Someone goes with the flow, collecting the benefits of civilization along the way and enjoying everything that the Earth gives. Someone believes that you need to go against all or the most powerful in order to prove the superiority of your values. Both those and others are right in some way, but wrong in some way.
Many people are familiar with the term "subculture". This means a kind of abstract from the general understanding of the world, their own customs, orders, rules. A subculture can be called adolescent or youth, creative or special established in a professional environment. However, the term "counterculture" has a slightly different meaning.
The roots of the counterculture
For the first time the term "counterculture" was used by Theodore Rozzak, an American sociologist. It was he who decided to call this new trends in art, which has repeatedly declared itself in a rather original way. If it is typical for an ordinary subculture to simply be next to the mainstream, but move in one direction, then the counterculture has a clear opposition to generally accepted norms and traditions. It was the counterculture that decided to oppose itself to what is accepted in the usual understanding of things.
The followers of the current considered the main feelings and emotions, elevated to the apogee, standing outside the limits of logical comprehension in the usual ways. Countercultural people question the dominant cultural values, moral and ethical foundations, and also create their own system of ideological coordinates.
A striking example of this trend can be called American hippies in the 60s of the last century. "People of flowers" dressed in strange bright clothes, gathered in communes, sang songs, took hallucinogens and rejected common moral norms. Promiscuous sex, children raised by the entire community, and so on were common. In the 70s, they were replaced by punks and declared their rights and freedoms.
In the Soviet Union, one can recall the rock culture of the underground, which was formed by apartment houses, underground concerts. Cut off from the West, receiving only crumbs of real culture from abroad, these people strove to understand and rethink what fell into their hands, and on the basis of this to create something of their own.
How a counterculture is formed
In fact, almost any phenomenon that opposes its principles to social ones can be called a counterculture. If you look into the history of the issue, then even Christianity in the early stages of its inception can be called a counterculture.
When a leader appears, followers gather around him. If he can offer something instead of generally accepted norms, in some way fills a spiritual and mental crisis in the hearts and minds of people, then a countercultural current is formed.
Thus, in a criminal environment, when a closed community is forced to live by strict rules, the role of a leader becomes especially significant. But there are examples of a national scale, for example, communism.