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HERBERT L. COSTNERCOUNTERCULTURES
The enclaves in which people of the modern era
live no longer resemble the small, integrated, and
homogeneous communities of earlier times; rath-
er, these have been replaced by large societies that
are complex and diverse in their composition. The
United States, a prime exemplar, is composed of
multiple smaller groups holding characteristics,
beliefs, customs, and interests that vary from the
rest of society. While there are many cultural
universals binding such groups to the mainstream,
they also exhibit significant cultural diversity. Some
of these groups display no clear boundaries de-
marcating them from the rest of society and fail to
achieve any degree of permanence. Yet those that
do, and that also share a distinctive set of norms,
values, and behavior setting them off from the
dominant culture, are considered subcultures. Sub-
cultures can be organized around age, ethnicity,
occupation, social class, religion, or lifestyle and
usually contain specific knowledge, expressions,
ways of dressing, and systems of stratification that
serve and guide its members (Thornton 1997).
Distinctive subcultures within the United States
include jazz musicians, gangs, Chicanos, gay, col-
lege athletes, and drug dealers. While it was once
hypothesized that these subcultures would merge
together in a ‘‘melting pot,’’ incorporating a mix
of the remnants of former subcultures (Irwin 1970),
trends suggest that they resist total assimilation
and retain their cultural diversity and distinct
identity.
Some subcultures diverge from the dominant
culture without morally rejecting the norms and
values with which they differ. Others are more
adamant in their condemnation, clearly conflict-
ing with or opposing features of the larger society.
Milton Yinger first proposed, in 1960, to call these
contracultures, envisioning them as a subset of sub-
cultures, specifically, those having an element of
conflict with dominant norms, values, or both
(Yinger 1960). Indeed, the feature he identified as
most compelling about a contraculture is its specif-
ic organization in opposition to some cultural
belief(s) or expression(s). Contracultures often
arise, he noted, where there are conflicts of stan-
dards or values between subcultural groups and
the larger society. Factors strengthening the con-
flict then strengthen the contracultural response.
Contraculture members, especially from such
groups as delinquent gangs, may be driven by their
experiences of frustration, deprivation, or discrimi-
nation within society.
Yinger’s conceptualization, although abstract
and academic at first, came to enjoy widespread
popularity with the advent of the 1960s and the
student movement. Here was the kind of
contraculture he had forecast, and his ideas were
widely applied to the trends of the time, albeit
under another label. Most analysts of contracultures
preferred the term counterculture, and this soon
overtook its predecessor as the predominant ex-
pression. In 1969 historian Theodore Roszak pub-
lished his The Making of a Counter Culture, claiming
that a large group of young people (ages fifteen to
thirty) had arisen who adamantly rejected the
technological and scientific outlook characteristic
of Western industrialized culture, replacing this,
instead, with a humanistic/mysticist alternative. In
a more recent update, Roszak (1995) reflected
back on that time, further locating the countercul-
ture phenomenon as an historical aberration that
arose out of the affluence of post-World War II
America. Kenneth Keniston (1971) described this
counterculture as composed of distinct subgroups
(radicals, dropouts, hippies, drug users, communards,
or those living in communes) rising from the most
privileged children of the world’s wealthiest na-
tion. Jack Douglas (1970) also discussed the social,