Greenwich Village, San Francisco, Venice Beach, the Existentialists, the transcendentalists, the anti- WWI protests, the anti-Spanish Civil war protests etc. I stand by what I've said there has always been a Bohemian Counter Culture. It has just had different names/labels through the years.
Well, in the Sixties we had at least two things that were completely new. LSD and the birth control pill. And they both made a huge difference.
And each wave of counter culture had one or two things the one before it didn't that is how cultures and countercultures evolve. C/S, Rev J
But not available to everyone, unless they were willing/able to travel extremely long distances, based on what you're saying, and what I know.
I also left out small college towns. There has always been a counterculture. It always builds on itself. I personally don't see the hippies as the beginning or end of anything. Free love, pacifism, consciousness expansion, equal rights, and free flowing creativity existed for thousands of years before the hippie movement and will continue long after it. To me it was a blip on the timeline. It's just from the 60s onward there has been better dissemination of information to make these concepts and this lifestyle more accessible. C/S, Rev J
The roots of a lot of what we believe and care about go all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome, but that doesn't mean that everybody has had access and exposure. You're lucky to be in Berkley, where this all started in the US. Other colleges followed their lead.
The thing is that I've only been in the Bay Area for 10 years. I grew up in a small town in Maine next to a naval air station during the Cold War. There was also a good college, with everything that goes with it independent bookstores, coffee shops, independent record stores, head shops etc. I grew up on a farm where my dad farmed with horses and now runs a school for sustainable living. I also ran into more than my fair share of rednecks, former military, current military etc. C/S, Rev J
I'm not sure of your age Karen so I'm not sure how far apart we are. I always had the alternative types in my life and resources to do the research. Through reading "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test" when I was 16 I was introduced more to Kesey but led me back to Kerouac and Burroughs. Through Kerouac and Burroughs plus being in a high school production of "The Night Thoreau Spent In Jail" I got Turned on to the Transcendentalists. Then through the Transcendentalists got more into Eastern Philosophy. It all keeps going down the line. C/S, Rev J
never trust the history you are taught in school, unless you do a hell of a lot of your own research. this goes for not just hippies, but everything. native america, western and eastern europe, asia, all of it.