Heidi Schave On “The Making of the Counter Culture”
During the late 20th century, a new cultural awakening redirected the existing structure of American society. The 1960s were classified as a period of extreme political upheaval as the politics and values of the previous generation became scrutinized by the rebellious youth. A counter culture arose from the turmoil of the Vietnam War and frustration with middle class solidarity. Its members and leaders altered the consciousness of America by challenging the previous cultural “norms” which were created through the process of industrialization. In The Making of the Counter Culture, Theodore Roszak identifies the origins of the Counter Culture as stemming from a deep mistrust and rejection of American cultural traditions, which were developed by the capitalist system. The struggle of the younger generation reintroduced liberalism to the modern world.
Like Roszak, Christopher Lasch also attributes the problems plaguing American culture to modern industry, but argues that modernity has created dissent and alienation within society. In The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations, Lasch states that liberalism is destroyed in a society that stresses the selfishness of individuality instead of its liberal heritage. Both Roszak and Lasch identify modern industry as the catalyst which has redirected the values of society in the modern age. However, both the radical cultural triumphs of the 1960s and the common dissent of the 1970s originated from America’s liberal legacy. This liberal tradition has allowed for both authors’ cultural discourses to exist because America’s liberal ideologies perpetrated the rise and dominance of the American middle class. Strangely, modern American culture is birthed from the combination of the dawn of the modern age and industrialization’s seduction of the American middle-class mentality. This combination led to the numerous cultural reevaluations that occurred during the late 20th century. Liberalism, although sometimes dormant, can never be removed from American culture.
The introduction of the modern age altered the dynamics of American culture. The reason that American culture has become the reflection of consumerism and materialism can be attributed to the delicate origins of American liberalism. Louis Hartz argues that democracy developed naturally due to America’s lack of a feudal past. In The Liberal Tradition in America, Hartz states that the notion of personal liberties and individuality were already ingrained within American ideologies.[1] The principles of American culture are cemented in the “Lockian” notion that America represented a land where man could exist free and in a perfect state of nature. In America, the rights of the individual are awarded at birth and social mobility is plausible. A focus on personal freedoms allowed for the rise of a middle class. In a democratic society, no one is doomed to the same station because the right of social mobility may lead to prosperity.
However, the arrival of the modern age altered the culture of American society with its introduction of consumerism. The middle class effectively became addicted to consumerism. The industrial revolution of the early 20th century changed the demographics of American commerce from primarily agricultural to industrial. By the 1950s, in order to achieve the ultimate middle-class American dream, a family had to live in suburbia, drive an Ensile and buy a television. The rise of large corporations and suburban settlements changed American culture because it incorporated into its doctrines the desire for material possessions. The American society that arose after World War II was fascinated with image and consumerism, and it was this cultural development that caused the sociable discourses of the 1960s and 1970s.
In The Making of the Counter Culture, Roszak blames the process of modernization for creating the necessary turmoil required for America’s youth to rebel against the establishment. Roszak refers to the cultural atmosphere of the 1960s as the era of “technocracy”[2] The introduction of science and technology into the world, created a new workforce that rallied around the prosperity of large corporations. These corporations controlled the political atmosphere and used their financial prowess to influence and dictate American culture and ambitions. In this “technocratic” decade, politics and industry were fused together and the new generation were repelled by the greed and rigid social structure practiced by their parents. Roszak comments on this phenomenon, “It is essential to realize that the technocracy is not the exclusive product of that old devil capitalism. Rather, it is the product of a mature and accelerating capitalism.”[3] The younger university population recognized the social upheaval of the 1960s. This demographic felt the most alienated from American culture. One of the desires of the counter culture was to escape the constraints of a repressive capitalist society. The goal of the radical movements of the 1960s was to create “utopias” where freedom of expression and individuality reigned. Once again, the process of “escapism” is used by the new Left to reflect their rejection of American modern culture. However, by returning to a peaceful state of nature through LSD and other expressions of personal liberties, the American liberal tradition becomes mimicked by the counter culture.
