hippies

Hippie, occasionally spelled hippy, refers to a subgroup of the 1960s countercultural movement that began in the United States, becoming an established social group by 1965, and declining in numbers by the late 1970s. Hippies, along with the New Left and the civil rights movement, are considered one of the three dissenting groups of the 1960s. ^[1]

Timothy Miller describes the hippies as a new religious movement composed mostly of white teenagers and people in their early twenties. Miller argues that the hippies were part of a long tradition of cultural dissent inherited from the bohemians and the beatniks. ^[2]

Hippies came to feel that a monolithic entity had emerged—composed of corporate industry, corporate media, the military and government—that exercised undue power over their lives. ^{citation needed]} They often referred to this monolithic entity as "The Establishment," "Big Brother," or "The Man." ^[3]

Hippie opposition to "The Establishment" quickly spread worldwide through a fusion of early rock and roll, folk music, the blues and psychedelic rock that eventually redefined rock music itself. The other creative arts, especially the dramatic arts and the visual arts, contributed to this worldwide impact.

Moving beyond unconventional attire, long hair for both genders, facial hair for men, and rebellion against long-established institutions, hippies sought to champion and implement change by opposing the Vietnam War, corporate influence, and consumerism; by criticising Western middle class values; by embracing aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religious cultures (including much Eastern philosophy); and by adopting nomadic lifestyles. They also embraced the civil rights movement, the expansion of free speech, sexual liberation, interracial dating, intentional community, free love, recreational drug use, simple living, holistic health, environmental consciousness, and alternative technology.

According to Time-Life, hippies were against "political and social orthodoxy", choosing a "gentle and nondoctrinaire" politics that favoured "peace, love, and personal freedom." ^[4] But according to Abbie Hoffman, the movement was "A free society, that's really what it amounts to... a free society built on life; but life is not some Time Magazine, hippie version of fagdom... we will attempt to build that society..." ^[5]

Hippie influence was felt worldwide, especially in Canada, Great Britain, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent in Eastern Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Japan. The 21st century has brought with it a neo-hippie movement, with an ethos similar to that of the original hippies.

Etymology

Reminiscing about late 1930s Harlem in his 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X referred to the word hippy as a term African Americans used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more Negro than Negroes." = Whyte Mike

During the 1940s and 1950s the term hipster, coined in 1940 by Harry Gibson, came into usage by the American Beat generation to describe jazz and swing music performers, and the term evolved to describe the bohemian counterculture that formed around the art of the time.

In 1963, British band The Swinging Blue Jeans released the song "Hippy Hippy Shake", which rose to #2 in the British charts and #24 in the US.

On the east coast of the U.S., in Greenwich Village, young counterculture advocates were called, and referred to themselves as, hips. At that time, to be hip meant to be "in the know" or "cool", as opposed to being called a stodgy "square". Disaffected youth from the suburbs of New York City flocked to the Village in their oldest clothes to fit into the counterculture movement, the coffee houses, etc. Radio station WBAI was the first media outlet to use the term hippie as a pejorative term originally meaning "hip wannabes", to describe these poorly-dressed middle class youths.

The first use of the word hippie on US television was on WNBC TV Channel 4 in New York City at the opening of the New York World's Fair on April 22, 1964. Some young anti-Vietnam War protesters, wearing t-shirts, denim jeans and with long hair, staged a sit-in and were called hippies by NYPD officers and reporters. The police fought with and swung their batons at them to chase them off the escalators and they fought back and were arrested. Before that date, the type was generally referred to as beatnik.

September 5, 1965 marked the first San Francisco newspaper story where hippie appeared in print. Michael Fallon wrote an article about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse entitled "A New Haven for Beatniks," and he used the term hippie to refer to younger bohemians. The name did not catch on in the mass media until almost two years later after San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen began using the term hippies in his daily columns.

In his book Ringolevio, Emmet Grogan claims that shopkeepers operating out of the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco called themselves the Haight Independent Proprietors and coined the word "Hippy".

