The Influence Of The Hippie Subculture

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

In this essay I will be discussing the ‘hippie’ culture and style, their impact on the 60s and their continued impact in modern life. In today 's world, hippies are known because of the distinct way in which they behave, dress and their overall lifestyles. There are also some who have come to believe that hippies are synonymous with drugs or that they have radical political views on environmentalism, capitalism, religion e.t.c. The dictionary defines a hippie as "one who doesn’t conform to society’s standards and advocates a liberal attitude and lifestyle". What I am interested in is whether this definition is true. Polhemus (2007) says "who is real? Who is a replicant? Who cares? Life is a fancy-dress party, Enjoy”. I will be discussing this quote in more depth, relating it to the hippie culture as well as explaining how the hippie culture developed and what it means to be a hippie today.

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

The counterculture and hippies are becoming extremely popular in our society today. The hippie culture focused on outward signs of nonconformity. The counterculture promoted rock music, free love, and the use of psychedelic drugs. Haight-Ashbury is the place is if you want to be a part of the culture, and go to San Francisco and be a part of love. The counterculture is about new ideas, and going against the social norms. The bright colors, feathers, leather, and hair. There are pop art and rock music. Go have fun, and be a part of the

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

The 1950’s was a time of great social change. The word, ‘teen-ager’ was recently coined and applied to people aged thirteen to nineteen. During this decade, people’s perception of youth and adolescents drastically changed as children became more rebellious. Previous to 1950. society consisted of two main stages of human development: children and adults. When the Baby Boom started in 1946, producing more babies, a new era of music, attitudes, practices, and dance began to appeal to kids that did not feel socially accepted by adults in society. This was the start of the teenage rebellion. With increased teenager presence came more disapproval because of rebellious behaviour. Teenagers were pitted against media, parents, and local authority. Teenagers started disobeying parents, getting expelled from school, and fighting back against authority. Indeed, the ‘50s were a time that saw upheavals towards the impact of the music, change of attitudes, new fashions, and new dances developed children into teenagers.

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 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 people that would become associated with the new teenage counter-culture movement were known as the hippies. The movement began in the mid-sixties in the United States. The hippies often believed in peace and pleasure. They even ushered in a new music genre of psychedelic rock. The Grateful Dead as well as the Beatles was famous artists coming from the movement and genre. The hippies created their own communities where they criticized the mainstream society and middle class. One thing they revolutionized was sex. The sexual revolution moved from traditional ways of behaving to more promiscuous activities and pleasures. The norms of American sexual culture would change greatly. Hippies were promoters of free love in the sexual revolution. They taught that the power of sex and love should be a part of everyday teenage life. In some colleges, they started to make dorms coed; in which the males and females could come together freely. “A

‘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 emergence of alternative cultures and movements during the 1960s were remarkably distinctive in which it contributed to the overall characteristics of the 1960s America. In particular, the hippie counter-culture was developed and it was popular amongst the younger Americans because they believed in peace. They wanted to live differently and wanted to be free from the mainstream society. In the film Easy Rider, it portrayed the hippie culture and at the same time, it portrayed the rejection of the culture by the Americans in the 1960s. Hippie culture and other movements alike were the reactions to the changes in society and political atmosphere in the 1960s.The film was an excellent film work that captured the characteristics of the