please help for my college work!!

It's not whether or not I'm happy with the questions and I'm not casting aspersions on your project per se. I'm sort of railing indirectly at the educational system that seems to encourage misconceptions but sometimes you have to play along if you want the grade--- free thinking is not exactly encouraged in the educational system from where I stand. If anything it's discouraged. My issue isn't with you, it's with how you're expected to shape your thinking by people who quite likely don't (or won't) understand what is being discussed.

Free thinking is a threat to the establishment and the "educational" system seeks to stifle free thought in ways- like establishing premises about subcultures and countercultures as incontrovertible fact- characterizing members as criminals, undesirables, outcasts, etc.

You're doing college work which suggests at least a modicum of free thinking is to be expected. I'm concerned that you're being led to do "research" in a manner that perpetuates stereotypes and reinforces misinformation.

I'm just challenging you to think for yourself and bring something real to the learning arena... there have been some very excellent answers here. My point is that your questions reflect some misconceptions and suggest that the answers will be framed in a way to furnish nothing new.

The hippie movement didn't become mainstream popular until after the summer of love in '67- though as has been mentioned already, it was as much the war in Vietnam that gave it legs... I myself wonder if the assassination of JFK may have played a role as he was seen by the younger generation as their president, and while we had become involved in Vietnam under his watch, it was a very limited involvement- and not until LBJ took over- subsequently elected on his own did the war really escalate as he listened to the "hawks" (military advisers) creating the situation where thousands of young draftee's bodies would return in pine boxes-- at about the same time frame.

I don't see that becoming a hippie is something someone decides to do beforehand... more a realization after the fact- an epiphany.... "holy shit, I think I'm a hippie" after coming to terms that ones own values and sensibilities fell in line with what was considered "hippie". Those "deciding" beforehand probably just wanted to fit in with the "cool" kids and when they outgrew the need to identify with a group and pissing off the folks lost its novelty, they found that their values in fact did not agree with what being a hippie was all about. They got haircuts and entered the work force... became yuppies and adopted the "he who dies with the most toys wins" life philosophy.

"Hippie" is not a subspecies to be studied by National Geographic or tagged and tracked by the Audubon people (though maybe by the NSA folks). I see your approach as supporting a whole set of misconceptions and I will challenge that every step of the way... even (especially) if they are not your misconceptions.

Learning ain't easy and I'm a very difficult person.

 

Read this

 

There are threads about this all over in here.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=439153&f=509 - student from Netherlands

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=443207&f=12 - student from Portugal

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=442623&f=509 - a student from France

Kind of curious all the curiosity about Hippies.

 

My curiosity is in the institutionally endorsed curiosity. What does the curriculum have to say and what kinds of responses are rewarded.

Hippies were true free thinkers who demonstrated to the establishment how dangerous is is to have a fully engaged and vocal population who doesn't buy the company line. The "greatest generation" were easy because as far as they were concerned they owned the country for sacrificing during the great depression and WWII. The government was something to be revered, respected, not questioned because of course it always had the best interest of the little guy at heart and heaven help anyone who thinks differently.

If Harry or Dwight said that there was a red menace then there was a red menace. You were to keep at your studies in school, get good marks and if Uncle Sam wanted you to defend freedom then you did so without question.

Beginning with the LBJ administration... perhaps even before that- those unwritten social laws began to break down. Until 1960 the younger generation had seen recycled old guard from WWII installed in the white house... a general that Dad probably worshiped. Then young and dashing JFK got elected... and the younger folks probably felt that finally-- FINALLY they had their president. Dad may have been overheard grumbling about that silver spoon Kennedy brat living out Joe's dreams... the elder Kennedy had his own political ambitions cut short when he wanted to appease Germany.

So much was behind the culture that the hippies rebelled against- held with equal passion by the old generation.

Then "they" shot Kennedy, that old man Johnson took over and the war pigs as well... no longer just advisers to southeast Asia, but combat troop draftees- eventually by the hundreds of thousands... and the ones who didn't come back in a pine box came back fucked up in the head... young men just out of school. Some were able to defer service by enrolling in college and others escaped to Canada.

The hippies were all about peace and love... they were anti war and the Vietnam war was their most effective "recruitment" tool. The drugs, sex, and rock & roll were just perks.

By 1963, there were only 110 US casualties from the war. In 1964, 147 were added... not a big statistical thing, but by '65 1,079 were killed and the war total was up to 1,863. I believe that the media was furnishing body counts at that point. In '66, 3,755 KIAs were added and it started to become a situation where just about everyone knew someone- or had a friend who knew someone who had been injured or killed. In '67 the total killed reached 11,153 and the mood was beginning to turn- even among stalwart supporters of government who starting to bury sons fighting a war whose justification was little more than global chess against Communism. Burning draft cards became a favorite pastime among draft aged young men who had no interest in being shipped overseas to get shot at.

Concurrent with this was civil rights, which had been simmering since well before Vietnam and Kennedy, was coming to an explosive head where southern states were facing the prospect of having national guard troops enforce a federal law that the southern "Jim Crow" establishment wanted no part of- and state's rights was an issue as well.

Also concurrent was the fight for equal rights for women and the sexual revolution- in part a fight for the woman's right to make decisions for her body. Roe V Wade legalizing abortion wasn't decided until 1973 and the Equal Rights Amendment wasn't approved by congress until 1972. These issues remained sore spots through the entire decade of the 60's

This is my slant on it and may well be subject to corrections... I am not quite old enough to have been an original hippie... but I do remember them and the things my own father had to say about them.

The 60's were not a fun time for most living through them. "Hippie" was almost definable as a mission more than an identity.