Exactly. In the US culture specifically, in the XX century before the hippies, there were limited pockets of "self-expression" (discarding previous culture, rea

Exactly. In the US culture specifically, in the XX century before the hippies, there were limited pockets of "self-expression" (discarding previous culture, really) as depicted by Henry Miller, and later the whole Beat Generation. Only after that, this tendency picked up enough steam so that the masses picked it up, in the form the Hippies movement.