Hello! I'm studying at Oxford University, England and I am writing a thesis about the impact that hippies had on ending the Vietnam war. Does anybody have any views on this? Were you at any protests? Please write back-I want to hear from people first hand, reading books about it is boring! Thank you! Sarah
Hehe.. well... First.. make a good and clear definition of 'hippie'.. without that you have nothing. Second.. the vietnam conflict wasn't declared a war, so there weren't any warregulations when it came to controlling the media. That way the 'warcorrespondents' were able to get more information to the rest of the world, which had a huge influence on the opinions of the people back home. Wasn't it one of the presidents who said that the media ended the 'war' in vietnam? Btw.. I think that later on it was declared a war.. or in hindsight.. you should look that up (plus let me know ). Hippies however weren't all that sweet and lovin always.. they yelled 'baby killers' to returned soldiers.. young traumatised men who returned from the battlefield their government sent them to.. only to find hatred in their own country. Personally I think the whole vietnam thing was a perfect way for the youth in the sixties to have another (very good) excuse to question authority. I wouldn't go as far as saying that the hippies ended it, whatever definition of hippies you use. I would say that the public opinion had a huge influence and maybe even caused the end.. Hope that's of some help.
no offense, but if you got into Oxford, I would think you would do real research instead of posting in a public site. I'm young so I wans't there and I don't know, but I don't think they had anything to do with ending the war. We lost because we shouldn't have been there to begin with. they had a lot of power here at home influencing the idea of peace, but I don't think they changed anyone's minds that had a hand in pulling out our troops.
harsh.. but true. Like I said.. you have to ask yourself first how you define 'hippies'. After that.. you have to find people that fit that definition AND were active as such in those days if you want to have reliable 'eye wittness' acounts or opinions that matter. Nearly everyone here is pretty young.. plus I assume that your essay isn't an accumulations of opinions of random people online but a piece based on a solid theoretical research.. there is enough literature out there on Vietnam, the role of the media, public opinion, draft dodgers.. hell.. just look at stuff like the musical 'hair' and make it about 'arts and war' or sth.. You really have to narrow it down and do some thorough research..
My take on it is that the hippies and the peace movement of the 60's had an impact on American public opinion. But the reasons Nixon ended the war were very little to do with hippies or their opinions.
hmmm...well before you criticise me, perhaps you should think about the idea of a thesis. It has to be totally original research. You can't get that sitting in a library reading other peoples' work, that would just be reiterating ideas that have already been said. Therefore posting on a 'public' website does make sense in order to get first hand opinions who were there. 'Proper' research is actually about using initiative to uncover new ideas and opinions, rather than regurgitating the work of others. So therefore, don't criticise my intelligence (or my ability to get into Oxford) when I'm trying to find original sources, particularly difficult in the UK where nobody fought and I cannot simply go out and talk to people. This is the nearest I could find for preliminary research. Perhaps instead of criticising research methods, you should be embracing them.
I'm not critical. In fact though, there was a big anti-vietnam war demo outside the US embassy in London, I can't recall the year c. 1970. It turned quite nasty, with the police using horses to break up the crowds. So if you want to actually talk to people, if you could find someone who was there, that might be a good place to begin. In general. the english counter-culture of the 60's was very anti war.
I think the Hippies and especially the Yippies had a great deal to do with drawing the worlds attention to the fact that the war was not worth it.Especially in terms of human life. It was the cost of the war both in human life and in dollars and cents;that finally ended it.
I don't think it was really the 'Hippies' that ended the war. But I do think the protesting had a huge influence on the outcome. Or at least, that's what I've heard. I'm only 16 so trully I wouldn't have much of a clue except from what my parents and teachers have told me. And from what I've been told about thesis', you need to get a very wide range of information. So good on you for getting your nose out of the books and looking for information elsewhere buddy!
