As a kid my Dad really warped my perspective on Hippies. He was born in the 60s and loved the music of the 60s and 70s and he’s very Liberal. At first I used to think Hippies were the best people that humanity could ever bring forth: Peace-loving folks who love everyone and believe in preserving nature. And I still appreciate a lot of that sentiment, especially protesting the Vietnam War, but as I became a Marxist I became sorta disillusioned with the Hippie’s dedication to non-violence and how their “free love” was often used as an excuse to be a sex-pest drug-addled parasite who refuses to work. I don’t like Forrest Gump’s portrayal of Hippies exactly, it was written by a right winger, they aren’t all assholes and they usually don’t beat women for sure. Nowadays I can respect their anti-war sentiments and their pro-nature stances but so much of being a hippy seems to be a misunderstanding of what gets shit done. Also some Hippie music is great but FUCK jam bands, nobody’s trying to hear a song that’s as long as a full album and just repeats over and over again with slight variations. That’s all I have to say about Hippies, what are your thoughts?
Radical leftism without class analysis gives you hippies
So the problem with thinking about “hippies” is that we’ve kinda been handed a shitload of people with otherwise nothing in common except a penchant for psychedelic drugs and a few hairstyles. There are probably more ways to do this, but I’m going to separate “Hippies” into 3 categories:
Youth Movement: The boomers understood that they were a generation bigger than any other and that they could affect some real tangible change in the world if they put their minds to it. They got burned out or otherwise found their place in flatland around 1972. Ideologically they had some sound footing, and even got some big wins (lowering the voting age to 18, abolishing the draft, title IX) but they grew up and the new kids just didn’t feel the same way.
New Communalists: An even bigger mixed bag. The New Communalists were eager to explore new ways of building communities and living together. Noble enough intentions, and it even led to some really cool stuff like the way we’re interacting over the internet right now. However, one of the new ways of building community they got really into was psychedelic drugs, and this is how we get into all the horrible things that people did in the name of “free love.”
And then there were The Freaks: They were libertarians before libertarianism had a foothold in American conservatism. They were in it for the sex, the drugs, and the music. They also often got confused for Youth Movement types because they were hairy, they were smelly, they smoked pot, and they were broadly critical of the US Government.
“Hippies” is term that really only helped the Nixon administration crack down on their political opponents with draconian anti-drug laws.
Edit: Come to think of it, there were probably a fair bunch of radical leftists among the Freaks, but again, who was actually listening to their politics? Besides, radical leftists and libertarians used to be able to find common ground in their exclusion from, and subsequent disillusionment with, American politics.
The Freaks is who my Dad loved the most, weirdos that popped into San Francisco’s drug scene to make “surreal” music on shrooms, barefoot, headband soaked in liquid acid, flowers in the hair and yelling about “the man”. I went once back in ‘09 or so and the scene is still the same in like one or 2 blocks of the city, fun place but not a pretty spot to look at, despite their colorful murals
The hippie movement at its core is escapist. Hippies recognize that capitalism is evil, but they choose to not really do anything about it and instead simply avoid it and live a hedonistic lifestyle.
It should be recognized that some hippies did good things (protests, organizing).
But most of them ended up forming the core of what the Americans now call “progressive liberal”, becoming just another support mechanism for capitalism.
Theoryless ultras, they did some good, but also thought they could fight the world‘s problems with a CIA supplied drug (LSD).
I understand CIA deeply studied LSD and its potential use in interrogations, but that CIA supplied LSD to hippies is new to me
They supported the spread and popularization of LSD because they wanted to test it on as many people as possible. Originally it was probably just experiments with whoever they could get, but people realized it could be fun to use and spread it. (I may be misremembering, but this is what I think from what i read of MKULTRA).
Raised by Australian hippies, they were all just as hardworking as the next person, just they worked on growing crops and landcare.
As they grew older, a lot dropped their ideology and cashed in on the Boomer property boom, but I am not convinced anyone else could have said no to that.
They are people like any other, except they smoke more weed and treat nature with a bit more respect.
8/10 would childhood again.
I’d give anything to have parents that don’t treat pot like it’s heroin🤦♂️