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Clicca due volte su una parola per cercarla nei DIZIONARI ZANICHELLI

 Part 2 – Chapter 3 – The Sixties (p. 171)

 

1 VOCABULARY
a. Underline the words in the text ending in -ation. Then find other words formed by the same root + different suffixes (ex.: standard-ize).
b. List the words used in the text in connection with the words culture/cultural (ex.: counter-culture). Can you think of other frequent combinations?

 
2 READING
Read the text and answer the questions below.

1.    What were the sources of the counter culture of the 1960s?
2.    How did it differ from the alternative culture of other periods?
3.    Who were ‘hippies’?
4.    What did the process of ‘liberation’ mean?

The counter-cultures

In this period of increasing standardization of cultural life, however, a countertrend began that opposed the process of unification with a process of fragmentation. In its origins, this counter-movement consisted very little in a conscious effort to resist the development of mass culture, in the form, for example, of a bohemian colony of non conformists. Rather, its sources came from movements of social change and political opposition, the renewed civil-rights movement of the early 1960s, and the opposition to the growing United States’ military involvement in Vietnam in the latter half of that decade. As groups formed around issues and developed identities through the struggles, a consciousness emerged, not merely of political disagreement but also of cultural difference. The movement for civil rights became a movement for black power, dividing rather than uniting black and white people.
Middle class college and university, students, shifting their concern from civil rights to the antiwar movement as the United States became more deeply involved in South-east Asia, developed a sense of youth culture and adopted the phrase 'generation gap' and the slogan 'never trust anyone over 30'. By the end of the 1960s, the term counter-culture was commonly used as a loose umbrella covering a variety of alternatives to the traditional norms of cultural life.
The counter-culture differed significantly from the alternative cultures of other eras. Past alternative cultures had accepted high culture as their standard against the alleged mediocrity or commercialism of the mass. They were minority cultures founded on appreciation and creation of literature and other fine arts. This facet of cultural alternative was not entirely missing from the counter-culture that began in the 1960s, but it was not its central aspect. The new force was on opposing the norms of conventional culture, including the class and aesthetic distinctions reflected in the idea of high culture. Its most publicized symbols were 'hippies', long-haired young people who popularised the use of marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs, rock music, and communal life-styles.
The fragmentation of cultural life continued to take new forms. Black power for Negroes became red power for American Indians, brown power for Chicanos and other Spanish-speaking people, women’s liberation as a new form of feminism, gay liberation for homosexuals. In all these cases the rhetoric of 'power' and 'liberation' implied a pride and self-confidence in racial, ethnic, sexual, and ultimately cultural differences. It marked a new form of consciousness among minority groups in the cultural life of the United States, a militancy arising from the assertion of group solidarity and the distinctive traits and appearances of the group.
 

 
Questo file è un’estensione online del corso M. G. Dandini, NEW SURFING THE WORLD.
Copyright © 2010 Zanichelli Editore S.p.A., Bologna [1056]