Open quotes:
The essence of the democratic surge of the 1960s was a general challenge to existing systems of authority, public and private. In one form or another, this challenge manifested itself in the family, the university, business, public and private associations, politics, the governmental bureaucracy, and the military services. People no longer felt the same compulsion to obey those whom they had previously considered – superior to themselves in age, rank, status, expertise, character, or talents. Within most organizations, discipline eased and differences in status became blurred.
Each group claimed its right to participate equally—and perhaps more than equally—in the decisions which affected itself. More precisely, in American society, authority had been commonly based on: organizational position, economic wealth, specialized expertise, legal competence, or electoral representativeness. Authority based on hierarchy, expertise, and wealth all, obviously, ran counter to the democratic and egalitarian temper of the times, and during the 1960s, all three came under heavy attack. In the university, students who lacked expertise, came to participate in the decision-making process on many important issues.
In the government, organizational hierarchy weakened, and organizational subordinates more readily acted to ignore, to criticize, or to defeat the wishes of their organizational superiors. In politics generally, the authority of wealth was challenged and successful efforts made to introduce reforms to expose and to limit its influence. Authority derived from legal and electoral sources did not necessarily run counter to the spirit of the times, but when it did, it too was challenged and restricted. The commandments of judges and the actions of legislatures were legitimate to the extent that they promoted, as they often did, egalitarian and participatory goals.