Were the Hippies right?

Do any of you think the Hippies made a big difference to Western society since the 60's?

Well, maybe the Hippies are in control now, that has crossed my mind a couple times.

They had some good ideas.

Unfortunately, the core of the hippy movement was non-participation in the very system they were against. No voting, no involvement, no interaction. As a result, their ideas went absolutely nowhere.

Another problem was the embrace of total pacifism. I want you all to take a moment and look at other protest movements of the 20th century. Worker strikes and occupations, the Wage Army movement, the self-sustaining movements of the 30's, the black civil rights movement. None of these were violent by nature, but all of them used force - the threat of wage and property loss, the implication of violence if things didn't go their way, occupation of others' property, filling prisons past capacity, stopping traffic citywide...

The hippies, however, decided that sitting on a street corner, waving a sign at passing cars was good enough. They had no "or else" to their protest. They wanted the war to end. great, so what did they do? They ran off to the woods, screwed, and ate cake frosting. The war, needless to say, went on until the North Vietnamese won it fair and square.

And this is what America's protest culture looks back on. Not the men and women grabbing onto a lunch counter for dear life in open violation of the law and resistance to authority. Not men parking on the lawn of the white house and building a shantytown to demand their rights. But instead a bunch of lazy rubes sitting in a folding chair holding a sign saying "no amnety honk if u love engilsh"

By the time the hippies decided to get involved, it was 1980, and they voted for Reagan. Why? "Because it was, like, time for a change, man."

The hippies started out with some good features, but turned out to be a useless heap of privileged white kids with no scope or understanding of what they were trying to accomplish.

[edit on 2-4-2010 by TheWalkingFox]

Thank you for bringing this up! I've thinking about this also a lot.
I personally think if the hippie movement was directed in the right way, the world would really be a better place. But like all good ideas (and many of them were), the NWO takes over at some point and directed into a sewer of commerce, sex, drugs and rock 'n roll.
My parents were both teenagers at the time but no hippies. But when I was older I met quite a few who still are hippies today. Most of them still try to follow the ideology from then.

From personal hygiene to politics, the hippies were wrong on everything.

Their only worthwhile use was to become human speedbumps.

The hippies bit off more than they could chew, psychospiritually speaking. For a brief, shining moment they seemed to represent a bejeweled pinnacle in human moral and mystical development. That quickly crumbled as their ideals were subverted by the fleshy realities of the all-too-human. By the 70s they were wallowing in jaded decadence and by the 80s they had become the chipper yuppies who went on to cheerfully loot and bankrupt the nation in a welter of jaw-dropping self-indulgence and short-term thinking. A dismal legacy indeed.

It's still possible to be a "good hippie" on an individual level but you'd probably have to isolate yourself almost completely from society and it would involve a level of stoic acesticism that most people frankly couldn't hack.

Most (the vast majority) of hippies were wiped out by the Bee Gees, Saturday Night Fever, and a insidious thing called disco.

Sadly of the hippies that did survive those dark, meaningless, coc aine and automated, computerized rhythm track years, most (the vast majority) were turned into raw edged punks by Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols, who thankfully managed to kill Disco but with more or less of a scorched earth policy.

This lead to the Clash, and before long Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, Prince and Milli Vanilli sure were clashing with Deep Purple, Aero Smith and the Rolling Stones, while the Who keeps trying to figure out who is still alive in the band this week and who is actually in the band.

Of course not everyone can be a Richie Blackmore, or Joe Perry and Keith Richards, so this led to the Head Banger Movement, led by Quiet Riot, Motley Crue and Ozzie Osborne, and Ronnie James Dio once he figured out there is life as a front man after Black Sabbath.

Sadly for Ronnie he never learned how to kill his guitar players and keep the band fresh.

Of course L.A. got to crowded for all those egos which led to an exodus of poor musicians who didn’t want to actually have to commute from Simi Valley to Hollywood (who could blame them) and they moved to Seattle where they realized opportunities were so scarce that they couldn’t even afford to wash their hair let alone their clothes and things got very grungy and all of a sudden it seemed people forgot that there are actually 32 Track Digital Recording Studios and started sounding like they were playing back in their garages again on 4 tracks. This might have been a money issue too, but along come Sound Garden, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam.

Yes it’s true at that point I was contemplating suicide! Remaining a dyed in the wool hippie was not easy.

So what could I do but preserve myself in a time capsule and continue to pretend it’s the 70’s still!

By the way when is Jimmy Carter going to do something about this economy! I am surprised Walter Cronkite hasn’t been all over him about that on the CBS Evening News?

Got to go water my Gia Pet, it’s a sheep and it sure does look hip and groovy!

Lets see what Eric Cartman thinks about that

www.youtube.com...

Im an old Hippie who recognise's young Hippies when he see's them! take a look at 1969 - 2008!







[edit on 2-4-2010 by DCDAVECLARKE]

reply to post by DCDAVECLARKE

Do any of you think the Hippies made a big difference to Western society since the 60's?

