The Counter-Culture: Adaptive or Maladaptive?

The revolution which is beginning will call in question not only capitalist society but industrial society. The consumer's society must perish of a violent death. The society of alienation must disappear from history. We are inventing a new and original world. Imagination is seizing power. (Sign on the main entrance of the Sorbonne, May 1968; The Times, London, 17 May 1968).

A girl in her early 20s stands in a field wearing a man's shirt and a floppy beach hat. She is nude from the waist down and at her feet play two nearly naked children who complain to her periodically about each other's behaviour. The girl is speaking about an order made by a Fresno judge requiring her two children to be placed in a foster-home following her third arrest on a drug charge. Behind her is a commune made up of several dozen young people. The girl arrived the day before and is still uncertain whether she will remain or even be accepted into the commune. She says, 'If the vibes are good, I'll stay on; if not, I've heard about a Zen group in the Sierras I'd like to look into' (Davis, 1971, pp. 1–2).

At Dartmouth's 201st commencement, the highest ranking graduate of the college addressed friends and parents: 'Take pity on me, those of you who can justify the air you breathe, send me letters and tell me how money makes your life worthwhile … And if some one of you out there is also like me, write me a letter and tell me how you came to appreciate the absurdity of your life.' When interviewed about his plans for the future, the young man said he was drawn to bartending 'because it's something to do with the hands and it's being with people' (The Sacramento Bee it, 30 June 1971, p. B6).

At about the same time in Albany, New York, the State Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a father who cut off support of his daughter when she refused to accept his injunction to live in a dormitory at college. A previous court held that the father was required to pay his daughter $250 per month