The Hippies and Their Impact On Society - Research Paper Example

? “Drop Out, Tune IN The Hippies’ Impact on Society The 60?s were a leap in human consciousness. Mahatma Gandhi, MalcolmX, Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, Mother Teresa, they led a revolution of conscience. The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix created revolution and evolution themes. The music was like Dali, with many colors and revolutionary ways. The youth of today must go there to find themselves.1 The above words, spoken by the great guitarist Carlos Santana, aptly describe the importance and the legacy of the hippies. Time Magazine, in its 1967 cover story on the hippies, claimed that the roots of the hippie movement go back to ancient times, to the philosophies of Diogenes and the Cynics, and saw parallels in Henry David Thoreau, Hillel, Christ, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Gandhi, Aldous Huxley, and even J.R.R. Tolkien.2 The first signs of modern “proto-hippies” developed in Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most notably in Germany with a countercultural youth movement called Der Wandervogel (“migratory bird”).3 Like Wandervogel, the hippie movement in the United States began as a youth movement, consisting of white teenagers and young adults between 15 and 25 years old. The word “hippie” probably derives from the word “hip.” The term “hipster” was created by jazz musician Harry Gibson in 1940, in his stage name “Harry the Hipster.” During the 40s and 50s, “hipster” was used to describe jazz musicians; in 1945, Gibson was called a “hippie” during a radio show, but it was probably a derivation of Gibson’s stage name. The term was used by journalists in the mid-1960s to refer to a new group of beatniks in San Francisco. The New York Times, for example, changed the spelling from “hippy,” which described a kind of fashion, to “hippie.” Hippies also have roots in the beatniks, a group of post-WWII writers, including Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who inspired what came to be called the Beat Generation. Central to the beatniks was experimentation with drugs and alternative forms of sexuality, an interest in Eastern religion, a rejection of materialism, non-conformity, and spontaneous creativity. As the beatnik movement expanded, it moved from New York City to San Francisco, where it was incorporated into the hippie movement. Hippie culture spread throughout the world through rock music, folk, blues, and psychedelic rock, as well as through literature, drama, fashion, film, rock concert posters, and album covers. By 1968, hippies in the U.S. had become a significant minority, accounting for almost 0.2% of the population. The hippie movement, along with the New Left and Civil Rights, can best be understood as a dissenting group of the 1960s counterculture. Its members rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, and opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War. Hippies adopted some parts of Eastern philosophy, championed sexual freedom, used psychedelic drugs like LSD to expand their consciousness, were often vegetarians, embraced the beginnings of the environmental movement, and created communes. They expressed their culture through performance theater, art, folk music, and psychedelic rock. They supported an ideology that included peace, love, and personal freedom that was best expressed by the song “All You Need is Love” by The Beatles, whom many hippies embraced as spokesman of their ideals. Like the Beats, hippies rejected much of mainstream society, but unlike the Beat, they wanted to change society by expressing their ideology and through modeling different ways of behaving.4 The peak of the hippie movement occurred in 1967 in San Francisco. Young people converged to the city, first during the outdoor Human Be-in in January, when 20,000 hippies gathered in Golden Gate Park, to the Monterey Pop Festival in June, which marked the beginning of “the Summer of Love.” Young people from all over the world were inspired to come to San Francisco, especially the Haight-Asbury district, that summer; the phrase “Flower Children” was coined to describe many who wore flowers in their hair and distributed them to passersby. The mainstream media became obsessed with hippies and fueled their popularity; it was estimated that 100,000 people traveled to San Francisco that summer. Early on, Time Magazine reported that hippies cost the city $35,000 a month in drug treatment alone, and officials worried that hepatitis and STDs would strongly increase.5 By 1968, the hippie movement had impacted the general society to the point that hippie fashions like tied-dyed shirts and long hair had become popular, even among those with no connection to hippies. The closest to a political party the hippies came were the Youth International Party, or Yippies, led by hippie gurus Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. In the spring, 3,000 Yippies converged onto Grand Central Park in New York City and participated in a number of antics throughout the late 60s. In April 1969, hippies were involved in the People’s Park protest in Berkeley, California, when the state government occupied the city and scores of hippies participated in civil disobedience under the guise of “flower power.” The hippie movement culminated in August 1969, with the Woodstock Music Festival in upper New York State. Many believe that Woodstock exemplified the best of hippie counterculture, with its peaceful gathering of over 50,000 attendees, as well as a demonstration of many of the hippie ideals. Some of the most notable musicians and bands of the era performed, including Richie Havens, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Carlos