Alter Your Native Land Essay -- American Culture Cultural Essays

Alter Your Native Land.- Stiff Little Fingers, Alternative Ulster, 1979 By definition, a counterculture possesses values and mores that are in opposition to those of an established society. When matchless hears the word counterculture, it may prompt images of hippies, punks, demonstrators, or underground political movements in other words, a group of people (usually young) with a purpose, who are nerve-wracking to make a change or say something meaningful nigh the larger culture in which they live. In addition to demonstrations, music, or merely lifestyle choices, this kind of action may be taken in writing. Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut prove this point in tutelage and Loathing in Las Vegas and Breakfast of Champions respectively, despite using differing styles, by asking rather contentious minds round American culture. A question raised by Fear and Loathing deals with the typical American ideal What has become of it?Thompsons mass addresses the question in the very title, A Savage Journey to the smell of the America Dream. His horrific tale of a gonzo journalist living in a perpetual drug and alcohol-induced haze may at archetypal seem to be only a drug book, but virtuoso is able to get much more out of the narrative by taking the time to study it more closely namely, a description about the American Dream. After wading through several chapters that picture an assortment of trips brought on by an array of drugs, we find our antagonists getting directions to the American Dream from a taco stand waitress on the outskirts of Vegas. Apparently, the American Dream is now a mental joint, where all the dopers hang out. A dubious, black building has come to represent what formerly stood for opportunity, independence, and free... ...y presenting us with many new ways in which to examine American culture, Vonnegut enables us to question everything from common figures of speech to approaches to homosexuality. He may have done this with the antic ipate of preventing the blind acceptance of our societys norms.Countercultural authors, whether speaking through a haze of narcotics or as if speaking to a child, can turn of events a strong role in establishing new ideologies within a society. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Breakfast of Champions are compelling examples of this, and Thompson and Vonnegut walkway into touchy territory while presenting their themes. If one wishes to find an alternative to rule modes of thinking, it is important to look upon work such as theirs and discover the answers to their questions about our culture. As the Stiff Little Fingers say, Grab it and change it, its yours.