Definitions of a Hippie!

Definition of a Hippy
by Erowid
Nov 25, 2003

The term hippie (or hippy) derives from "hip" or "hipster" used during the late 50s and 60s to describe someone who was a part of the Beat scene. Someone who was hip to the scene, or in the know. One of the first recorded uses of the term hippie was in a Sept 5 1965 article about the San Francisco counter-culture by writer Michael Fallon. The term was not generally used by those who were a part of the hippie culture, but rather by those on the outside writing about them. The term became popular with the media in the mid- to late-1960s as young people flocked to San Francisco (and all over the world-LH), but also picked up negative conotations for many Americans. (Thanks Charlie, Susan, Tex, Patricia, Squeaky!-LH)

Flower Child
(1967) : a hippie who advocates love, beauty, and peace
hippie or hippy

[ websters unabridged ] ya person, esp. of the late 1960s, who rejected established institutions and values and sought spontaneity, direct personal relations expressing love, and expanded consciousness, often expressed externally in the wearing of casual, folksy clothing and of beads, headbands, used garments, etc.

[ websters ] a person who rejects the mores of established society (as by dressing unconventionally or favoring communal living and advocates a nonviolent ethic; broadly : a long-haired unconventionally dressed young person.

[ websters world ] a person who, in a state of alienation from conventional society, turned variously to mysticism, psychedelic drugs, communal living, etc.

[ hyperdictionary ] someone who rejects the established culture; advocates extreme liberalism in politics and lifestyle

[ wordreference.com ] a person whose behaviour, dress, use of drugs, etc., implied a rejection of conventional values (esp. during the 1960s)

[ realdictionary.com ] youth subculture (mostly from the middle class) originating in San Francisco in the 1960s; advocated universal love and peace and communes and long hair and soft drugs; favored acid rock and progressive rock music

[ miscellaneous ] a person who believes in peace, love, freedom and happiness.
hipster

[ websters unabridged ] a person who is hip. a person, esp. during the 1950s, characterized by a particularly strong sense of alienation from most established activities and relationships.

Peace Out
LionHeart
Under Arizona Skies and the Perseids Shower
LionHeart's 60s & Beyond Forum
60s & Further Evolving Hippie FAQ'S

 

wow some of those definitions certainly have an agenda
the drug one ohhhhhhh

 

hhhmmmmmm your a hippie cuz you dress like one

 

im sayin that each definition targets different areas
protest, sex, subculture, dress, drugs, spirituality

 

Hi Gina & Shampoo,
These aren't my definitions...these are mainstream definitions. I suppose if you need a dictionary to look up what a hippie is..WOW--where has that person been? What Planet? LOL!
I hope I'm correct in saying--that Hip Forums is an internet experience..for sure! A whole site for the authentic "Free Spirits"--"Open-Minded" truth seekers...and folks that want to know--I suppose this is good a place as most.
Drugs? Psychedelics--organics--Mother Nature's magick.
There's more kids on drugs now between the ages of 10 and 25 then there ever were during the 60s/70s...legal ones. The statistics are staggering..
The anti-depressants being taken is mind boggeling...Depressed from what? Oh yeah..from being enslaved in this culture....or too many McDonalds burgers and serial killer films, war films, denial of world hunger, violence, sexual frustration, peer pressure....classic depressing themes.
So--find a private lake with your friends--take your clothes off and go swimming...feel the sun on your skin..go for a hike--smell the different scents in the air--write a poem..search-out spiritual paths...focus on the beautiful gifts of Gaia..eat some really good fruit..get silly...smile..you don't have to wear sandals..barefooted is always better so you can feel the earth beneath you...throw away the Zoloft...the Prozac...find some weed..better yet grow some..lay back--look up into the sky and enjoy your experience here on the planet--it's a short lifetime.
BREAK FREE--we did! Lets not define it --let's just BE!
You are loved!
LionHeart

 

Someone posted this a while back. I don't remember who. They did it as part of a school project.