Santana, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Jimi Hendrix. By the early 1970s, the hippie movement seemed to be waning. According to Victor Bugliosi, writer of Helter Skelter, stated that the murders of Sharon Tate and Leno and Rosemary LaBianca by Charlie Manson and his “family” of followers most likely contributed to the end of the hippie era.6 By the early 1970s, many aspect of hippie culture began to be integrated into mainstream American society. Large rock concerts like Woodstock became common and evolved into large-scale stadium concerts. By the mid-1970s, with the end of the draft and the Vietnam War, as well as other events and trends to pay attention to, the mainstream media lost interest in the hippie counterculture. One of the most lasting legacies of the hippie movement was its impact on environmentalism. It all began with the “back-to-the-land” philosophy of the hippies, some of whom chose to “drop out” by beginning communes that respected the environment. One of the most successful communes was “The Farm,” a 1700-acre intentional community in Summerville, Tennessee. Still in existence, The Farm is one of the oldest communes in North America that sprung out of the hippie era. The modern acceptance of environmentalism, respect for the environment, and recycling all has their roots in the hippie movement. As Mark Morford, columnist for The San Francisco Chronicle has stated, “The core values and environmental groundwork laid by the 60s counterculture are…intact and potent.”7 By the mid-1970s, about 750,000 people lived in 10,000 communes all over the U.S. Another long-lasting impact on American society was in fashion, and more than simply tied-dyed shirts and long hair. Much of hippie fashion was a rejection of the corporate culture and a demonstration of their rejection of capitalism. As a result, the clothes they wore and the ways they decorated their environments often reflected a disorderly, vagrant-like style. There are those that believe that the hippies were responsible for the de-formalization of attire and behavior in all areas of American life. Mustaches, beards, and long hair became more fashionable, no matter what the setting, and a wider variety of clothing styles became more acceptable. Hippies have even been made responsible for the decline in formal business clothing, especially the necktie.8 In many ways, the hippie movement resulted in a general de-formalizing of American society. Hippie slang, for example, impacted the mainstream society; phrases such as “tune out” and “chill” made their way into the vernacular.9 Unmarried people of all ages feel more free to travel together and cohabitate. Sexual frankness is more accepted than before the hippie era. Religious and cultural diversity has become more acceptable. Even the information age has been influenced by the hippies. According to Steward Brand, also of Time Magazine, the first computer programmers were at least influenced by the non-authoritarian values of the hippie movement.10 Brand insists that the internet and the computer science field was created and developed by young students like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak influenced by the hippie movement. They and other computer programmers and hackers made widespread access to computers possible. As Brand states, “Reviled by the broader social establishment, hippies found ready acceptance in the world of small business. They brought an honesty and a dedication to service that was attractive to vendors and customers alike. Success in business made them disinclined to ‘grow out of’ their countercultural values, and it made a number of them wealthy and powerful at a young age.”11 These “neo-hippies” created the Defense Department-sponsored ARPAnet, the entity that eventually became the internet. Even the founders of FaceBook, which is based on the ideals of millions of people being connected in a virtual commune, was influenced by the hippie movement. Some critics, most notably Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, have argued that the decline of the hippie movement was due to its members “selling out” during the 1980s and becoming part of the materialist, consumer culture.12 At first glance, this seems to be the case, because very few of those who were young during the hippie era chose to remain dropped out. It cannot be denied, however, that the hippie counterculture had profound influence on the United States and the world. For better or worse, many of the movement’s core values of free love, acceptance, informality, and “doing your own thing” have become accepted into mainstream American society. Bibliography Brand, Stewart. “We Owe It All to the Hippies,” Time Magazine, Spring 1995. http://members.aye.net/~hippie/hippie/special_.htm, Brokaw, Tom. Boom! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the 60s and Today. New York: Random House, 2007. Bugliosi, Vincent, and Curt Gentry. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1974. Heath Joseph, and Andrew Potter. Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture, Toronto: Harper Collins Publishers, 2006. Morford, Mark. “The Hippies Were Right,” The San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco, CA), May 2, 2007. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/05/02/notes050207.DTL. Muncie, John. Youth and Crime, Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, 2004. Pendergast, Sara. Fashion, Costume, and Culture, Vol. 5. Detroit, Michigan: Thomson Gale, 2004. Randall, Anne Janeiro. Music, Power, and Politics. New York: John Hopkins University Press, 2005. “The Hippies: Philosophy of a Sub-Culture,” Time Magazine, July 7, 1967. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,899555-1,00.html. Read More