Hippies

[Sky]

....

[Ele'ill]

*high-five*


wut?

[RedAnarchist]

So? Who cares about a bunch of rebellious middle class kids from the 60s?

[Ele'ill]

Right, because the middle class holds no clout.

[Phalanx]

The hippies were a spontaneous, anarchically rebellious youth movement that arose after World War II, mainly in the United States. It was devoid of any positive sociopolitical program whatever.

This hippie movement was an expression of the dissatisfaction and protest of young people (primarily petit bourgeois) against the standardized ideal of “success” and the hypocrisy of the bourgeois morality of “good conduct” and “decency.” In breaking with the generally accepted traditional bourgeois way of life, the “radicalism” of hippies was frequently manifested in the violation of elementary norms of the human community.

I think the same argument could be made against yourself.

[Winter]

Hippies!? Somebody call Eric Cartman!!! We need a Hippy exterminator!

[mikelepore]

devoid of any positive sociopolitical program

While the hippies didn't suggest a program, I always believed it was important that they promoted the attitude that it's rules, and not the violation of rules, that need justification. It is a choice in pursuit of happiness, or even to do nothing in particular, that should be the default, and obedience to a code the exception. I was a teen in the late 1960s. When young men were asked why they had long hair, their answer would often be something like "Because we weren't born with scissors in our hands." They may not have expressed the principle in general form, but they realized that it's the conventional that bears the burden of proof. That was a significant social change.

[Lector Malibu]

While the hippies didn't suggest a program, I always believed it was important that they promoted the attitude that it's rules, and not the violation of rules, that need justification. It is a choice in pursuit of happiness, or even to do nothing in particular, that should be the default, and obedience to a code the exception. I was a teen in the late 1960s. When young men were asked why they had long hair, their answer would often be something like "Because we weren't born with scissors in our hands." They may not have expressed the principle in general form, but they realized that it's the conventional that bears the burden of proof. That was a significant social change.

Well thats true but what happened to the hippies for the most part?..They became todays capitalist slamjacking their way through the corporate business world.

[Bandito]

They had no class conciousness.
They had no organization.
Thay had nothing except anti-war bullshit(which in 90% of the cases wasn't even "stop the killing of inocent Vientnamese" but "Bring our troops home"
Lack of everything.

[Ele'ill]

They had no class conciousness.
They had no organization.
Thay had nothing except anti-war bullshit(which in 90% of the cases wasn't even "stop the killing of inocent Vientnamese" but "Bring our troops home"
Lack of everything.


But has there been anything more significant in the United States since then?

[Bud Struggle]

But has there been anything more significant in the United States since then?

What a wonderfully perceptive question.

[Dros]

Hippies!? Somebody call Eric Cartman!!! We need a Hippy exterminator!

Eric Cartman is my hero. And I agree with him about hippies.:D:laugh::D:laugh::D

[mikelepore]

The hippie "rebellion" disappeared because the whole society merged with it. Remember what the middle 1960s were like in the U.S. If a girl told a high school guidance counselor that she wanted to be a scientist she was told to stop being unrealistic and to choose a woman's profession. Students were expelled from public school for wearing blue jeans, and girls expelled if they didn't wear dresses or skirts. Male college students were required to wear neck ties. Until 1965 (the case of legal Griswold v. Connecticut) married couples didn't have the legal right to use birth control. It was considered acceptable to show black actors in television dramas only if they were portraying maids and butlers. Comedian Lennie Bruce was arrested for telling jokes that made fun of religion. The sudden appearance of a fad of young people praising hedonism and naturalism may not seem too significant to us, but it was shocking to many people for that time. By the time the first interracial kiss was allowed on television in 1968, the society was already in the process of assimilating the youth rebellion, having been slapped into recognizing how rigid the culture had previously been. The hippies disappeared mainly because they were a conscious effort to contrast with their opposite, and after their opposite was shaken into loosening up there was less rigidity to contrast with. It wasn't a revolution, but I believe it was significant.

[Comrade Rage]

They didn't merely 'disappear', most of the hippies became part of the capitalist machine. A large amount of them may even be rightwing repubicans now!

[BIG BROTHER]

My dad use to be a hippie, kinda rare for a Mexican...now he's just an old lazy guy, who complains about everything and everyone.

[Red October]

Hippies are pretty much useless in activism, they don't really want to "get with the program" and work on any sort of organization, they just like to do their own random-ass crap.

[bcbm]

Wow, I don't think I've ever seen a worse summary of what was going on in the US in the late 60's/early 70's. Congratulations!


Remember what the middle 1960s were like in the U.S.

While your examples I correct, I think in other ways that period was a much more liberal period in American history and the youth culture/revolutionaries pushing it even further towards the edge resulted in the cultural pendulum swinging back towards the right, where it has remained ever since.

[Neutrino]

The hippie "rebellion" disappeared because the whole society merged with it.

Exactly! The heyday of hippiedom was a time of positive social change. It was a time of resistance to rapidly atrophying fortified, antiquated social mores. The hippies were themselves quite marginal. It was, however, their front running and hedonism that changed the bulk of Western society.

[LSD]

The sixties in general have been called the "adolescence" of the modern world, and as disorganized, fractured, and occasionaly ridiculous as it got, you still can't deny the accomplishments.

The hippies never got their "flower power", but the troops came out of Vietnam, segregation came down, and the crushing soul-destroying conformity that defined the 1950s collapsed in a glorious expression of human self-expression.

There was no "revolution", it didn't "go anywhere", and in the following decades the re-energized right, especially the religious right, did its best to reverse the gain of the sixties. But the two leading candidates for the American presidency are a black man and a woman, gay marriage is fully legal in five countries and counting, and the internet has opened up a whole new world of social networking.

I don't think the hippies would be satisfied, but I'm sure they much rather have what we've got then the deal they started with. History may move slowly at times, but it moves. There has been no greater time in human history to be alive than this very second.

But I understand nostalgia for the spirit of the 1960s, I really do. I certainly don't think there can really be a doubt that, culturally, it was a better time. I can honestly count on the fingers of one hand the numnber of albums I've liked post-1976 (and two of them are from artists with firm roots in the sixties!).

But the baby boomers fumbled the ball, it's our turn to take it up. Here's hoping we can come up with a real plan this time, and make some good music along the way :D!