"From Hip to YIP: The American Counterculture

The decade that changed the United States the most was the 1960’s. It brought about civil rights, women’s rights, the 26th amendment, and so much more. Much of this was to due to the counterculture. The most well-known title for most of these radicals is hippie. It is a common term, but one must ask what exactly makes a hippie a hippie and where they come from.

There has never been an official rule on what a hippie is exactly, but many definitions have conjured up throughout the past few decades. Webster’s dictionary defines it as “any of the young people of the 1960’s who, in their alienation from conventional society, have turned variously to mysticism, psychedelic drugs, communal living, experimental arts, etc.” But this definition only provides one viewpoint. There are several different ones. Some of the most widely accepted definitions are best stated by Lisa Law, Larry Caffo, and Skip Stone. Law says it is a lifestyle involving “peace, love harmony, music, mysticism, and religions outside the Judeo-Christian tradition. Meditation, yoga, and psychedelic drugs were embraced as routes to expanding one’s consciousness” and having “a willingness to challenge authority, greater social tolerance, the sense that politics is personal, environmental awareness, and changes in attitudes about gender roles, marriage, and child rearing”. Stone has a similar view and states, “Being a hippie is not a matter of dress, behavior, economic status, or social milieu. It is a philosophical approach to life that emphasizes freedom, peace, love, and a respect for others and the earth”. Probably the most common viewpoint is held by Caffo, who played with The 13th Floor Elevators and occasionally with Janis Joplin. He says a hippie was any person who smoked marijuana and took LSD.

While the definition of “hippie” is uncertain, its origins are practically unknown. It is thought to have been originated in Harlem, New York. In Malcolm X’s autobiography he discussed being seventeen in 1939 and observing “A few of the white men around Harlem, younger ones whom we called ‘hippies,’ acted more Negro than the Negroes”. The more publicized use of the word was first applied in September of 1965 by the San Francisco writer Michael Fallon.

The lifestyle hippies led predates the term. The group evolved from ancient times, some even say as far back as Julius Ceasar and Jesus Christ. But the beginning of the modern hippie began in Germany near the end of the nineteenth century. Many youth movements were formed in reaction to a more industrialized, technocratic society. Adolf Just opened a retreat in 1896 that inspired Gandhi to begin a Nature Cure sanitarium in India. Just spoke against pollution, meat, traditional education, and many other things. These were just a few of the social trends termed as “Lebensreform” (life reform). Others included nudism, natural medicine, commune movement, sexual reform, and liberty for women, children and animals.

In Ascona, Switzerland, counterculture resurgence started in 1900 and lasted twenty years. Some of their approaches to life were surrealism, pacifism, Paganism, and dada. Many famous people, who inspired the hippies, went to Ascona. Hermann Hesse, D.H. Lawrence, and Carl Jung were just a few. In 1903, a San Francisco newspaper ran an article telling about the people and thinking of Ascona. This was one of the first times California was exposed to the European counterculture.

Also at this same time, several thousands of Germans moved to America because of the domineering political powers taking over their country- ones that led them into both World Wars. America has always been a melting pot and the Germans melted right in. They brought in their suitcases their radical views of life and their imaginings of what America could be.

Closer to the Age of Aquarius, was the Nature Boys. This was during the 1940’s. They were Americans who had taken up the Lebensreform lifestyle and were living mostly in the Southern California mountain ranges. They slept in caves and trees. They ate natural foods, such as fig, which was how they got their “high,” in opposition to the illegal drugs used by the hippies of the sixties.

One of the most known Nature Boys was Gypsy Boots. He lived in Tahquitz Canyon with the other boys until his marriage in 1953. Five years later, he opened a health food store in Hollywood and became a health teacher. He became such a well known figure that he was a guest over 25 times on the Steve Allen show. He also performed at the Monterey and Newport Pop festivals in the late 1960’s alongside groups like The Grateful Dead and The Jefferson Airplane.