History

Antecedents

During the 1890s, there was an active movement in Europe to return to the natural life and get away from polluted, crowded cities. This movement was inspired by authors like Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer; many of these authors felt that modern material yearnings were taking people away from a balance with nature, leading to spiritual and physical diseases. As a result, thousands of young Germans turned their backs on modern society and sought a return to nature and the pagan spiritual life of their ancestors. They embraced a variety of lifestyles including vegetarianism, fasting, raw food diets, nudism, organic farming, communal living, along with sun and nature worship.

These ideas were introduced into the United States over several decades as these back-to-nature Germans settled in various places around the country, some of them opening the first health food stores. Many of them moved to Southern California where they could practice their alternative lifestyle in a warm, welcoming land. Quite a few young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of these new German immigrants out of a desire to stay healthy and avoid succumbing to disease and urban malaise.

Some young Americans formed a group called "The Nature Boys" that took to the California desert, grew organic food and espoused the back-to-nature lifestyle. One member of this group, Eden Ahbez, wrote a hit song called Nature Boy which was recorded in 1947 by Nat King Cole. As the song became more popular, Americans became aware of a homegrown back-to-nature movement.

Eventually a few of these Nature Boys, including the famous Gypsy Boots, made their way to Northern California in 1967, just in time for the Summer of Love in San Francisco. The psychedelic posters that announced concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium and other San Francisco venues were heavily influenced by the artist Fidus, one of the original German "hippies". ^[6]

Hippie culture evolved from the Beat culture of the 1950s, and it was greatly influenced by the creation of Rock & Roll from Swing and Blues, or what was known as jump blues.

1960-1966

Haight-Ashbury

Main article: Haight-Ashbury

Many of the earliest San Francisco hippies were former students at San Francisco State College (later renamed San Francisco State University) who had "dropped out" after they started taking psychedelic drugs and began living communally in the large, inexpensive Victorian apartments in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. Young Americans around the country began moving to San Francisco, and by June, 1966, around 15,000 hippies had moved into the Haight. ^[7]

Diggers

Main article: Diggers (theater)

Hippie action in the Haight centered around the Diggers, a guerrilla street theatre group that combined spontaneous street theatre, anarchistic action, and art happenings in their agenda to create a "free city." The Diggers grew from two radical traditions thriving in the area during the mid-1960s: the bohemian/underground art/theater scene, and the new left/civil rights/peace movement.

During the mid and late 1960s, the Diggers opened stores which simply gave away their stock; provided free food, medical care, transport and temporary housing; they also organized free music concerts and works of political art.

Trips Festival

One of the first major psychedelic events in San Francisco was the Trips Festival at Longshoreman's Hall, which took place on January 21-23, 1966 and which was organized by Stewart Brand, Ken Kesey, Owsley Stanley and others. The big night, Saturday January 22, saw the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company on stage, and 6,000 people arrived to imbibe punch spiked with LSD and witness the first major light show of the era.

Love Pageant Rally

Main article: Love Pageant Rally

On October 6, 1966, the San Francisco hippies staged an enormous gathering in Golden Gate Park called "The Love Pageant Rally." As explained by Allan Cohen, co-founder of the San Francisco Oracle, the purpose of the rally was two-fold — to draw attention to the fact that LSD had just been made illegal, and to demonstrate that people who used LSD were not criminals, nor were they mentally ill. Rather, people who took LSD were mostly idealistic people who wanted to learn more about themselves and their place in the universe, and they used LSD as an aid to meditation and to creative, artistic expression. Thousands of hits of LSD were distributed free at the rally, and the Grateful Dead played; its huge success drew many more curious seekers to the Haight-Ashbury district.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles also had a vibrant hippie scene during the mid-1960s. The Venice coffeehouses and beat culture sustained the hippies, giving birth to bands like The Doors. Sunset Strip became the quintessential L.A. hippie gathering area, with its seminal rock clubs Whisky-a-Go-Go and the Troubadour. The Strip was the location of the protest described in Buffalo Springfield's early 1966 hippie anthem, For What It's Worth.

1967-1969

Summer of Love

Main article: Summer of Love

On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In concert provided the initial spark for the Summer of Love, with 20,000 hippies gathering in Golden Gate Park. A few months later, Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips' song, "San Francisco," became a hit in the United States and Europe. The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over the world to travel to San Francisco (75,000-100,000 by police estimates) wearing flowers in their hair and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "Flower Children." Bands like the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, and Jefferson Airplane contined to live in the Haight during the summer of 1967.

