Were hippies always so out of touch?

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-IF YOU DON'T AGREE WITH MY VIEWS IN ANY RELATABLE WAY, DO NOT POST HERE
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Thank you so much for respecting these wishes. and thank you so much more for reading my question and hopefully answering it with your thoughts =)

My overall view of modern hippies in general is this:
They speak values of love and peace and understanding (values I truly agree with with every fiber of my being) but at their core they are just as hateful and prejudice as the people they oppose. I have met some seemingly full out legit hippies on here (though not yet in real life), and I have met hippies that are real good at staying close to their values.
But most hippies are so arrogant in their ways and don't even realize it, that they couldn't possibly be understanding of anything they don't already think.
Most hippies are so focused on the battle between positive and negative energies that they become prejudice against people who are likely to have negative energies
Most hippies are intolerant of intolerance, and hateful of hate
I'm not saying they don't believe in their values any less, but for whatever reason, they just don't live up to them at all.
Basically, it seems to me that for 99% of hippies it's all talk.

Now, I want to make clear that when I say modern hippie, I mean anyone who considers themselves a hippie, flower-child, etc., etc., in these modern times. I mean both the younger hippies and the older hippies, and I mean both the ones I have encountered in real life and on here, the ones I have debated with and the ones I've heard speak.

Now, if you agree with me that most, or even many, hippies today are out of touch, was hippiedom in a better state (per capita of course) back in the 60s?

 

Not quite sure what you expect from a thread that you start off by telling people to not post unless they agree... but whatever...

First off, get rid of the word hippie in most of that because you just described people in general... Some describe themselves as hippies, some as christians, some as muslims, some as wiccan... and the majority of them all, at best, only pay lip service to their so called beliefs and ideals....

The ones who do live up to and stick to their ideals are often called hermits, assholes, stubborn or egotistical precisely because they do stick to them and it confuses most people. If their beliefs and ideals are of the extreme nature, they sometimes get called terrorist, martyr, saint or just a plain old nutjob.

As to if it was ever any better? No, the majority of people have always been pretty much as they are today, no matter what label they live under... But I think you will find that there was more of a 'coming together' in the heyday of the 60's... something clicked (or snapped) in a lot of people who all headed for the same areas, making it seem like there was 'more' of it around, when the reality was that it was just concentrated rather then scattered.

 

This is a point that I have been making and you have to look at the times. In the '60s there was a surge of young ppl. The Post-War Baby Boomers. That surge moved along the populace and aged (We're now busting the Social Security system).

So, the people were the same as always but there were a bunch of us rebelling teens all at once, and the previous generation gave us much to rebel against. Unrealistic sexual expectations, state mandated racial discrimination, a senseless war that they were forcing us teen men to fight, and a hypocritical use of alcohol while condemning other natural drugs.

And yes, there were the posers of many stripes, from the "mod" dressers who just liked all the style to the narcs and FBI agents among us. Aside from "Woodstock Nation," there was no official Tribe of Hippies. We were just a bunch of mostly young ppl with a few older Beatniks or liberal thinkers who loosely came to agree on some issues, but there were militants and agitators who looked just like the stereotypical hippie.

I mean look at Angela Davis' 'fro. Looks more like a Hippie than Hendrix but she was a serious political activist. And then what was Hendrix - he was into sex, drugs and music and was embraced by the crowd - but was he a Hippie?

So, you have to separate style from substance and then figure what parameters of substance qualify as Hippie. It was not a unified movement, just a bunch of like-minded heads coming together on certain social and cultural issues.

AND THEN WE ALL GOT OLD!

Yep, there are some in their late 50s and 60s who still have the long grey hair and live on the land and in city communes, but not like it was in the '60s. Most of us guys got rid of the long hair (it really is hard to take care of) especially when it mostly fell out. Some of us kept the beards, but trimmed it to office standards and went about the daily grind of working, living, raising kids.

I gradually got back into the mainstream culture by working at psych hospitals and child care facilities and other normal jobs that satisfied my "right livelihood" requirements. In a way I guess I have been an underground hippie, because I kept the values that I picked up from my exploring, rebelling youth, but now I was the adult figure both at work and at home.

As for the modern Hippie, it is nice to see young ppl following those values that we put forth but again the difference is the influences of the times. It ain't 1968.

Altho there are still civil rights struggles ongoing, free Luv is almost a given, interracial and gay couples more visible and as yet they aren't conscripting young men into a slave army to fight their stupid wars.

So are modern Hippies so out of touch. Depends on the individual to whom you are referring - as always.

