Hippie Counterculture Essay

The 1960’s presented Hippies with the chance to express their beliefs and attitudes in a number of diverse

Hippies represent the ideological, naive nature that children possess. They feel that with a little love and conectedness, peace and equality will abound. It is with this assumption that so many activists and reformers, inspired by the transformation that hippies cultivated, have found the will to persist in revolutionizing social and political policy. Their alternative lifestyles and radical beleifs were the shocking blow that American culture-- segregation, McCarthyism, unjust wars, censorship--needed to prove that some Americans still had the common sense to care for one another. The young people of the sixties counterculture movement were successful at awakening awareness on many causes that are being fought in modern

The hippie movements of the sixties were driven by a plethora of factors. There were many new technologies that were being introduced in this period, a war against Communism around the globe, internal struggles against several types of injustices, a growing drug culture, and several other important developments. To say the least, it was a volatile period in American history and many sub-cultures were actively seeking to carve out new paths that were starkly different than the traditional norms. These generations who rejected traditional culture helped carve out a new trajectory for the United States and the movements influences can still be felt to this day.

Around the same time within the late 1960’s, a new hippie movement was forming, which was often described as a counterculture.

From the 1960s to the 1970s, the Hippie Movement was apart of the counterculture era. This was an age of renewal and change amongst society. People known as Hippies focused on pursuing a life different from the one proposed by mainstream culture. Hippies followed transcendentalism, which influenced their idealism of their understanding of nature and society. They often used drugs such as psychedelics, amphetamines, methamphetamine, and marijuana to experience spiritual and artistic awareness as well as self-fulfillment. They created a new culture of teenagers and young adults who dressed and acted differently from those before them. Hippies focused on experimentation and redefining themselves. Hippies helped influenced music, television, film, literature, and the arts and changed the societal norms.

The 1960s Hippie movement was a major point in the American history. In the 1960s a certain class of young people associated their lifestyles with the ideas of freedom, peace, and love. Hippies acted against white upper middle class lifestyle because they thought it was based on the wrong ideology. Hippies were against consumerism and American suburban life of the late 1950s and early 1960s was embodied in itself the idea of consumerism. Hippies, on the other hand, felt better about communal life with equal distribution of social goods. Traditional “bigger share” and consumerist greed as concepts of American society were despised by Hippies.

The counterculture movement started in the 1960s causing California to start another trend. The countercultural movement rejected the “Establishment’s” business-world values, and urged a mix of non-materialism, Asian religions, “free love,” and experimentation

The hippie counterculture began as a result of young people who decided to go against and seek freedom from the strict and conservative education that their parents were inflicting on them, the principles of the Cold War, and the violence of the Vietnam War - they were generally dissatisfied with the consensus culture that had developed and wanted to distance themselves from the mainstream middle class

John Lennon of the famous rock band, The Beatles, once said, “If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace”. This quote essentially defines the 1960s and the counterculture movement in America. After WWII people had much more free time than they did during the war, and many people decided that they wanted to settle down and start a family. This caused a large boom in child birth. The children born during this boom are known as “baby-boomers”. “Due to the baby boom between 1945 and 1955, over half the population was under 30 years old” (The American Experience 1). During this time in American history, the children of the “baby boomer” generation started rebelling against the war in Vietnam and the

The Hippie Counter Culture began in 1960. The hippie era was influenced more by personal happiness in which books, music, and fashion followed as result of their personification of a blissful society. Hippies did not care what others thought of them and their motto was “if it feels good, do it”. Hippies were seeking a utopian society. They participated in street theater and listened to psychedelic rock. As part of their culture they embraced more open sexual encounters amongst each other in their community and believed in use of psychedelic drugs which consisted of marijuana and LSD. The fashion choice that hippies dressed in was due to set them apart from the mainstream society. They choose to buy their clothing from thrift shops and flea markets (Haddock, 2011). Clothing choices are described as “brightly colored, ragged clothes, tie-dyed t-shirts, beads, sandals (or barefoot), and jewelry” (Haddock, 2011, para 7). Hippies also referred

The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and

The “hippies” of the 1960s had many effects on the American society. The visual appearance and lifestyle of the hippies were in sharp contrast to the conservative nature of the older generation, which defined them as a counterculture. The hippie lifestyle was based on free love, rock music, shared property, and drug experimentation. They introduced a new perspective on drugs, freedom of expression, appearance, music, attitudes toward work, and held a much more liberal political view than mainstream society.

Hippies- known for their love of drugs and sex, they often misguided the common folk of their intentions. In their minds, what they were doing was guilelessly standing up for themselves and what they considered was theirs; what they believed in. They believed in their rights, and they wanted to do what they pleased; not to conform to the requirements of living in the average society of the time. They wanted to create a culture where spiritual awareness was highly regarded (sometimes through psychedelic drugs), where everything was given freely, where everyone (even strangers) were thought of as one's brother, where everyone valued peace, and where rights were given freely to everyone. (Express Thyself. (n.d.)) These rights would include

For the first time in American history, a large population of people of all ages, classes, and races came together to challenge the traditional institutions, traditional values in society, and "the establishment" in general. Youth, women, ethnic minorities, environmentalists, migrant workers and others caused the emergence of the counter culture. This cultural movement from 1960 to 1973 was caused by many factors. This era was one that was filled with many important events that shaped the way that Americans viewed life. Those who were unhappy with what was going on around them and took part in this social phenomenon reflected and demonstrated their attitudes, values, and ideals in many ways. Various things from

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