Boots and the rest of the Nature Boys were an inspiration to many through more than their relaxed way of living; they started a trend in fashion. Though The Beatles’s haircut is known as having been obscene, it was domestic compared to les known bands from Southern California, like The Seeds. They wore their hair down to their shoulders from the influence of the Nature Boys. Jimi Hendrix and The Doors, two of the most idolized music producers of the flower child era, both were fans of The Seeds.

On the east coast at the same time were the beatniks. Men like Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Alan Ginsberg could be found in New York City. Beatniks celebrated the arts in free form. Such inspirational writings as On The Road, Dharma Bums, and “The Howl” were read by many hippies. Alan Ginsberg even took place in the San Francisco Be-In, anti-war protests, and the demonstrations in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention in 1968.

Acid started becoming common in the early 1960’s. Harvard professors Timothy Leary, Ralph Metzer, and Richard Alpert (Ram Dass) studied the drug and almost instantly found a correlation between it and the German scientists, writers, and artists of the Lebensreform era. These professors made books like “Steppenwolf” popular to read among the rising hippie culture. They also wrote their own book called “The Psychedelic Experience,” which became known as the hippie’s “bible”.

In general, the hippies of the 1960’s were a-political. The innumerable protests and demonstrations were held by such groups as the Black Panthers, Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen. In 1968, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin coined the name Yippie or also called the Youth International Party. This was originally for the flower children going to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that year. They did such high jinks as trying to run a pig for President. This ended in the Chicago Seven Conspiracy Trial accusing the Yippies and the others involved for trying to incite riots.

The Yippies outlasted the election year and became the “political party” of hippies. They never were a registered party or took a traditional platform, but still existed. There were common stands of pro-drugs, anti-war, pro-sex, and environmentalism throughout the group, for they were hippies after all. Their core beliefs were in absolute freedom of speech and freedom of expression. Their group outlasted many of the fellow radical groups, but became weaker when Abbie Hoffman went underground for drug charges in the 1970’s.

Much do to the media, people see the hippies as a group from the 1960’s that no longer exist. This is not so. Being a hippie is a lifestyle choice that was made before the 1960’s and is still made by many today. According to Aron “Pieman” Kay, who famously threw a pie in Richard Nixon’s face, the hippies “are still everywhere- whether it be the streets of Haight, the Rainbow gatherings, the web or just when I least expect it, I will meet an old timer on a New York City subway.” Furthermore, another hippie from the 1960’s added, “Protests are still going on for more or less the same things. And as far as clothing, there is still the Salvation Army clothing store. About the only major changes here are satellite TV, microwaves, and the computer”. Hippies are more than a part of a counterculture movement, they are a recurrent subculture.

All in all what being a hippie means was best stated by Abbie Hoffman when he said:

“We are here to make a better world. No amount of rationalization or blaming can preempt the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on this planet. The lesson of the 60’s is that people who cared enough to do right could change history… The big battles that we won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong, and scared half to death. And we were right”.
"
.

 

Wow-Shaggy,
Thanks..I was wondering if anyone was going to respond to the stereotypical definitions of the dictionaries. A really good essay and very accurate. Amazing and curious how the history books will depict and define us..I shudder to think.
Yes--we ran across a site about the Nature Boys but I can't seem to find it this morning--I wasn't hip to them.
We were more into the Digger movement in AZ...it just sort of happened overnight (the movement) in Phoenix, in the 60s, and really took off..of course our Mecca's were San Francisco, Greenwich Village, and Amsterdam--oh yes Morocco and Columbia-too-LOL!
So thanks..
Peace
LionHeart

"Hippie" where did the word come from?

Hip: The History is the story of an American obsession. Derived from the Wolof word hepi or hipi ("to see," or "to open one's eyes"), which came to America with West African Slaves, hip is the dance between black and white -- or insider and outsider -- that gives America its unique flavor and rhythm. It has created fortunes, destroyed lives and shaped the way millions of us talk, dress, dance, make love or see ourselves in the mirror. Everyone knows what hip is.