But by the end of the summer, the incessant media coverage of the hippie movement led the Diggers to declare the "death" of the hippie with a parade. When the Summer of Love ended, many of the thousands of flower children returned home bringing new styles, ideas and behaviors to all major U.S. cities and European capitals. Soon London, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin and Rome rivaled San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York as hippie centers.^{citation needed]}

Regarding this period of history, a July 7, 1967 issue of TIME magazine, featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun." ^[8]

Stephen Gaskin

Main article: Stephen Gaskin

Beginning in 1967, Stephen Gaskin emerged as an influential figure in the development of hippie philosophical perspectives. His "Monday Night Class" started out as a writing class at San Francisco State College, where Gaskin taught English, creative writing, and general semantics. The Monday Night Class developed into a far-ranging open discussion group involving up to 1500 students and other participants from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1970 Gaskin and his wife, Ina May Gaskin, led a caravan of 60 buses, vans and trucks on a cross country trip to Summertown, Tennessee, where they created an intentional community called "The Farm.” The Farm became a widely respected, spiritually-based hippie community that is still in existence. [1]

People's Park

Main article: People's Park

In April, 1969, the building of People's Park in Berkeley, California received international attention. The University of California, Berkeley had demolished all the buildings on a 2.8 acre parcel near campus, intending to use the land to build playing fields and a parking lot. After a long delay, during which the site became a dangerous eyesore, thousands of ordinary Berkeley citizens, merchants, students, and hippies took matters into their own hands, planting trees, shrubs, flowers and grass to convert the land into a park. A major confrontation ensued on May 15, 1969, and Governor Ronald Reagan ordered a two-week occupation of the city of Berkeley by the National Guard. Flower power came into its own during this occupation as hippies engaged in acts of civil disobedience to plant flowers in empty lots all over Berkeley under the slogan "Let A Thousand Parks Bloom."

Woodstock

Main article: Woodstock Festival

In August, 1969, the Woodstock Music and Art Festival took place in Bethel, New York, which for many exemplified the best of hippie counterculture. Over 500,000 people arrived to hear the most notable musicians and bands of the era, among them Ritchie Havens, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix. Wavy Gravy's Hog Farm provided security and attended to practical needs, and the hippie ideals of love and human fellowship seemed to have gained real-world expression.

Altamont

Main article: Altamont Music Festival

In December, 1969, a similar event took place in Altamont, California, about 30 miles east of San Francisco. Initially billed as "Woodstock West," its official name was The Altamont Free Concert. About 300,000 people gathered to hear The Rolling Stones, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane and other bands. The Hells Angels provided security that proved far less beneficent than the security provided at the Woodstock event--one man was killed when he drew a gun in front of the stage during The Rolling Stones performance, and four accidental deaths occurred. There were also four births at the concert, but the violence at Altamont presaged a turn in the tide for the development of hippie culture in the United States.

1970-1973

"Whoever marries the zeitgeist will be a widower soon." – August Everding

By 1970, the 1960s zeitgeist that had spawned hippie culture seemed to be on the wane. The events at Altamont shocked many Americans, including those who had strongly identified with hippie culture. Another shock came in the form of the Tate/LaBianca murders committed in August 1969 by Charles Manson and his "family" of followers.

Mainstream

After 1971 the hippie movement gradually became less visible as a distinct social phenomenon, especially in the United States. ^{citation needed]} Many hippies moved to rural locations out of a desire to pursue more simple lives; they were no longer the focus of urban mainstream media attention. And the conclusion of U.S. involvement in Vietnam after the 1973 peace accords meant that many hippies felt less compelled to engage politically.

Many Americans who had once accepted the "hippie" label chose to adopt more conventional outer personae, while holding fast to the timeless ideals that had fuelled the hippie movement from its beginnings. By the early 1970s much of hippie style had been integrated into mainstream American society.

