COUNTERCULTURESpolitical, and economic background to this move-
ment and its roots in members’ entrenchment in
the welfare state and the existing youth and stu-
dent cultures. While this movement was clearly
political as well, Douglas outlined some of its social
dimensions, including rejection of the workaday
world and its idealization of leisure, feeling, open-
ness, and antimaterialism. Richard Flacks (1971)
and Fred Davis (1971) followed with descriptions
of the counterculture’s overarching lifestyles, val-
ues, political beliefs, and ideologies. Ralph Turner
(1976), Nathan Adler (1972), and Erik Erikson
(1968) explored the social psychological implica-
tions of this counterculture, positing, respectively,
a transformation in the self from ‘‘institution’’ to
‘‘impulse,’’ the rise of an antinomian personality,
where individuals oppose the obligatoriness of the
moral law, and the formation of the negative identi-
ty. John Rothchild and Susan Berns Wolf (1976)
documented the vast extension of countercultural
outposts around the country and their innovations
in child rearing. Charles Reich (1970) emphatical-
ly stated that this counterculture, consisting most-
ly of students, was being reinforced by merging
with nonstudent youth, educated labor, and the
women’s movement, already effecting a major
transformation in Western laws, institutions, and
social structure. There was strong belief that this
movement would significantly and permanently
alter both society and its consciousness (Wuthnow
1976). After researching one commune in depth,
Berger (1981) later mused about the survival of the
counterculture, acknowledging its failure to meet
earlier expectations, yet examining how its ideals
and values become incorporated into the main-
stream culture (cf. Spates 1976).
Other subcultural analysts noted more broad-
ly that these groups are typically popular among
youth, who have the least investment in the exist-
ing culture, and that, lacking power within society,
they are likely to feel the forces of social control
swiftly moving against them, from the mass media
to police action. Countercultures were further
differentiated from subcultures by the fact that
their particular norms and values, were not well
integrated into the dominant culture, generally
known among group members, and other main-
stream subcultures.
Yinger reclaimed theoretical command of the
counterculture concept with his reflective expan-
sions on the term in a presidential address for the
American Sociological Association (Yinger 1977)
and a book that serves as the definitive statement
on the topic (1982). He asserted the fundamental
import of studying these sharp contradictions to
the dominant norms and values of a society as
a means of gaining insight into social order.
Countercultures, through their oppositional cul-
ture (polarity, reversal, inversion, and diametric
opposition), attempt to reorganize drastically the
normative bases of social order. These alternatives
may range from rejecting a norm or value entirely
to exaggerating its emphasis in their construction
of countervalues. As a result, some countercultures
fade rapidly while others become incorporated
into the broader cultural value system. Examples
of countercultural groups would include the 1960s
student counterculture (in both its political and
social dimensions); youth gangs (especially delin-
quent groups); motorcycle gangs (such as the Hell’s
Angels); revolutionary groups (the Weathermen
of the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black
Panthers, millenialists [Williams 1996]); terrorist
organizations (such as the Symbionese Liberation
Army); extremist racist groups (the Ku Klux Klan,
skinheads [Baron 1997; Hamm 1995; Young and
Craig 1997] , the Aryan Nation); survivalists (Branch
Davidians); punkers; bohemian Beats; ‘‘straight
edgers;’’ Rainbow family; Earth First! (Lange 1990;
Short 1991) and some extreme religious sects
(such as the Amish and the Hare Krishnas [see
Saliba 1996]).VARIETIES OF COUNTERCULTURESYinger believed that countercultural groups could
take several forms. The radical activist counter-
culture ‘‘preaches, creates, or demands new obli-
gations’’ (Yinger 1977, p. 838). They are intimate-
ly involved with the larger culture in their attempts to
transform it. Members of the communitarian utopi-
an counterculture live as ascetics, withdrawing
into an isolated community forged under the guide-
lines of their new values. Mystical countercultures
search for the truth and for themselves, turning
inward toward consciousness to realize their val-
ues. Theirs is more a disregard of society than an
effort to change it. These three forms are not
necessarily intended to describe particular groups.
Rather, they are ideal types, offered to shed in-
sights into characteristics or tendencies groups
may combine or approximate in their formation.
Hippie communities or bohemian Beat groups