Everything I'm reading on here is so interesting! My main purpose for joining, however, is that I'm doing a college research project. I'm comparing the old hippies to the new. Comparing beliefs, values, dress, habits, anything! If anyone could help me out, I would really like to speak with old hippies and new ones! It's kind of like an interview process, but it'll be painless. If anyone could help me, it'd be greatly appreciated. I would also like to emphasize that this is for a school project, so please give me credible information. Thank you!
Old and new Hippies??? i thought Hippies were a thought process not a fashion fad and that its a way of life that is basically the same although the flowers maybe plastic these days and dreadlocks have replaced the art of brushing. :sunny:
Your first challenge will be to define 'hippie'. Those of us who went through the 'flower power' era are often skeptical about those who appear to be mearly following a fashion these days with little or no understanding of the deeper issues involved in our time. Anyhow, feel free to ask questions. One aspect I think you could use in your research is the infuence of drugs, Eastern religion and mysticism on the music of the time. Have a look at the cover of The Beetles 'Magical Mystery Tour' for starters. There's a pattern of denial in the media these days that these forces were at work in the creative world of the time.
So, doing a research paper about hippies is now considered "college," and people wonder why China is beating us. Well hello anyway!
Hello Dorothy, it is a pleasure for you to meet me. Please let me know if one of my minions step out of line and I will have them flogged.
I was not saying that the term "hippie" was a fad. I know that you guys are a group of people with purpose, kind of like a discourse community. My goal is to inform my class that hippies are not all about drugs and sex, because I created a survey that shows that that is what they think. I'd like to inform about what the "old hippies" accomplished in the 1960s and what the "new hippies" are striving for now. I didn't mean to offend anyone.
All races are my brothers and sisters, I dont care which way you swing, i'm more than happy to walk around naked in front of strangers, I despise war and killing, i despise the class system, i could go on, yet i wear my hair short, shave and wear a suit to work.....am i a Hippy?
You didn't offend me. The hippie phenomena would not have happened without mind expanding drugs. Note 'mind expanding', not mind numbing as in opiats. If you attempt to inform your class that drugs were not an important part of the flower power phenomena you'll be re-writing history and creating fiction. OK, some hippies didn't take drugs but they were a small minority. As the movement developed many became involved in Eastern religion and associated disciplines such as tanta yoga which in particular demands you give up drugs, alcohol, meat, onions and garlic etc but even then I spotted a few bongs gurgling behind the ashram at night. As to this idea that the hippie movement was something 'other than just drugs' I suggest you need to experience an LSD or mescalin trip to discover that these particular drugs place the mind in spaces with profound implications far, far beyond simply getting stoned or 'out of it'. Having said that I like the idea of your research project and hope that if and when you get to university you extend your researches in far greater detail as this is an area rife with mis-reporting and denial. Good luck and keep on truckin'. Oh. and Dorathy, please put Timothy Leary's 'The Politics of Ecstasy' on your reading list.
Hi Dorothy...Looks like you have an interesting project there...Welcome...Incidentaly my Grandma was called Dorothy...Great name!
So a Hippy is classified by what they wear and not by their thinking and attitude. So it is a fashion fad.
