what are countercultures?

Answer 1

A counter culture is a cultural practice not endoresed by the society in which it resides and actively promotes a view considered incompatible with the domimant doctrine or hegemony.

Let me break that down a bit for you.

Ok, take the hippes in the 60's. The government did not encourage people being hippies in fact they were rather against it. this is because their beleifs and practices were not compatible with the government's. Firslty it could not be easily commercialised. You couldn't just buy "hippy beads" off your local high street (unlike today) much of their clothing, their items were hand made or given out freely or to minimum cost to those around them. this actively worked against capitalism and the notion of working in a normal job to achieve money, and use the money to grant happiness. Hence the culture was counter to what America was promoting at the time. Also the hippy belief of free love went against entrenched american conservatism and they opposed government decisions actively, and openly questioned the state, such as the Vietnam war.

It is a commonly held beleif in cultural studies that the current way to get rid of counter culture is to incorperate it in tothe system. The most common way is to commercialise it. If you bring the coutner culture into the marketplace where anyone can purchase items to be considered part of it you encourage the members to engage in capitalism, you flood their ranks with new people out of touch with the philosophies that aren't marketed and "cheapen" the original idea until the voices can no logner be heard or taken serously. However, contemporary history shows that new counter cultures always develop so the system is constantly adapting.

Answer 2

~~~joven ,,, Quintessential example,,, The Hippies of The 60's created a CounterCulture against "The Establishment" of the Contemporary American Value System. or,,, A group of people within a Structured Culture who do not conform to The Established Norm. ,,,and many of The Issues are directly contrary to each other,,, like Pro/Anti- War- Abortion-Drugs-God-Taxes, etc.