 

Thanks Tom, saved me a bunch of typing there. :cheers2:

 

I don't recall anyone ever calling themself a hippie, that was something other people called you right after" long haired " and just before "freak". Seems like most people were trying two seek their freedom from the society or establishment in whatever way they could. Through the years it was kinda like riding a roller coaster as soon as you get to that elavated place(peace and love) the bottom would fall out and down you would go. That was a time when,maybe because of nam, we were forced to get older quick and the parties had to be often,because basically we were still children playing games in a politically charged atmosphere. The highs and lows follow one though and I'm sure it would make one moody. There was a promise and a chance to change the world, a revolution of ideas and hopes.So I don't know about the young "hippies" but as for me, my exuse is, HELL I' OLD...AND GROUCHY and now look at that.. ya ,well i've dropped my....O.K next question.

 

Unless they agree in some relatable way. That's not the same as fully agreeing. I probably could have explained myself better on that one but I don't know how =P
And the reason for this is because I want to know if it was this way in the 60s too, and if you don't agree that it's this way now, then

Tis a valid point, and you agree in a relatable way (but you think all people are like that, not hippies specifically)

Thank you for the honesty, and this is also a very good point. I've always sort've been confused about that now that I think about it actually.

I've heard so many different accounts by people from those times, and I've seen many documentaries on hippiedom, but a lot of them are real half assed, honestly (ain't that always the case with historical accounts though?). Too vague in a lot of ways and that brought up more questions than answers in my curious mind.

But whenever I watch fiction from around that time period - there are so many people who are hippie or hippie-ish, and the word is almost always used only by other characters insulting them. I was never too sure why it was like this.

How about the other posters here, do you agree with Tanasi on that?



And Shale, I look very forward to reading your post, but it's too big for me to focus on at the moment (insomnia attack last night - don't worry though, I had tons of fun =P)

 

I like hall and oats...

I like honey and oats too...

 

And Mares eat oats,

And Doe's eat oats,

And little lamb's eat Uncircumcised Babies.

 

Yeah, I always thought that too - Hippie was a derogatory term used by those who were not. It seems to be nowadays that people actually refer to themselves as one, even though they are from resembling what an actual hippie used to be. Though of course, it depends on the individual. Some people do it right, some people are hypocritical and are into it merely for the fashion while tentatively holding onto the morals they think a hippie would.

 

ive been to dead shows where I actually had the thought "WTF am I doing with the people?"

 

It's a thought provoking thread.
There's been a lot said and argued here, over what the hippie ideal was/is and what, if anything, constitutes hippie nature.

As a few have said, I think most of the words used to describe hippies were given by people who were trying to insult them in one way or another. In much the same way that the word "******" is used to insult black people, but was later adopted by black people as a word used amongst themselves, "hippie" and "freak" were embraced by hippies when referring to themselves. What's more important is what hippies represented.

Shale makes a very valid point about the sheer numbers of kids in those days. It was probably inevitable that there would be a youth movement, when the young outnumbered the more aged. Maybe it was a sort of "perfect storm" situation, where there were tons of kids with radical new ideas thrown together with a government of lies and subterfuge and an injust war that was literally eating us alive.

I think that hippies are best defined by a few elements that they all shared, rather than any unified ideology. Some hippies were angry, some were mellow, some were dull, some were sharp, some were violent, some were pacifists, some were radical, some were followers, some were arrogant, some were humble, and so on. Just like today, they were simply people, as Tom points out. What they may have shared in common was a dislike for the way things were and a desire to break away from those things. The particular thing that each hippie disliked most might be as different as the particular individual, but I think they all had the common goal of not wanting to be a part of the cultural world they came from. And there were a LOT of them.

I think that nostalgia probably softens the reality of hippies a bit and tends to concentrate on the most admirable of their myriad traits, so the media pushes the "peace, love, music" aspect and forgets that there was a lot of violence, too.

I don't think that hippies in general were necessarily free from hate, or intolerance, or any of the other human conditions. Many times, hippies would express their hatred of the establishment, the cops, the "Man", while espousing love and acceptance -- so your point is well taken, Duck. I guess it's more about what we hate than about whether we hate.

So, there were lots of kids who wanted a different way of life. They banded together, for whatever reason, in solidarity with their one common desire. They grew up and took that desire for a different life with them. They became the "new establishment" and a lot of stuff that their parents would have balked at became the new status quo.

The neo-hippies are probably rebelling against the world that the old hippies gave them, or left unfinished. And so it goes.

Bottom line: I don't think we can find any universal commonality amongst hippies, other than a desire to be left alone to live their own lifestyle.

 

The "Modern Hippie" has become associated with an image that many kids catch on to when they reach college becuase they are away from home and it is a way to be rebellious. Yes the hippie it self has become materialized and idealized with images of dready girls doing yoga and doing wheat grass shots at the gym. It has become trendy to be a "hippie". Basically what most "modern hippies" are is just kids that like to smoke alot of weed and advertise it. It is sad but true.

