History 476

Devine

Spring 2007

 

Study Questions for May 3rd

 

William L. O’Neill, The Counterculture

 

  1. How did Catch-22, folk music, and the twist contribute to the origins of the counterculture?

 

 

  1. Although both see them as important and as “setting a good example for the young,” how does O’Neill’s assessment of the Beatles differ from Pielke’s?

 

 

  1. What role did drugs play in shaping the counterculture?

 

 

  1. O’Neill argues that contrary to Timothy Leary and others, drugs were not liberating but “encourage[d] conformity among the young.” Why does he believe that the pot-smoking younger generation was no different than their drinking and tranquilizer-popping parents?

 

 

  1. How did Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters differ from Leary and his followers?

 

 

  1. How did Janis Joplin differ from Joan Baez?  Why was Joplin more popular with the counterculture of the mid- to late 1960s?

 

 

  1. What was the relationship between the counterculture and commercialism? 

 

 

  1. O’Neill suggests that the supposedly radical ethos of the counterculture was simply the reappearance of self-indulgent romanticism fueled by the mass media and its propagandizing of the pleasure principle. What evidence does he introduce to support this view?  Would Farber agree with him?

 

 

  1. Why does O’Neill argue that the counterculture increased social hostility and broadened the gap between the privileged and the working class?

 

 

  1. Why does O’Neill say that the counterculture was “hell on standards?”

 

 

P.J. O’Rourke, The Awful Power of Make Believe

 

  1. Why did the author write this brief memoir of his own radical past?  What does he want his readers to think about or to take away from these personal reflections?

 

 

  1. What impression does the author give you of daily life in the counterculture?

 

 

  1. Why does O’Rourke believe Marxism was appealing to both his generation of young activists and to the Third World of the 1980s?  Why does he reject Marxism?

 

 

  1. O’Rourke suggests that the “cultural revolution” of the 1960s was based on “bullshit,” and that radicals’ willingness to believe in things that were “make believe” rather than real did them more harm than good. Having read both Farber and O’Rourke, who do you find more persuasive? Why?