Another kind of object lesson in rejection was administered to Movement members more directly.

One of the less attractive aspects of The Movement was its readiness to shun those who failed to hold the proper opinions and beliefs.  Disagreement was often seen not just as someone's taking a different view on a particular issue, but as a more general indication that they were not the sort of person a pursuer of world-changing ideals ought to be associating with.   

The threat of ostracism could not have failed to be especially daunting for those who had been considered socially unacceptable for most of their lives, and were finally considered "with it" and hip because of their association with The Movement.   It is therefore not  surprising that members of the Counterculture tended to be far less likely to question new claims and exhortations by Movement leaders than would normally be expected of people of their education and intellect.  

The more time people spent in a subculture where the threat of crushing rejection was omnipresent, the more it apparently came to seem normal, and the less remarkable it began to feel to subject other people to it as well.

This seems to have been especially the case if those other people were hopelessly out-of-it adherents of Eisenhower-era values and Lawrence Welk-style music.