Outside the United States, hippie culture has remained visible as a countercultural movement. Especially in Britain, Denmark, New Zealand and Australia. ^{citation needed]}

Worldview

Politics

Hippies were often pacifists and participated in non-violent political demonstrations, such as civil rights marches, the marches on Washington D.C., and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, including draft card burnings and the 1968 Democratic Convention protests. The degree of political involvement varied widely among hippies, from those who were completely apolitical to Yippies, the most politically active hippie sub-group.

In addition to non-violent political demonstrations, hippie opposition to the Vietnam War included organizing political action groups to oppose the war, refusal to serve in the military and conducting "teach-ins" on college campuses that covered Vietnamese history and the larger political context of the war.

Some Americans, especially conservatives, military personnel, and veterans, saw hippie opposition to the war as a lack of commitment to the principles of American freedom in the Cold War battle against communism. They also felt that even non-violent public demonstrations against the Vietnam War were unpatriotic because they compromised the ability of the United States to prosecute the war.

Scott McKenzie's 1967 rendition of John Phillips' song "San Francisco," which inspired the hippie Summer of Love, became a homecoming song for all Vietnam veterans arriving in San Francisco from 1967 on. Mr. McKenzie has dedicated every American performance of "San Francisco" to Vietnam veterans, and he sang at the 2002 20th anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Memorial Wall. "San Francisco" became a freedom song worldwide, especially in Eastern European nations that suffered under Soviet-imposed communism.

Other songs, such as Lloyd Marcus' "Welcome Home Brother," have given voice to Vietnam veterans who felt disrespected by hippies and who lamented that fellow Americans never properly honored them for their sacrifices in serving the nation.

Although hippies were sometimes accused of verbally attacking soldiers returning home from duty in Vietnam, or participating in the torching of ROTC buildings on college campuses, with the exception of a small radical fringe element hippies did not verbally assault military personel and did not condone acts of political violence. With the release of FBI records under the Freedom of Information Act, it has become clear that many such attacks were actually perpetrated by FBI COINTELPRO agents provocateurs operating on J. Edgar Hoover's instructions to discredit those who opposed the Vietnam War.

Hippie political expression often took the form of "dropping out" of society to implement the changes they sought. At their inception, the back to the land movement, cooperative business enterprises, alternative energy, the free press movement, and organic farming were all politically motivated hippie enterprises.

Sexual attitudes

Hippies regularly flouted societal prohibitions against interracial dating and marriage. They were early advocates for the repeal of anti-miscegenation laws that the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1967 (Loving v. Virginia), but which remained on the books in some U.S. states until 2000.

With their emphasis on Free Love, hippies promoted many of the same counterculture beliefs that found early expresssion in the Beat Generation. Co-habitation among unmarried couples was the norm, open relationships were common, and both Beats and Hippies advocated for legal and societal acceptance of most forms of consensual sexual expression outside the traditional bounds of marriage and procreation, with the exception of sex with children.

With regard to homosexuality and bisexuality, the Beats had demonstrated early tolerance during an era when homosexual expression of any sort was still punishable by stiff prison sentences. Although hippies espoused the same accepting attitude, hippie tolerance fell short of full inclusiveness; many hippies were not particularly comfortable with homosexuality when it came to communal living arrangements.

In fact, hippie domestic life seemed largely to default to traditional gender roles, with women doing most of the work— cooking, cleaning, child care, and so on—while the men engaged in creative, artistic pursuits. Images of women in hippie art abound, generally as innocents, goddesses or muses. Most hippie entrepreneurs, philosophers, commune founders and leaders, writers and artists were men. A notable exception was Lenore Kandel, whose Love Book got her busted for pornography in 1967.

Traditional gender roles gradually changed as hippie culture embraced modern feminism and egalitarian principles. In 1970, Germaine Greer, Australian feminist and active member of the hippie movement, published The Female Eunuch, in which she expounded on free love, sexual liberation and the nonsensical nature of women's bras; hippie women were among the first to remove theirs.

Drugs

Psychedelics

Hippies enlarged their repertoire of recreational drugs to include not only marijuana but also hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline. The use of these drugs became common in hippie settings.

