|
|
This is only a preview of the paper
Click here to register and get the full text.
Existing members click here to login
|
|
|
This essay will present the view that the counter-culture of the sixties was not the outbreak of collective irrationalism, but that 1968 was the point at which the status quo in the developed world was confronted by its largest domestic challenge since 1945 due to the coincidence of many disparate events and peoples, as David Caute says in his introduction to Sixty-Eight: The Year of the Barricades “The year 1968 was the most turbulent since the end of World War II. ... By drawing examples from different sub-groups within the counter-culture and assessing their aims it will be possible to assert their rationality and also how they are linked to previous libertarian, radical or revolutionary traditions. ...
The counter-culture was mainly united in its opposition to the Vietnam War, with Caute quoting figures from 1969 showing 58% of people under the age of 30 against the war and 54% of people between 30 and 49 against the war . ... (Halliday notes that the counter-culture of 1968 remained chauvinistic and the Women’s Liberation Movement did not really establish itself until 69/70 ). ... Carmichael’s life and experience of gang culture had taught him that force could only be combated with force and so this was the path from which he approached the civil rights movement. ... With the resignation of the Stalinist Novotny from the leading positions of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party and Dubcek’s appointment as First Secretary in January 1968, the liberalisation of Czechoslovakian society that had been protested for since the beginnings of imposed communism in 1948 and for which protest had been increasing throughout the sixties could now begin to be realised. ... Different modes of liberalisation occurred simultaneously throughout Czechoslovak society, counter espionage agents reporting to Soviet ‘advisors’ were removed from their positions of employment, as were State Security men and military officers for the same reason. ... Could the examples above and others taken from the counter-culture not be fitted quite neatly into a Hegelian meta-narrative of the pursuit of absolute freedom?
Approximate Word count = 1566
Approximate Pages = 6.3
(250 words per page double spaced)
|
|
|
|
|
|