“A layer of American and Western European culture that began in the mid-1960s. Its adherents, mostly white, young, and middle class, adopted a lifestyle that embraced personal freedom while rejecting the ethos of capitalism, conformity, and repressive sexual mores.” (Gustainis, Counterculture) Art is expression, delivery of meaning and fascination. It comes in many forms and is used in many ways. Living with society is a type of “no strings attached” counterculture. In reaction to society's dress codes, standards and unwritten laws, a counterculture of tattoos, piercings, unusual hairstyles and clothing styles gracing every city, fashion runway and popular magazine, and is rapidly spreading into bodies and in the wardrobes of today's young people. . The countercultural movement of the 1960s was a cultural revolution that transformed the once conservative American mind into an extreme, liberal mind that now supported radical ideas such as protests, school dropouts, drugs, and sex. The counterculture movement was founded by individuals who had a nonconformist approach, sought to expand social boundaries and challenge the authority that once existed in the United States. The old ideas of religion, philosophy, rivalry, materialism and education were slowly fading away, as new and modest ideas such as love and peace soon became the central dogma of the hippies. No longer believing in the ideas of the Christian church, hippies began to become interested and familiar with the study of astrology. Their philosophy of life was to live freely and in the harmony of nature, without the everyday materials and worries of most people because they believed that society was too worried. This idea, that society chooses to conform and accept... middle of paper... carpets, Kesey's experience shines through in the novel, and one notices that what he experienced and witnessed is a message to the reader. As a reader, you can feel historically educated, in a way, about what life was like in that era. During the 1960s America was going through many changes and social movements. The issues of the countercultural movement of the 1960s were the fundamental obstacles to achieving the highest ideals for American identity. The new lifestyle of a hippie, the idea of ​​power in art, and political activity were all vital to the new American identity that formed in the 1960s. Without these problems, there would have been no reason to alter the American identity and we may not have the same identity as America today. Our identity today is all thanks to the counterculture movement and the changes America experienced in that period.