Editing Counterculture (section)

==Definition and characteristics==
[[John Milton Yinger]] originated the term "contraculture" in his 1960 article in ''[[American Sociological Review]]''. Yinger suggested the use of the term contraculture "wherever the normative system of a group contains, as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in the development and maintenance of the group's values, and wherever its norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Yinger |first=J. Milton |date=1960 |title=Contraculture and Subculture |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2090136 |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=25 |issue=5 |pages=625–635 |doi=10.2307/2090136 |issn=0003-1224}}</ref>

Some scholars have attributed the ''counterculture'' to [[Theodore Roszak (scholar)|Theodore Roszak]],<ref name=HarvardTR/><ref>{{cite web | title = Social critic Theodore Roszak *58 explores intolerance in new novel about gay Jewish writer | first = Andrea| last = Gollin | url = http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW02-03/14-0423/books.html | publisher = PAW Online | date = April 23, 2003 | access-date = June 21, 2008}}</ref><ref name=TRbook/> author of ''[[The Making of a Counter Culture]]''.<ref>His conception of the counterculture is discussed in Whiteley, 2012 & 2014 and Bennett, 2012.</ref>  It became prominent in the news media amid the [[social revolution]] that swept the [[Americas]], [[Western Europe]], [[Japan]], [[Australia]], and [[New Zealand]] during the 1960s.<ref name="MWebster">"counterculture", ''Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary'', 2008, [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterculture MWCCul].</ref><ref name="HarvardTR">{{Cite journal |last=Shea |first=F. X. |date=1973 |title=Reason and the Religion of the Counter-Culture |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1509351 |journal=The Harvard Theological Review |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=95–111 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000003047 |jstor=1509351 |s2cid=162591828 |issn=0017-8160}}
</ref><ref name="TRbook">[[Theodore Roszak (scholar)|Roszak, Theodore]], ''The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition'', 1968/1969, Doubleday, New York, {{ISBN|978-0-385-07329-5}}.</ref>

Scholars differ in the characteristics and specificity they attribute to "counterculture". "Mainstream" culture is of course also difficult to define, and in some ways becomes identified and understood through contrast with counterculture. Counterculture might oppose mass culture (or "media culture"),<ref>Gelder, ''Subcultures'' (2007) p. 4. "...to the banalities of mass cultural forms".</ref> or middle-class culture and values.<ref>Hodkinson and Deicke, ''Youth Cultures'' (2007), p. 205. "...opposition to, the middle-class establishment of adults."</ref> Counterculture is sometimes conceptualized in terms of generational conflict and rejection of older or adult values.<ref>Hebdige, ''Subculture'' (1979), p. 127. "defining themselves against the parent culture."</ref>

Counterculture may or may not be explicitly political. It typically involves criticism or rejection of currently powerful institutions, with accompanying hope for a better life or a new society.<ref>Hall & Jefferson, ''Resistance Through Rituals'' (1991), p. 61. "They make articulate their opposition to dominant values and institutions—even when, as frequently occurred, this does not take the form of an overtly political response."</ref> It does not look favorably on party politics or [[authoritarianism]].<ref>Hazlehurst & Hazlehurst, ''[https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2017-0-51089-9&isbn=9781351290630&format=googlePreviewPdf Gangs and Youth Subcultures]'' (1998), p. 59. "There does seem to be some general commitment towards antiauthoritarianism, a rejection of the traditional party political system which is considered irrelevant."</ref>

Cultural development can also be affected by way of counterculture. Scholars such as Joanne Martin and Caren Siehl, deem counterculture and cultural development as "a balancing act, [that] some core values of a counterculture should present a direct challenge to the core values of a dominant culture". Therefore, a prevalent culture and a counterculture should coexist in an uneasy symbiosis, holding opposite positions on valuable issues that are essentially important to each of them. According to this theory, a counterculture can contribute a plethora of useful functions for the prevalent culture, such as "articulating the foundations between appropriate and inappropriate behavior and providing a safe haven for the development of innovative ideas".<ref>''Organizational Culture and Counterculture: An Uneasy Symbiosis'' (1983), p. 52.</ref>

During the late 1960s, hippies became the largest and most visible countercultural group in the United States.<ref name="Yablonsky, Lewis 1968 pp 21-37">Yablonsky, Lewis (1968), The Hippie Trip, New York: Western Publishing, Inc., {{ISBN|978-0595001163}}, pp. 21–37.</ref>
 
According to Sheila Whiteley, "recent developments in sociological theory complicate and problematize theories developed in the 1960s, with digital technology, for example, providing an impetus for new understandings of counterculture".<ref>Cf. Whiteley, 2012 & 2014.</ref> Andy Bennett writes that "despite the theoretical arguments that can be raised against the sociological value of counterculture as a meaningful term for categorising social action, like [[subculture]], the term lives on as a concept in social and [[cultural theory]]… [to] become part of a received, mediated memory". However, "this involved not simply the utopian but also the dystopian and that while festivals such as those held at [[Monterey]] and [[Woodstock]] might appear to embrace the former, the deaths of such iconic figures as [[Brian Jones]], [[Jimi Hendrix]], [[Jim Morrison]] and [[Janis Joplin]], the nihilistic mayhem at [[Altamont Free Concert|Altamont]], and the shadowy figure of [[Charles Manson]] cast a darker light on its underlying agenda, one that reminds us that 'pathological issues [are] still very much at large in today's world".<ref>Cf. Andy Bennett, 2012.</ref>