On the East Coast of the United States Harvard professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert advocated the use of psychotropic drugs for religious purposes. Regarding LSD, Leary said, "Expand your consciousness and find ecstasy and revelation within." ^[9]

On the West Coast of the United States, Ken Kesey was an important figure in promoting the recreational use of psychotropic drugs, especially LSD, also known as "acid." By holding what he called "Acid Tests," and touring the country with his band of Merry Pranksters, Kesey became a magnet for media attention that drew many young people to the fledgling movement. The Grateful Dead played some of their first shows at the Acid Tests, often as high on LSD as their audiences. Kesey and the Pranksters had a "vision of turning on the world."^[9]

The psychotropic drugs that were adopted by hippies were introduced in part during CIA project MKULTRA, which tested the effects of various drugs and other treatments on numerous Americans, often without their consent. While a student at Stanford University, Ken Kesey himself was a volunteer subject in one of the many drug trials promoted by the MKULTRA project, and it was during these trials that he was first introduced to the use of LSD.

Travel

See also: Hippie trail

Hippies tended to travel light and were able to pick up and go to wherever the action was at any given time, whether that was a "love-in" on Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco, a demonstration against the Vietnam War in Berkeley, one of Ken Kesey's "Acid Tests" or just because the "vibe" wasn't right and a change of scene was desired. Pre-planning was eschewed and most were happy to put a few clothes in a backpack, stick out their thumbs and hitchhike to just about anywhere. Hippies seldom worried whether they had money, hotel reservations or any of the other standard accoutrements of travel. Because most hippie households welcomed overnight guests on an impromptu basis, the reciprocal nature of the lifestyle permitted enormous freedom of movement. People generally co-operated to meet each other's needs in ways that became less common after the early 1970's. This way of life is still seen today among some Rainbow Family groups and new age travellers.

A derivative of this free-flow style of travel were hippie trucks and buses, hand-crafted mobile houses built on truck or bus chassis to facilitate a nomadic lifestyle. Some of these mobile gypsy houses were quite elaborate with beds, toilets, showers and cooking facilities.

On the West Coast, a unique lifestyle developed around the Renaissance Faires that Phyllis and Ron Patterson first organized in 1963. During the summer and fall months, entire families traveled together in their trucks and buses, parked at Renaissance Pleasure Faire sites in Southern and Northern California, worked their crafts during the week, and donned Elizabethan costume for weekend performances and to attend booths where handmade goods were sold to the public.

The sheer number of young people living at the time made for unprecedented travel opportunities to special happenings. The peak experience of this type was the Bethel, New York Woodstock Festival that was held August 15-19, 1969, and which was attended by over 500,000 people.

Characteristics

Appearance

• Long hair for both genders, and more facial hair for men than was common at the time. Many white people associated with the American Civil Rights Movement and the 1960s counterculture, especially those with curly or "nappy" hair, wore their hair in afros in earnest imitation of African-Americans.
• Brightly colored clothing; unusual styles, such as bell-bottom pants, tie-dyed garments, dashikis, peasant blouses; and non-Western inspired clothing with Native American, African and Latin American motifs. Much of hippie clothing was self-made in protest of Western consumer culture. Head scarves, headbands, long beaded necklaces (for both men and women), and sandals were also fashionable.

• The VW Bus was known as a counterculture/hippie symbol, and many buses were repainted with graphics and/or custom paint jobs—these were predecessors to the modern-day art car. A peace symbol often replaced the Volkswagen logo. Because of its low cost, the bus was revered as a utilitarian vehicle.

