Aldona Jawłowska drogi kontrkultury

neously developing conflicts varying extremely in generality:
international and national conflicts (e.g. racial conflicts
in the U.S.A.) and local ones (e.g. with university authorities,
professors, and even parents) unmasking the brutality
of the governing machine. The movement developed in
a similar manner in both areas: from pacifist and anti-imperialist
manifestations, from fighting for greater access to
active participation in decisions concerning one's own environment,
to questioning the basic principles of the social
status quo and primary cultural values. Through political
combat its participants learned to discern causes from
effects and to see the common social background underlying
both the great international conflicts and the small ones
restricted to campus or school territory.
Part Two is devoted to various dimensions of self-reflection
within the movement. It attempts to answer the question
against what and in the name of what is counterculture
fighting We have distinguished the following basic
assumptions of the movement: to relate politics to culture,
not only by means of stating negative facts within the existing
status quo but also by establishing a program of action;
to question the very bases of culture, its ethos, and basic
model under the charge that it no longer supplies instruments
for cognition, explains reality, nor serves interpersonal
communication effectively. We present the directions
and forms of criticism of culture, as well as the new proposals
put forward by the contestants, in our analysis of
the programs and activities of the most well-known groups
(varying in the level of self-identification and internal consistency),
e.g. the Dutch Provos, the Situationists, the American
Diggers and Hippies, etc.
In this part we attempt to present counterculture as
a movement in which new forms of expression are developed:
a language of its own, new values, and new ways
of practising them. The most important channels of
expression of counterculture are music, theatrical
performances, and everyday life led according to norms
of coexistence and patterns contradictory to generally
observed models. Hence we present the principles of ,,new
art", the shattering of the „old" language and its patterns
of thinking, the establishing of a dialogue with the audience,
the overcoming of the division between artist and
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