The Hippie Movement

A counter culture is defined as a group that rejects the major values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces them with a new set of cultural patterns (Thomas, 2003). The thinking and behavior of younger people who want to be different from the rest of society developed during the 1960s. It was a different way of living chosen by people who would eventually become known as hippies, or freaks. The name came from “hip,” a term applied to the Beats of the 1950s, such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, who were generally considered to be the pioneers of hippies (Britannica, 2015). The movement originated on college campuses in the United States, and Members of this counterculture held beliefs almost the same as that of the New Left movement in that they wanted to change domestic policy within the United States.

An dispute which inflated hippie’s opinions was also the barbarities of the Vietnam War, which hippies powerfully opposed. Hippies particularly opposed the draft into the Vietnam War, believing that war was wrong and that blameless American men and even boys should not be required to combat if doing so was against their ethical values. The copious effort of campaigners such as Martin Luther King Junior also urged the hippie effort because it enthused people to offer their opinion in what they believed in and be welcome to express their ethical and moral values and be who they are. Furthermore, many say that the hippie movement was influenced by the murder of John F. Kennedy, a respected president whose passing powered the political and social turbulence of the

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.

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 hippie counterculture was generally looked down upon by society, rejecting most societal norms. The hippie’s, many of whose parents were conservative members of the middle class, lived in poverty, practiced sexual freedom, used drugs, rejected conformism and protested the Vietnam War. The hippie’s represented the complete opposite of 1950’s American values. Many conservative and religious people considered Hair to be offensive and obscene, especially regarding desecration of the American flag, and a scene at the end of Act I in which the cast strips naked on stage. The show was met with protests around the United States, as well as in other countries.

‘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.

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

From the late 1950s to the late 1970s a phenomenon erupted over the United States. A proud counter culture was born in the midst of the Vietnam War. Many people protested against the Vietnam War and the horrors that many people saw on TV because of it. Many incidents triggered the Anti-War movement and the Hippie counter culture such as the growing United States involvement in Southern Vietnam, the gruesome images that the evening news showed uncensored, the draft that caused many thousands of men to lose their lives and their minds as the end result of the war. This war triggered a great sense of what is right and wrong in specifically young people. Social justice and moral justice were some of the main focal points of the Anti-War and Hippie movements. This war allowed teenagers and young adults to have power in what they believe in and to stand up against unjust killings of our men and innocent lives in Vietnam. The eighteen-year span of the war from 1956 -1975 saw the rise and eventually the fall of the anti-war movement and the hippie movement.