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declared a revolution against General de Gaulle's government. In the
same year, Italy came near to social collapse in the so-called 'Hot
Autumn' of industrial- and student-inspired confrontation, which
was to continue throughout the
s. In the United States the non-
violent tactics of the Civil Rights Movement was superseded by
militant activism on the part of groups such as the Black Panthers.
Also in the States, militant groups, often, but not always, student-
based, were formed in active opposition to the status quo. Other
groups also contested their subaltern status. Issues concerning the
imbalance of power in relation to gender were articulated through
the Feminist movement, for example. Alongside these militant and
antagonistic movements, more conciliatory ideas also flourished.
Most notably, the concept of a counter-culture, an alternative society
based on values other than those supposed to be dominant at that
time, found expression in various ways and places. Broadly speaking
the counter-culture could be defined as a largely white phenome-
non, among whose most notable characteristics were an interest
in self-realization, often involving the use of drugs, LSD or 'acid' in
particular, a devotion to rock music and performance. It flourished
in a number of locations, but found a niche in Northern California,
and especially in San Francisco, which had become a magnet for
those wishing to experiment with alternative lifestyles and ways of
acting and thinking. There were a number of possible reasons for
this, including the role in the American imagination of California
as the final frontier; San Francisco's small-scale charm; its traditional
tolerance, as a port town, for forms of deviance and unorthodoxy;
and its adoption by the proto-hippy 'Beat' group of writers and
artists. The area where Haight Street and Ashbury Street intersect
became a favourite point of meeting for those who wished to
embrace the extremes of the counter-culture. On one level, the close
proximity of Haight Ashbury and Silicon Valley was simply a co-
incidence. The kinds of machines that needed micro-electronics, at
least up to the '
1970
60
s, were exemplary of the technocratic rationality
