I lack the time today to go into every aspect of this, but the counterculture of the 50s & 60s opened up huge holes in the dominant culture. That shouldn't even be up for debate. To what these openings have led is another, pertinent question, and I think the results are mixed. But just to cite something quickly that was part of a previous thread -- the PBS intro to the Weather docu by Don Cheadle was incredibly sympathetic to the initial aims and ultimate despair of the Weatherpeople, so much so that I keep waiting for FrontPage to go nuts over it (maybe they have -- I haven't checked in days). Now, without countercultural changes, you wouldn't see, on tax-payer TV, such utterings, much less the film itself, which was up for an Oscar.
DP