Wolof history probably dates to about the 12th or 13th century. Wolof forefathers migrated west to the coast from Mali following the defeat of the Empire of the Ghana in the 11th century. Oral family histories indicate that at least some of the first settlers in the area were of Fulbe origin. Much Wolof history has been preserved in oral praise songs which are recited by griots ("professional praise singers"). Portuguese traveler accounts from the 15th century indicate an organized Wolof presence in what is still their homelands. Europeans established a fort on Gor?e Island off the coast of modern day Dakar, which served as one of the primary points of departure for slaving vessels bound for the Americas. Since European contact Wolof history has undergone numerous conquests and revolts as competing rulers challenged one another for kingship.
60s Hippie FAQ'S

Photo: "PeacePaint" by Brother Yama

 

hi lionheart

 

Hi Shampoo!!

 

yay! hugs**

 

A hippie is someone who becomes aware.

 

Hi Tuesday and Shampoo,
beautifully put--simple and true.
Awareness..is a beautiful way to explain "what a hippie is"--
In the 60s we were taught by the Beat's, the poets, the philosophers, the musicians and yogi's to risk getting and being "AWare" regardless of the consequences and reactions of others.
To be aware can also bring great responsibility--it's like "If Your On the Bus" beautiful--join us--because once on the bus--there is no getting off.
But if you do get off somewhere along the roadway/pathway--we will still Love you...and you can always join us again anytime..after-all--the world is totally seductive and wants your mind, heart and soul. We just Love you unconditionally and will wait for your return.
Peace, Love and Awareness
LionHeart

 

Wow! You wrapped it up nicely, man - and I LOOOOOVE that picture!!!

 

Hi Lionheart,
You are corredt in saying looking at the fastfood places, TV , etc.
I work in the video industry, and lets not forget the Platstation games as well.
Im leaving in 3 weeks to spend more time at home with our 3 children on the weekends as i worked all weekends because ppl want shops to be open 7 days aweek and even on Christamas day which should be a holiday even if you don't believe in Jesus But as i was saying PX 2 games bad shit, they are made of adults not children, but parents seem to think that all games are ok for their 10 yr old even if it has an R18 label on it,as i have personal experience through selling to public, but of course not all parents don't care what their children watch or play.
Im not against games or movies but we do need to take an interest in what our children are watching

 

oops my spelling is a bit shocking sorry

 

If it wasn't for ppl like Lionheart or my mother breaking through in the 60s, we would not have the choices we have today, or the openess in what we think or believe

 

You are very sweet Bugalugs and thank you Pronature--which one are you in the photo?
Perhaps you would like to join our 60s & Beyond Yahoo Group...really great folks with big hearts..ole hippies and young hippies with Soul. You are both invited to join our little tribe.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/60sBeyond/
Peace, Love and lets hold each other close in these times.
LionHeart

 

I will check out the yahoo group thanks...
I have a photo in the gallery, not the afro one ,
but i am there

 

Bugalugs..
Great Gallery--totally-and really sweet family.
Peace
LionHeart

 

On Being A Hippie
First let me clear up a few misconceptions about what a Hippie is. Long hair does not make a Hippie. Clothes don't make a Hippie and the use of drugs definitely doesn't make you a Hippie. Being a Hippie had nothing to do with being rebellious. Native Americans would say it's "Tafunka" (a way of life). It's a matter of respect. Respect for others and their rights to be who they are. Respect for the Earth and all that dwell on it. Mostly it's a respect for yourself. Allowing yourself to be who you are. Search the inner you, deep inside your heart, the answers are there if you just listen. You just might be suprised what you might find. Two paths diverge in a woods, I take the path less traveled and that made all the difference, it's up to you to chose. Peace, DDR