 

I knew I was going to enjoy your post even though me and you have butted heads on this subject.
You made me think a lot and really reinforced the posts I have already read, while giving me some new ideas to chew on. I guess it's pretty easy to over-generalize even when you know that you are generalizing.

Now, here's a big surprise. When you and me debated on a similar issue, I felt like I couldn't get a word in your ear; sometimes I attribute what I see as bad debating to the person's inner self (rather than take into account that they could just be bad at it, or too passionate about the topic to be as cool or rational as I want), and you have shown me here that I am very wrong to do so.
This post was very insightful and basically described my problem with the hippies.
I feel like they (as a group) gave up on us. I feel like they sold out, cashed in, and made the world a mirror of the 50s they grew up in. I feel betrayed, shat on, and absolutely disrespected when I hear them get credit for peace and love and freedom, when it was all talk the whole time.
A cool movement, something groovy to do that helps you find hook-ups, a good way to feel like you're doing something just by listening to music in a park in New York!

I disagree. I think there is commonality, just no connections to show us that. There is too much of a divide, and we haven't found a way to gather. I don't necessarily mean hippies when I say this, as I don't consider myself a hippie, but I mean the people.

We want the truth (or the closest relative we can find at least).
We want to know what's news and what's opinion.
We want an end to violence, and furthermore we want an end to gangs.
We want the government to stop jailing our brethren because they choose to be free and use drugs.
We want the drugs taken out of the black market, and the drug money taken out of the hands of the gangsters.
We want an end to laws that attack our freedoms pointlessly.
We want our families back.
We want an economy that keeps us secure.
We want accountability for the businesses, the media, and for our government.
We want to know we can do something to get any of these items, but we don't.

 

How about the fact that we are all human and all share the same planet.

That 'talk' you are going on about that has no meaning... Well, you are taking part in it.

You talk about finding commonalities and yet at the same time you are looking to drop labels on people.

The reason labels were and are shunned wasn't because it put people in boxes... it was because it excluded people from them... Each label is a box that does more to keep others away, then it ever does to bring them together... strip away all the labels and what are we left with?

people...

 

We can't not label things - our brains work based on labels. All words are labels, and language is probably what's advanced us most over the years.
I agree with you about the all human thing, whenever I pass judgment I try to remind myself that in the exact same situation with the exact same genes, I would do the exact same thing - but taking away labels and generalization altogether just makes us more confused.
Really, we have to work on optimizing our labels, throwing out the bunk ones (like race), making them more accurate (like ethnicity), and learn how to balance them better.
But at the same time, part of the reason I would never call myself a hippie (even if I was a hippie) is because labeling a movement singles it out, makes it a specific group, and makes people forget they are just people.

 

The conversation was about the labeling of people, which is why I said;

How is making it 'more accurate' going to help? Does ethnic hatred sound better then racial hatred?

The labels we put on ourselves and others (people), only serve one purpose...

That is to separate us from each other, shattering that commonality you say you are seeking.

 

No, but "ethnic differences" sounds a lot better than "racial differences" (seeing how race doesn't exist and ethnic differences holds accountability to our side of the difference).

No, they serve many purposes. The main one being that they help us to understand each other. Just like any other word. Sociology couldn't happen if we didn't have labels for groups of people. They have that nasty side effect of separating us, but it's not like they were created to do just that.

 

well, enjoy your talk

 

Thank you, and thank you for contributing - if you want to debate more about labels or generalization or anything like that, please PM me =)

 

What I mean by universal commonality is a commonality that encompasses all things. Everyone is individual; therefore, we don't share all goals in common.
Sure, we all share a few things, which is what my previous post was about and probably why hippies came together in the '60s.
Even within your bullet points, there are items that weren't universally shared by hippies. Not all of us took drugs; not all of us cared about economy; not all of us cared about truth, but rather cared about what made us feel good. Maybe this is why it's so hard to define what a hippie is. There seems to be a finite number of things that we shared in common, and an endless number of things that we didn't all share, but we came together over the things we did share. I feel that maybe the one single thing that we all universally shared was a simple desire to break free from whatever form of repression we each felt, back then. Beyond that, it was all just fashions, fads, and styles. It's probably the same thing with neo-hippies, today.

It may be that the repression they feel is at the hands of my generation, but I don't feel like we sold out. While it's true that I cut my hair, got a job, and raised a family in the traditional way, I don't feel that I'm that much different from the person I was back then. I raised my kids to question authority and think for themselves, as I still do.

I guess there comes a time when we have to give up being an operative and leave the job to the next batch of recruits. At least they'll have allies in the earlier generation cheering them on.