counterculture

Etymology

From counter- + culture.

noun

1. Any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to Western culture.
   The concert was a cultural happening for members of the counterculture in the St. Louis area. August 16, 1971, W. Thomas Stewart, “A record turnout for The Who at Mississippi River Festival”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
   The sexual revolution has wreaked havoc on the American family: increasing rates of divorce, illegitimacy, and single-parent families. The glorification of recreational drug use, from which the wealthy and middle class have only recently begun to recoil, has contributed to the emergence of a permanent urban underclass. The self-indulgent notions of no-fault living, the cult of victimization, the futility of work, and the inherent injustice of American society, which the counterculture promoted, have corroded the respect for merit and personal striving, which are the human virtues surest to help individuals grow, develop moral codes, and achieve success. 1994, Richard Nixon, “America Beyond Peace”, in Beyond Peace, New York: Random House, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 235
   The counterculture has long since outlived the enthusiasm of its original participants and become a more or less permanent part of the American scene, a symbolic and musical language for the endless cycles of rebellion and transgression that make up so much of our mass culture. 1997, Thomas Carr Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture, and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, University of Chicago Press