Reading Blog #4

According to Jacoby, 1960’s youth culture left “a lasting anti intellectual imprint on culture”, because of its music, hippies, and drugs. The music of the sixties was primarily, based on the freedom of speech movement. Freedom of speech was huge in the sixties young Americans felt that they should have the right to say whatever they want as part of the second amendment to the constitution. In 1969, thousands of Americans, known as hippies, and college students gathered for “Woodstock” which was basically a week of drugs, sex, and music. Woodstock was famous primarily for its major attendees, who were hippies. “Hippies” were created by the media and were classified as people who were free spirits and thinkers. When this persona was displayed on television, young Americans copied it and that is how hippies came to be. They dressed in weird outfits and did drugs to help them escape. Drugs affected the sixties a lot, students were a popular user for drugs in the sixties; they used it as an outlet to let go and escape from things like school and work. “Hippies” did weird drugs and psychedelic drugs. All the drugs would allow the user to let go and escape the world for a period of time. Today’s youth culture is surprisingly like the sixties in that we express our opinions and are free to take a stand on what we believe. I remember in high school, we did a day of silence protest to support gay and lesbian rights. The youth movements taking place today have to deal with civil rights, and like the sixties, we protest against those who don’t share our beliefs about a topic. The civil rights movement that is taking place right now has to do with whether or not gays and lesbians have the right to get married in the United States. Another movement taking place right now is the president elect Barak Obama, as he marks the first African American president in US history and overcomes America’s segregating, discriminatory against the African Americans past.