Ironically, the American liberal legacy was not diminished at this time, but resurrected by the new Left. The counter culture was organizing in the universities and questioning the moral implications constructed by the modern age. The pursuit of individuality and self-expression was glamorized during the 1960s. The new Left held general society accountable for destroying liberal American values, but these values were forged from the same liberal ideologies that they were initially destroying. Roszak reflects on this notion, “The young radicalism of our day gropes toward a critique that embraces ambitious historical and comparative cultural perspectives.”[4] The counter culture would not have rebelled against the rigid materialist middle class if the original doctrines of American did not ensure the presence of a middle class. The creation of the middle class through American liberalism and the tolerance of a “liberal” society allowed for the demonstrations and protests of the radical youth movement.
Christopher Lasch offers a different take on American culture in The Culture of Narcissism. Like Roszak, Lasch also accuses modern industry for the distortion of American cultural values, but he does not celebrate the liberal awakening of the 1960s. Instead he offers dismal and realistic insight into the fate of America in the modern age. The adaptation of science and technology into the workforce alienated man from his liberal heritage. In a society, similar to the “technocracy” of the counter culture, where capitalism and greed define American culture, the individual is subjected to a narcissistic disorder, which sentences his existence into a world of self-loathing and escapism. Lasch comments on this phenomenon, “The culture of competitive individualism, which in its decadence has carried the logic of individualism to the extreme of war of all, the pursuit of happiness to the dead end of a narcissistic preoccupation with the self.”[5] Modern science, such as psychology, has justified the importance of the individual and this selfish attitude, mixed with the mundane reality of the modern workplace, destroys culture. The adaptation of science and technology alienate the individual because, in Lasch’s opinion, there is no future to salvage. Modern American culture does not create the desire to better society because if there is no prospect of a future, no one can reflect on the past. This is where the liberal tradition is destroyed.
Intellectual history suggests that morals are a product of society. If the society that modernity creates is destructive to the human condition, then the process of liberalism is destroyed because the individuals within the society lose their connection to the past. Lasch comments on this idea, “The poor have always had to live for the present, but now a desperate concern for personal survival, sometimes disguised as hedonism, engulfs the middle class as well.”[6] Although, Lasch insists that liberalism and democracy have become lost to the dismal clutches of corporations and industry, the discourse presented in The Culture of Narcissism could not exist without the liberal heritage of the middle class. Once again, American liberalism is not eroded from modern society, but is found in the narcissist’s desire for material possessions. Modern culture may ignore its liberal past, but Hartz’s liberalism, according to Lasch’s study, is not dying, but is just camouflaged by the growing dissent of the American middle class. The liberal tradition still prospers because it has created the very culture that threatens its survival.
The rise of American capitalism in the modern age manipulated American society by redesigning culture. Industry fused with America’s liberal heritage of social mobility and standardized the middle class. This class would inevitably merge with the capitalist work ethic to create a world of corporations and consumerism, which, in turn, challenges the human condition. American liberalism was not destroyed by Lasch’s modern society but salvaged by the American tradition of personal liberties. Unfortunately, this can be seen in the desires of the grim narcissist. Liberalism can also be witnessed in the rediscovery of liberal ideologies, which were explored by the counter culture of the 1960s as they rebelled against the staleness of American capitalism. Both the cultural discourses of the 1960s and 70s stem from the dominance of modern industry, which controls the fate of society by introducing new standards of existence. The American liberal tradition cannot be separated from American cultural at any stage because industry survives due to the cooperation of the middle class. The middle class becomes an eager participant in consumerism and this willingness has evolved from the distinct liberal heritage of social mobility.
[1] Louis Hartz, The Liberal Tradition In America ( New York: Harcourt Brace & World, 1955) , 60.
[2] Theodore Roszak, The Making Of A Counter Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968) , 7.
[3] Ibid., 19.
[4] Ibid., 264.
[5] Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in An Age of Diminishing Expectations (New York: W.W. Norton & Company , 1979) , xv.
[6] Ibid., 27.