Activities, endeavors and beliefs

• Performing music casually, often with guitars, in friends' homes, for free at outdoor fairs such as San Francisco's legendary "Human Be-In" of January, 1967, and at the Woodstock Festival of August 15, 16, 17, 1969.
• A preference for certain styles of music; psychedelic rock such as Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and Jefferson Airplane, blues such as Janis Joplin, traditional Eastern music, particularly from India Ravi Shankar, or rock music with eastern influences (The Beatles), soulful funk like Sly & The Family Stone, jam bands like the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band, and folk music such as Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell. Neo-Hippies frequently participate in the bluegrass and/or folk music scene.
• Interracial dating and marriage, rejection of anti-miscegenation laws.
• Free love, including open relationships and most consensual forms of sexual expression, except sex with children. Traditional legal constructs and religious teachings that prohibited non-procreative sex outside the bounds of marriage were widely flouted--premarital sex, extramarital sex, bisexuality and tolerance towards homosexuals. (See also: Sexual revolution).
• Communal living.
• Recreational drug use (as opposed to drug dependency), usually limited to pyschotropic drugs such as marijuana, mescaline, psilocybin and LSD.
• A fondness for nudity.
• Use of incense.
• Belief in Eastern spiritual concepts, such as karma and reincarnation; interest in Hindu and Buddhist religious philosophies.
• Belief that spiritual advancement leads to increased psychic ability, e.g., the ability to see the human aura. A vegetarian lifestyle was often considered important in this regard because it was thought to cleanse the body of impurities and "negative vibrations".
• Belief in astrology, tarot and I Ching divination.
• A generally mellow outlook on life, and a belief that the temporal world is a manifestation of human thought and consciousness.
• The twin ideals of peace and love were considered paramount.
• Elements of Romanticism and Transcendentalist philosophy are evident in hippie music, prose and other artistic expressions.

Philosophy/ethos

A summation of the hippie ethos appeared in the first edition of Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalogue, published in Fall, 1968:

"We are as gods and might as well get used to it. ^[10] So far, remotely done power and glory--as via government, big business, formal education, church--has succeeded to the point where gross defects obscure actual gains. In response to this dilemma and to these gains a realm of intimate, personal power is developing--power of the individual to conduct his own education, find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested...”

At their highest point of awareness, hippies recognized themselves as conscious creators. What they created during the 1960s was an attempt to avoid induction into a pre-packaged, materialistic culture where they would be reduced to being mere consumers. As the outward manifestations of hippie culture were incorporated into the mainstream package, those who understood the task of conscious creation moved on, staying one step ahead of unending attempts to subsume their lives and their spirit.^{[11] [12] [13] [14]}

Legacy

Hippies were simultaneously criticised for being both 'too idealist' and 'too shallow'. The reason in part is that the early hippies did indeed want society to become more idealistic; but as hippie style began grow more and more mainstream, some of the very elements of the society they had been rebelling against, who wanted society to be even more shallow than it already was in the 1950s, also became attracted to the more superficial aspects of the movement, as a vehicle to relax standards further. This quickly resulted in a general watering-down of the culture, fashion and philosophy aspects of the hippie movement.

By 1970, much of hippie music and fashion had thus become mainstream —large rock concerts that originated with the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, and the 1968 Isle of Wight Festival became the norm; mustaches, beards and longer hair abounded; and colorful, multi-ethnic clothing dominated the fashion world. The media lost interest in the subculture in the mid-seventies as it went out of fashion with younger people, the war ended, and hippies became targets for ridicule with the advent of punk rock and disco.

During the decades since the 1960s, many of the more substantive aspects of hippie counterculture have also became mainstream:

• Interracial dating and marriage have became much more common and are now generally accepted practices. Multiracial children of such unions, like Tiger Woods and Keanu Reeves, even enjoy a certain cachet in many circles.

• Public political demonstrations are considered legitimate expressions of free speech.

• Unmarried couples of all ages feel free to travel together and live together without societal disapproval.

• Frankness regarding sexual matters has become the norm—even conservative talk radio hosts, like Dr. Laura, feel free to exclaim "Orgasms are cool!"

• In urban centers especially, and in corporate America, the rights of homosexual, bisexual and transexual people have been greatly expanded.

• Religious and cultural diversity has gained widespread acceptance, and most people are aware of at least some Eastern religious and spiritual concepts—karma and reincarnation in particular

• Co-operative business enterprises and creative community living arrangements are widely accepted.

• Interest in natural food, herbal remedies and vitamins is widespread, and the little hippie "health food stores" of the 60s and 70s are now large-scale businesses.

In general

Many hippies made, and continue to maintain, long-term commitments to the lifestyle. However, quite a few younger people hold that many hippies "sold out" during the 1980s and became consumed by materialism.

As of 2006, hippies are found in bohemian enclaves around the world or as wanderers following the bands they love. Many have been followers of the lifestyle since it began, though their ranks also include younger people who do not consider themselves "neo-hippies."