The significance of the Hippies is that many were the first generation of white american children to openly question the mass delusion of white-america's moral superiority. This was a knife at the heart of white-america's global mainifest destiny. The Vietnamese, however, were never going to give up the fight against generations of brutal and savage white occupation. NEVER!
well we were getting our asses kicked the whole time but we pulled out eventually some think it was because of the protests (it wasnt, but some think that) We shouldn't have been there is argueable (I don't think we should've been) but it is not whyu we lost, we lost because we couldn't go up against the guerillas
Hey, calm down you. I'm a university student myself and I know one thing: you have to do research. You came here posting that you wanted to hear stories because you thought just reading books is boring. Well hun, that's university life: reading a lot of books. Even if you are doing an empirical research, you will have to read books first, so you know the existing theories on the subjects, get the know the definitions that are being used, you know the background of your subject etc etc. Here in Holland there were anti-war people as well, even though, like the UK, we didn't participate in Vietnam. The whole vibe of the sixties and early seventies were about peace and understanding. I can understand that you want to hear personal stories.. I can't understand though that you would get a good grade by quoting people from the internet. Do some solid, theoretical research first and then maybe come back. If however, you do get a grade solely based on what you are trying to do know.. oxford, here I come!
I'm not trying to get a good grade based solely on this, that is the most ridiculous suggestion. Do you really think that I would jeopardise my degree in such a way after working my arse of to get here?! This is preliminary research, I just wanted to talk to some people. Of course I know what university life is like, I know I have to read as well! I spend about ten hours everyday just reading. I just wanted to get a sense of what was going on. I never said, in any of my posts that I was relying solely on this research. You seem to have taken this too far. I just wanted to know what other people thought about the matter. I'm taking my research trip to the States in four weeks, I wanted a better understanding. Perhaps people should just stop posting answers to this, I seem to be getting a lot of stick for just asking a question.
WE1 hit on one fact, They called the protesters yippies mostly back then. I lived right outside of Washington D.C. and had some involvement at a very young age due to much older friends influences. Yes I think they did have a hand in helping. If nothing else it brought the facts home to many unaware americans (the protests were on national news in some cases) and got people to question it. Shame it seems to take more these days to wake people up. *hippies, yippies, yuppies* love, peace, money
I'm too young to have experienced the 60/70s but hippies (at that time) where not seen as politically involved at that same level as much as free spirited people. That kind of free spirituality, free love and the kind of peace they created was all about joining what wasn’t out there. What could be found out there was war, capitalism, hate, everything that betrayed freedom of peace and so on, hippies created a world of their own. I’m not sure if hippies had an influence of Nixon’s decision of any changes concerning the Vietnam War but the development of the big antiwar movements probably had to come up on his mind. Like the Weather Underground movement that smashed windows at public places with their motto “Take the war home” had a purpuse of waking up people, to make people see that something was happening, that we couldn’t just sit at home and watch the news. This is what the hippie’s where doing before Weather Underground – waking up people but hippies did it peacefully, they had an influence of changing other people’s minds about the war. They might have changed the war but hippies certainly changed a lot in the society. I guess we'll never know if Nixon's mind had the word “hippie” swimming in his thoughts. But I do know that the “peace love and freedom” made a lot of young people not become soldiers and that was one of the ways of doing something to stop the war. I just use the word "they” as If I'm not a hippie but I was simply not apart of the generation which would make me call myself an old-hippie, so I say "they" and not "we".
I wasn't trying to critisize your research methods, but look at the kind of responses you're getting... anyway you would have to find an older hippie, which are few here. there are some great older hip people here, but not a lot. PLus, it's the internet. I could have told you I was there and I ended Vietnam.
I was searching for references when I ran across these interesting sites. Guess yall will have to do w/o my input - no big loss, eh? *L* Sunspot Cycles & Their Influence On Human History http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/cosmos/solarwind/Sunspot_Cycles_Influence_Human_History.htm Be a Good Freak and Kill a Hippie http://www.allhailbutch.net/killhippie.html
