ABSTRACT
The counter culture is a revolt of the unoppressed. It is a response not to constraint, but to openness. It is a search for new interactional norms in the widening, more diffuse margins of postindustrial societies. It is most satisfactorily conceptualized not as a revolutionary ideology, but as an exploratory curriculum, a range of experiences and exposures through which the postmodern generation seeks a sense of significance. It flowers in the shadow of futurity : a form of anticipatory socialization (often re-socialization) for long life in the loose social networks of a highly plural, non-mass society. It is not a ‘youth culture’. It is a rebirth of Dionysian culture which has striking historical parallels. It insists that we are men, not things: that existence precedes essence. It defines the proper (human) categories which make us holy. It is unique in its promise that humanity can finally be human.
