent with their image of the position they should hold in the social hierarchy, a situation below the standards considered suitable for people with their social and cultural functions. A significant consequence of the movement is the unmasking of this conflict, bringing the crisis into the daylight, shaking the unviolable values of the system, exciting imagination in the direction of new visions of social order. The movement has a chance of developing in this form if it is able to encompass broader circles of society and to find a wider social front. This is only possible, however, if one has a crystallized ideology. The value of the movement also lies in the fact that it reveals the danger inherent in uncontrolled technological development, onesided thinking and personality formation. Its value lies in the return to the basic humanistic values lost in a materialized society submitted to the rules of operational thinking.