Contemporary hippies have made use of the World Wide Web and can be found on virtual communities such as Hippyland, the largest International Hippie community on the web, or UKhippy in the UK. In the United Kingdom, the New age travellers movement revived many hippie traditions into the 1980s and 1990s. Also, there are many events, festivals and parties that promote hippie lifestyles and values.

The "boho-chic" fashion style of 2003-5 had a number of hippie features and, indeed, the London Evening Standard used the term "hippie chic" (11 March 2005).

Rainbow Family

Main article: Rainbow Family

In the United States some hippie types refer to themselves as "Rainbows," a name derived from the tie-dyed T-shirts they wear and, for some, from their participation in the hippie-like group, "Rainbow Family of Living Light". Since the early 1970s, they rendezvous informally on U.S. National Forest Land at Rainbow Gatherings, with the motto "peace, love, harmony, freedom and community." Rainbow Gatherings, or World Gatherings, are also held in many other parts of the world.

Festivals

Nambassa

Between 1976 and 1981, a series of large hippie-conceived festivals called Nambassa were held on large farms around Waihi and Waikino in New Zealand- Aotearoa. These were music festivals that focused on peace, love, and a balanced lifestyle. In addition to music, they featured workshops and displays advocating alternative lifestyles, clean and sustainable energy, and unadulterated foods.

Nambassa is also the tribal name of a trust that has championed sustainable ideas and demonstrated practical counterculture and alternative lifestyle methods from the early 1970s to the present.

Glastonbury Festival

Some hippies gather at organized annual festivals, such as the Glastonbury Festival in the UK. In 2005 this festival covered 900 acres (3.6 km²) and attracted 150,000 people to see more than 385 live performances of dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.

Oregon Country Fair

The Oregon Country Fair is a three-day festival that began in 1969 as a benefit for an alternative school. The festival features hand-made crafts, educational displays and costumed entertainment in a wooded setting near Veneta, Oregon just west of Eugene. Each year the festival gathering becomes the fourth largest city in the state of Oregon. [2]

Burning Man

The Burning Man festival is an annual gathering that began as a 1986 San Francisco celebration and is now held in the Black Rock Desert northeast of Reno, Nevada. Though few participants would accept the "hippie" label, Burning Man is a contemporary expression of alternative community in the same spirit as early hippie events. The gathering becomes a temporary city (36,500 occupants in 2005), with elaborate encampments, displays and many art cars.

Pejorative connotations

In popularizing the term, columnist Herb Caen's daily references to hippies mostly expressed fascination and mild amusement rather than disapproval. Following his lead, many participants in the movement accepted the hippie label and used it in a non-pejorative sense. ^{citation needed]}

Among those of the Beat Generation, the flood of 1960s youngsters adopting Beatnik sensibilities appeared to be cheap, mass-produced imitations of the Beatnik artist community. By Beat standards, these newcomers were not clever enough to really be "hip," so hippie was a term they used with disdain.

Conservatives of the period used the term hippie as an insult toward young adults whom they thought unpatriotic, uninformed, and naive.^{citation needed]} Conservatives were especially critical of hippies who advocated wholesale rejection of middle class values or who espoused leftist political viewpoints.^{citation needed]} Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California during the height of the hippie movement, described a hippie as a person who "dresses like tarzan, has hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah." ^[4]

Liberals also used the hippie label pejoratively. They regarded hippies as lacking political sophistication and hesitated to enlist their aid in promoting progressive political objectives.^{citation needed]} They also criticized what they saw as a hippie tendency towards degeneracy. ^{citation needed]}

Others used the term hippie in a more personal way to disparage long-haired, unwashed, unkempt drug users.

In contemporary conservative settings, and especially in political discourse, the term hippie alludes to slacker attitudes, irresponsibility, participation in recreational drug use, activism in causes considered relatively trivial, and leftist political leanings.^{citation needed]} An example is its use by the South Park cartoon character, Eric Cartman. In the "Die Hippie, Die" episode (viewable here[3]), the entire town joins Cartman in his negative view of hippies after they invade South Park for a "Hippie Music Jam Festival … [creating] the largest such gathering in the history of Man."

