ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates aspects of the greater coherence which prevents any simple interpretation of the Woodstock aesthetic as implying a lack of desire, or ability, to discriminate. In the contradictions which shoot through the performances at Woodstock, both in terms of stylistic parameters and in terms of their expression of social values. These performances do indeed express the social values of the counter-culture, which summarize as the longing for free expression and for individuality, and the difficulty of maintaining those within any social structure worthy of the name. T. Roszak stressed the attempt across the counter-culture to arrest processes of alienation which threatened to result in the objectification of the individual. Charles Reich insisted that this very attempt resulted from a new consciousness, itself a product of two factors: the promise offered by the American Dream, and the threat offered to it by everything from Vietnam to nuclear war to the degradation of everyday existence.
