# How did the counterculture change from mid-'68 to early '70? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 18, 2013, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592 "2013-08-18T22:21:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![heathen\_earthling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/13edae/32.png) [@heathen\_earthling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heathen_earthling)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/21 "2013-08-20T01:52:46Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The Counter-Culture died when it was co-opted by The Media. Once middle America started to see what was happening, it had moved on and morphed. The straights never know, because they are always three steps behind. What year did it die? Was it replaced by another counter-culture, or is there currently no such thing? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/22 "2013-08-20T02:02:11Z")
Easy Rider was a hit. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/23 "2013-08-20T02:19:09Z")
> [@heathen\_earthling](#): > > What year did it die? Was it replaced by another counter-culture, or is there currently no such thing? There are various outside-the-mainstream somewhat-youth-focused subcultures – hippie, goth, rave, many others – but none is really “counter-,” none has the illusion that its future is to become America’s new mainstream culture and supplant the old. The only subculture with that illusion now is political RW culture. There’s your counterculture. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/24 "2013-08-20T02:42:35Z")
> [@Jim\_s\_Son](#): > > “Easy Rider” was the third highest-grossing film of 1969. > > [Easy Rider - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easy_Rider) True. And look at what an outlier it is. It was an independent film, made by people who were very young and closer to that world. It’s not set on a college campus and only one scene is about hippies; the rest is confrontations with straight America. It resembles The Graduate - another independent film, outside of the studio world - in that regard: both are set in straight America showing how the younger generation is alienated from that world. That’s probably what made them successful (along with MASH, another picture about alienation). We had no interest in watching fake hippies go to fake protests. But dramatizing how different and apart we felt in Nixon’s America sold like crazy. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/25 "2013-08-20T03:40:42Z")
“We stop, look, at one another short of breath…” ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/26 "2013-08-20T03:49:14Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > “We stop, look, at one another short of breath…” We starve-look At one another Short of breath Walking proudly in our winter coats Wearing smells from laboratories Facing a dying nation Of moving paper fantasy Listening for the new told lies With supreme visions of lonely tunes oops ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/27 "2013-08-20T04:24:26Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I may be missing one, but I can’t remember a single movie about youth culture that was a hit. None. I was in college in those years and we were completely disdainful of Hollywood attempts to depict the counterculture. You never saw “Easy Rider”? ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/28 "2013-08-20T04:31:43Z")
> [@BMalion](#): > > We starve-look > At one another > Short of breath > Walking proudly in our winter coats > Wearing smells from laboratories > Facing a dying nation > Of moving paper fantasy > Listening for the new told lies > With supreme visions of lonely tunes > > oops _Manchester England England Across the Atlantic sea And I’m a genius genius I believe in God And believe that God Believes in Claude That’s me._ ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/29 "2013-08-20T05:08:34Z")
I was there … sort of. My own personal emotional roller-coaster reduced my awareness of general cultural change, but I think there was a dramatic cultural change and that **KarlGauss** is spot on in post #2. Another minor factor was the increasing number of disillusioned Vietnam vets in the early 70’s. Here’s a quote that always hits close to home: [QUOTE=Hunter S. Thompson] There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . . And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/30 "2013-08-20T05:17:09Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > Starring Richard Pryor as “Stanley X”. I might have to see this one… I remember seeing it on cable years ago, and I thought it was _hilarious_. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/31 "2013-08-20T07:27:15Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > People talk nonsense about that era today. The counterculture was in no way a threat. There were of course violent radicals, but they were a tiny minority shunned by virtually everyone on every side. One interesting thing about that movie is that of the two main characters, the guy really was shown to be a bit of a threat. He was not actually guilty of shooting the cop, but as he said himself that was really just because someone else shot first. At the same time, it was clearly no Dragnet-style condemnation of these radicals, either–the POV is harder than in most films to detect. (Eldrich Cleaver’s wife, forgetting her name, was featured in the opening scene and was mesmerising.) I see some people talking about 1974 as the “true” end of the Sixties. This is what I remember reading in Rolling Stone way back in the early Eighties, and I have always pretty much taken their word for it since, which is one reason this claim surprised me. ---
**Author:** ![Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Ellis\_Aponte\_Jr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellis_Aponte_Jr)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/32 "2013-08-20T08:15:37Z")
The Silent Majority liked _Easy Rider_ for its happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/33 "2013-08-20T09:50:27Z")
Robert Crumb wrote/drew a story about how Haight-Ashbury changed from 1968-70. The idealistic young nonconformists who defined the place early on were pushed out by creepy, hardcore junkies and opportunistic shakedown artists who abused the ethic of free love and sharing, and then stayed entrenched for another decade. It was the entire counterculture in miniature. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/34 "2013-08-20T10:40:24Z")
Interesting! Although unless \*Crumb \*is a massive hatchet job, Robert Crumb is more of the creepy type himself than an idealistic nonconformist. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/35 "2013-08-20T10:52:43Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I had a history professor who argued the 1960s didn’t really end until Nixon’s resignation in 1974. > > (He also said the 1950s didn’t end until the Kennedy assassination in 1963.) He’s right about the Kennedy assassination, but wrong about the Nixon resignation. The 60s ended in 1973 when the draft ended. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/36 "2013-08-20T12:23:16Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > _Manchester England England > Across the Atlantic sea > And I’m a genius genius > I believe in God > And believe that God > Believes in Claude > That’s me._ Eyes, look your last. Arms, take your last embrace. And lips, o you, the doors of breath, Seal with a righteous kiss. The rest is silence. The rest is silence. The rest is silence. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/37 "2013-08-20T12:47:57Z")
As to the OP question: As a rule, by the time the media corporation’s suits know of a counterculture trend, it’s old news. > [@Krokodil](#): > > Robert Crumb wrote/drew a story about how Haight-Ashbury changed from 1968-70. The idealistic young nonconformists who defined the place early on were pushed out by creepy, hardcore junkies and opportunistic shakedown artists who abused the ethic of free love and sharing, and then stayed entrenched for another decade. It was the entire counterculture in miniature. Which was also what George Harrison reported to have found when he travelled there – not peace and love but strung out burned out street people. The original Hashburians held the “Funeral of Hippie” all the way back in the Fall of '67. They knew that once word got out to the mainstream, it was as good as over because people would think it was a matter of joining “the scene” rather than of revolutionizing their own lives in the way that was appropriate to each. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/38 "2013-08-20T14:03:39Z")
Does anyone remember “Joe”? 1970, starred Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon. A grim little movie that made a brief stir, then disappeared forever. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/39 "2013-08-20T15:08:37Z")
The difference between the 60s and the 70s counterculture? Two words, my friends … Leisure suits! ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592/40 "2013-08-20T15:45:06Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > Does anyone remember “Joe”? 1970, starred Peter Boyle and Susan Sarandon. A grim little movie that made a brief stir, then disappeared forever. Sure, I remember it. Made quite an impression on me, too. I think it was Peter Boyle’s first role and was he well cast in it! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-counterculture-change-from-mid-68-to-early-70/666592.md?page=3)