Hippies Research Paper

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.

The 1960’s experience multiple social revolutions throughout the decade, whether it be the New Left, Civil Rights Movement, Anti-War Movement and the Hippie Revolution. Many of the movements were focused on many different political issues in society and were solely focused on resolving the issue; however, the Hippie Revolution did not. They were different from the New Left. While in Port Huron Statement (Document B), the term New Left is coined and they pleaded that they would do everything in their power to permeate society and reform the issues needed to be reform. The Hippie Revolution was primarily uninspired youth who were only worried with pleasuring themselves through recreational sex, peace, and love, rather actively participating

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

The whole hippie culture all together was totally against social norms, what society wanted to see, how everyone else lived, and what they believed in. The hippie culture’s main moto was “make love, not war”. They were strongly against war and the Vietnam War, which was going on during the same time the hippie culture was popular. They thought that everyone should have acceptance of the universe. They wanted to see change in the world, global

The “counterculture” developed during the 1960’s into the 1970’s and during this time period the American mindset questioned normal values and institutions. Over half the population was under 25, many of whom associated themselves with the Hippie Movement. Hippies were all about rejecting and rebelling against monumental societal institutions and were the focus group in the counterculture. The hippies set themselves apart from the “stereotypical man” and wanted to be untamed and wild. They valued the beauty in naturalness and stripping away “the securities of civilization that normally intervene between humans and elemental challenges (Nash, p. 267). They wanted independence and felt that the GNP was not the best indicator of American success.

Drug experimentation was normalized in the Hippie culture. Popular drugs were marijuana, ecstasy, and LSD to enhance their emotions and give them a deeper mindfulness. LSD or lysergic acid diethylamide became widely popular because it was believed to have the power to bring people together and restore brotherhood up until 1966 where it was made illegal and pronounced a Schedule 1

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 following research project will discuss how exactly the hippie counterculture movement believed the dominant mainstream culture was corrupt, inherently flawed and how Hippies therefore challenged these values by striving for their own utopia.

‘The hippie movement germinated in San Francisco, with the Vietnam War at its core. The movement eventually spread to the East Coast as well, centralized in New York's East Village in addition to the Haight-Asbury district of San Francisco and Sunset Strip of Los Angeles” (Buchholz 858). Many hippies were angry over the conformist lifestyle that Americans were living in, and wanted to live how they wanted to live not how their employer or television wanted them to live. Hippies also took a political

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.

The American hippie movement of the 1960s was strengthened by the increase of youth population. Many believe the official beginning of this cultural event started with the youth of the 1960's but it really started with their parents. In the late 1930s and early 1940s America was just coming out of a disheartening depression.(About the Great Depression.) America's unfortunate fate led them into another unlucky situation, World War II. Many youthful men and women joined the service, in fact over an estimated sixteen million total were sent into the war.( GI Bill History - U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs. ) In the late 1940s soldiers coming back at the end of the war were now onto the next stage of their lives and made families. This is what started the baby boomers. After so many hardships and losses the last thing anyone expected was an approximately seventy-six million babies born between baby boomer era of about ten to fifteen years. (BBHQ: Boomer Statistics. ) Many of these children had strict parents who had become disheartened from losing childhood

The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement beginning in the United States around the early 1960s and consisted of a group of people who opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing an ideology that favored peace, love, and personal freedom. The hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, were usually eco-friendly and vegetarians, and promoted the use of psychedelic drugs. They created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs to explore alternative states of consciousness. They strived to liberate themselves from societal restrictions, choose their own way, and find new meaning in life.

The second reason why the film captured the characteristics of America in the 1960s was because there was a seek for freedom. The goal of Wyatt and Billy was to get away and retire in Florida with the money that they made from the drug deal. They wanted to live freely and live the life they wanted to live. This was a direct portrayal of the 1960s in which there were the hippies and Civil Rights movements. The hippie movement was to get out of the “establishment” called by younger people, in which it was a system of older institutions and values (Pendergast, 2005). The fact that it was the privileged young people that went against the “establishment” for a freer lifestyle filled with peace and love. This was the focus on the discovery of oneself serves a strong example for freedom. The hippies’ wanted to seek for freedom was similar to the blacks seeking for their freedom. An example of that was when the nonviolent Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a peaceful school walkout in 1963 to protest for freedom and equality (Turner). In addition, no violent was shown in the film from Wyatt and Billy because they do not want to be involved in any kind of violent that will hinder their way of free life.