Alter Your Native Land Essay -- American Culture Cultural Essays

Alter Your inherent Land.- Stiff slim Fingers, Alternative Ulster, 1979 By definition, a counterculture possesses values and mores that ar in opposition to those of an established company. When one hears the word counterculture, it may be active images of hippies, punks, demonstrators, or underground political movements in other words, a assort of people (usually young) with a purpose, who are trying to make a flip or say something meaningful about the larger culture in which they live. In addition to demonstrations, music, or simply lifestyle choices, this kind of action mechanism may be taken in writing. Hunter S. Thompson and Kurt Vonnegut prove this level in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Breakfast of Champions respectively, despite apply differing styles, by asking rather contentious questions about American culture. A question raised by Fear and Loathing deals with the typical American ideal What has be pick out of it?Thompsons book addresses the question in the very title, A Savage Journey to the Heart of the America Dream. His horrific tosh of a gonzo journalist living in a perpetual dose and alcohol-induced haze may at first seem to be scarcely a drug book, but one is able to get much more out of the narrative by taking the time to make it more closely namely, a statement about the American Dream. aft(prenominal) wading through several chapters that describe 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 numerous 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 wi th the hope 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 play a strong usance 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 walk into touchy territory time presenting their themes. If one wishes to find an alternative to prevailing modes of thinking, it is important to look upon bring 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.