Joe Moody’s Web Adventures

Rebellion is to resist authority, to go against the grain.

Rebellion has a negative connotation, but just like the film Star Wars, rebels can be the good guys if the ruling authority is the Dark Side.

In the 1960’s the young people of that day rebelled against traditional authority and created what was dubbed the counter-culture.

By the early 21st century, this generation became the authorities they once resisted, and changed culture so much that the counter-culture became mainstream society. What was once deemed rebellion became the establishment.

This generation, known as the Baby Boomers, exerted its power by sheer numbers. All children of the “Greatest Generation” who weathered the Depression, won World War II, then produced the most populous and privileged generation in American history: A Baby Boom.

Advances in technology empowered and enlightened this generation even further, new tools doing most the work meant new freedoms and much more time only previously enjoyed by the wealthy. Combined with the turbulence of the times, this generation questioned its own values and existence to the point that anything resembling authority was suspect: government, church, academia, police, military, anyone over 30.

The questioning continued until a counter-culture solidified. But then this generation grew up, they had to move out of the home and fend for their own like their parents before them. They became parents, bought houses, took a government jobs, became professors, of ministers and all of them exceeded the age of 30.

But they did not leave their counter-culture behind, soon all aspects of their rebellion assimilated into mainstream culture. The counter-culture became just plain old culture.

And as the children of the baby boomers grew, like all children they also sought rebellion to establish identity and distinguish themselves from their aging parents.

To be a hippie of the hippie parent would be a conformist.

To become a priest of a hippie parent would be true rebellion, or reverse rebellion.