Yep!! They socialized the consumption of drugs and promiscuous sex.

reply to post by silent thunder

The hippies bit off more than they could chew, psychospiritually speaking. For a brief, shining moment they seemed to represent a bejeweled pinnacle in human moral and mystical development.

According to ancient gnostic texts, the Aquarius Era was marked by a "spiritual boom" named Dionysian wave. This wave had two polarities, obviously (+) and (-). The positive polarity was characterized by the authentic spiritual seek through Yoga, tantric sex, inner battles against the ego, metaphysics introspection. The negative polarity was characterized by a delusional spiritual seek through drugs, sexual debauchery, uncontrolled sensory experiments, exacerbation of depraved ego. Well, I guess everybody can find out which characteristics fit with hippie movement. In another words, they took the wrong path to human mystical development.

@ Hippies! A bunch of freeloaders.

Originally posted by brainwrek
From personal hygiene to politics, the hippies were wrong on everything.

Their only worthwhile use was to become human speedbumps.

Bravo hit the nail of the head. Hippies were an atrocity or turd in the punchbowl with goofball ideas and shallow thoughts. What's worse is the modern day hippy, a pathetic and misguided individual at the best of times. While I agree that musically there were moments of redemption, clearly this was an era rife with pinheads who never looked past their next free meal.

brill

what an enlightening thread!

they were right!!

waste is bad, both enviromentally and philosophically, everything can be recycled in some way

no longer are a majority of americans 'producers' of anything, we're all just consumers, consuming ourselves broke, polluting our land, food and minds, constantly looking for more without thought of giving anything back in return

the man, the government, and general control of others really is a bad idea

now it seems the government has no real fear of it's people, they do exactly what they want regardless of it's real effect on peoples lives, shredding our liberties until martial law is daily life

those are a few key points i can remember hippies trying to say to me...

well at least the point i'd like to make is: alot of 'hippy' ideals and modes of though could be applied to the times we are going through now to create solutions to alot our problems financially, spiritually, emotionally and generally allow us to fit back in to more peaceful and enlightening times



[edit on 4/2/2010 by indigothefish]

Originally posted by indigothefish
well at least the point i'd like to make is: alot of 'hippy' ideals and modes of though could be applied to the times we are going through now to create solutions to alot our problems financially, spiritually, emotionally and generally allow us to fit back in to more peaceful and enlightening times
[edit on 4/2/2010 by indigothefish]

The problem is that hippy ideals may cost us more in the long run financially. A lot of green initiatives, although noble, are flawed and draining the pockets of people who really don't present a threat or impact to the environment. Countries like India and China continue to present a much bigger problem obviously with little action or enforcement. Yes "we" the west are guilty of being mass consumers of the very products they export but there is little accountability. I do my part but it pales in comparison to a much larger problem.

Spiritual and emotional aspects are just pie in the sky abstracts that only exist to serve weak minded individuals, much like religion.

brill

reply to post by DCDAVECLARKE

Do any of you think the Hippies made a big difference to Western society since the 60's?

In my opinion? Yes, but there is bad to go with the good.

On the upside, those of the hippie generation (I was among them) were active culturally, socially and politically. They did not accept the government's word on anything and challenged it at every turn. It could even be reasoned that it was that generation that ended up bringing down Richard Nixon and his whole gaggle of cronies.

On the downside, one of the spinoffs from this is that the youth were cut loose from many of the tried & true ideals that had helped bind us together as a society. The long term impact has been far less discipline in our schools and far less parents today that have the first idea of how to raise their children.

Having been on both sides of this equation, I must admit that I do miss the comradery that was present, and that has now been dispatched in favor of mindless violence. I wish we had been a little smarter and less inclined to revolt for the sake of revolting.

Peace

reply to post by redoubt



no one is going to say it...............?
ok..............
were the hippies right?
No- the hippies were definitely left

but seriously- i think they opened up the windows of perception for an entire country, but at the cost of future generations. huh? well since we live in such a world of 'precedent', if every feeling, emotion, or whatever has been felt, what does that leave for the youth? they have to find new ways to do their thing, and i bet it's getting more and more difficult. sheesh- there's already a huge marketing for matrix-type rebels, vampires, etc.............
the hippies were like a huge catalyst to bring about this technological society........while everyone was 'dropping out' (or just 'dropping') computers snuck (sneaked?) right in...............without even wearing sneakers.....
just my feelings on the issue...........
i have found hippies are as self-serving as anyone else, but at least they're fun about it.

wait....did i miss something? hippies did something worthwhile?

second line.

[edit on 4/2/10 by silent thunder]

reply to post by DCDAVECLARKE


It is obvous the poster is a hippy hater---I was there [54] *snip*. We had more balls then anyone in this country does today. We didnt have the internet to get the anti-war message out--we stopped the draft do i have to say more. Todays young are a bunch of fat-asses with the guts of a bug. *snip*


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[edit on 4/2/2010 by maria_stardust]