Neo-hippies

Main article: Neo-hippies

Neo-hippies, some of whom are sons, daughters and grandchildren of the original hippies, advocate many of the same beliefs of their 1960s counterparts.

Drug use is just as accepted as in the "original" hippie days, although most neo-hippies do not consider it necessary to take drugs in order to be part of the lifestyle.

Many of today's neo-hippies were prominent in the "Dead-head" and "Phish-head" communities. They often attend music and art festivals around the United States, and the bands performing at the festivals are usually called "Jam Bands" because many of their songs contain long instrumentals similar to 1960s hippie bands. Psychedelic Trance music is also popular.

The biggest jam band hippie festival is called The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. It is a four-day, multi-stage, summer camping festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, and it is reminiscent of the festivals of the 1960s, but with the demise of the Grateful Dead and Phish, the nomadic touring hippies are left without a seminal jam band to follow.

Hippie slang and the Wolof language

A number of words that became widely used slang among hippies can perhaps be traced to the Wolof language, which is spoken in West Africa. ^[15] The Bantu and Wolof languages provided the origin of some English words that first arrived with West African slaves and became common among African Americans. Linguists are in disagreement regarding some of the following: ^{[16] [17]}

• hep, hippy, hippy = open eyes, knowledge, wisdom, well informed, up-to-date, to open one's eyes, be aware of what is going on. Usage: "He is hip to the scene." "He's a true hippy."
• cat, -kat = friend, fellow, suffix denoting a person. Usage: "He is one crazy cat."
• hep-cat = person who understands, common phrase used in 1960s. Usage: "He's a hep-cat."
• dig, deg, dega = understand, appreciate, pay attention. Usage: "You dig what I'm saying?"
• honk, honky = white, pink, pale. Used to refer to white people. Usage: "How's it hanging, honky."
• boo, bogus, bunk = fake, deceit, fraud. Usage: "This game is bogus."
• jive, jaiv = lie, trick. Usage: "Don't jive me, fool."
• cool = calm, controlled, slow. Translation of suma, meaning cool. Usage: "Be cool man."
• okay, wo kay = everything is good. Usage: "I feel okay."

See also

• The Sixties

References

• Kent, Stephen A. (2001). From slogans to mantras: social protest and religious conversion in the late Vietnam war era. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0815629230
• Dudley, William. (Ed.). (2000). The 1960s (America's decades). San Diego: Greenhaven Press.
• Gaskin, Stephen. (1970). Monday Night Class. The Book Farm. ISBN 1570671818.
• Kueshana, Eklal. (1963). The Ultimate Frontier. The Stelle Group. ISBN 0963225200.
• Marty, Myron A. (1997). Daily life in the United States, 1960-1990. Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press. ISBN 10804749
• Time-Life Books. (1998). Turbulent Years: The 60s (Our American Century). ISBN 0783555032
• Tompkins, Vincent. (Ed.). (2001). Hippies. American Decades. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 10 vols. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale.
• Wolfe, Tom. (1981). The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. New York, Bantam.
• Young, Shawn David. (2005). Hippies, Jesus Freaks, and Music. Ann Arbor: Xanedu/Copley Original Works. ISBN 1593992017

Notes

External links

• Hippy-town Christiania
• Hippyland - Largest hippie net-community on the web since 1996
• Hipforums UK - Home to Hippyland's large British membership: a close, friendly and welcoming counterculture community
• Harold Hill: A People's History - Seize the Time
• Psychedelic 60s: Table of Contents
• The Hippie Museum
• Hippy Gourmet TV Show: A weekly, national PBS cooking series that features peace, love and good eats
• Island Web: Creating a New Culture as Inspired by the Ideas of Aldous Huxley Website of the Island Foundation
• WWW-VL: History: 1960s
• CBS News' 1967 story on the Summer of Love, by Harry Reasoner (7 min.) - also features early Grateful Dead interview and performance
• CBC Digital Archives - Hippie Society: The Youth Rebellion
• Mavens'Word Dictionary- Information on the origin of the word
• UK Hippy - UK focused hippy community forum and portal covering all aspects of the counter-culture experience
• CJ Fishlegacy.com