who call them selfs hippies

Hip is a state of mind, and labels mean nothing.

 

other cats call me a hippy, all I do is smile an' say hey ok. I'm just me but I do hold what I guess you could call hippy like values.

 

So what if you call yourself hippie, are called a hippie by others, and actually ARE hippie?

 

Many who identify themselves as hippie display the exact opposite ideals.

I have many (though certainly not all) of the hippie ideals, and even if I fit the stereotypical hippie down to a t, the last thing I would do is call myself hippie.

It's putting yourself in a class that you think is elite - not very hippie.

 

So every single person who calls themself is a hippie thinks that? I guess everyone but me

 

I remember, back in the late 60's to early 70's, when the whole hippie thing started to spread out into mainstream America and a person could buy "hippie" outfits at Sears and Wards and Penneys, none of us wanted to be known as hippies any more. We all quit wearing the flowers and beads and Carnaby Street fashions and started calling ourselves "freaks."

I guess it was sort of equivalent to how blacks will sometimes refer to each other as "******". "Freak" wasn't a term that we gave ourselves, it was a derrogatory term that Mr. and Mrs. Conservative America bestowed upon us. We took it up with pride, because, no matter what they thought it meant, it distinguished Us from Them - and we liked that.

40 odd years later, the term "hippie" seems to be the one that came out on top, after all.
What does it mean, now? I think the definitions are as plentiful as the variety of people who use it to describe themselves.

In the words of Oblio (aka Harry Nilsson), "A point in every direction is the same as no point at all." Or, in the words of the immortal Mr. Natural, "It don't mean shit!"

 

There is no reason to call yourself hippie then.

 

theres always the stupid. and if they can get their hands on it. w/e

if contrasting yourself from "a person pretending to be a hippie" or like if they dont have "the heart and soul of a hippie", just take it introspectively and be proud of you.

 

I don't really agree. We live in a very sick culture. So, if I want someone to know that I'm hip to that, that I would prefer a counter-culture, I'll call myself a hippie.

 

So then, why hippie?
Why not, "I do not participate in the mainstream"?

 

That is simply a negative statement. Doesn't say or mean much.

When i say "hippie", it brings up a wide range of meanings, some of which don't apply to me, but mostly it sends the right message.

Perhaps we need a new word to mean a modern type of counter culture person. The trouble is that not only is our American culture very polarized, but it is also very fragmented. Those who oppose the prevailing forces of militarism, sex repression, racism, materialism, etc., are ourselves very fragmented. We fight ourselves all the time. Just read Hip Forums. We can't even agree about something obvious and basic, like health care insurance reform.

Since I grew up in the Sixties, the word "hippie" reminds of a time when we were unified against the Vietnam War and had a much greater sense of community and responsibility for each other. I wish it was more like that now.

 

I don't think I ever called myself a Hippie, except maybe in passing conversation as a shorthand description of some counter-culture thing or another.

However, I was there at the time and maybe a little late but by the early '70s I sorta looked and lived the stereotype. It is true tho that we never really labeled ourselves - it was mostly those outside of the counter "freek" culture that used the term.

We just were. We lived in loose alliances, communes or crash pads and had a sense of family with what should have been strangers. (got burned by enuf "brothers" and "sisters" I trusted also).

It was a lifestyle that we lived and unless your commune took on a name like the Hog Farm or Rainbow Family or some such no one called us anything collectively. I think I was called a "fuckin' Hippie" from passersby in cars from time to time.

So, I don't call myself a Hippie, tho I will answer to it. I consider myself a lifelong free spirit and have felt alienated from the mainstream culture in which I was raised.

Now, I don't have hair to grow long, and the bellbottoms and such are really out of style - period costumes. However, I still wear cutoff denim shorts and really notice when is see some other old fart wearing them. Did I say out of style? But I don't care about others' sense of style, just what I find comfortable. Guess that makes me a Hippie don't it.

 

So basically, you call yourself a hippie because you want to separate yourself from the militarists, sex oppressors, racists, materialists; right?

 

and because I lived in those times and lived the life of a hippie, too

 

Okay =)

Since you agreed that part of the reason, you call yourself a hippie because you want to separate yourself from the militarists, sex oppressors, racists, materialists; you must not like the militarists, sex oppressors, racists, materialists, very much.
In fact, you must like hippies better.
Elitism.


But aside from that - if you really want to change anyone's views, you must walk among the people, not separate yourselves from them. By calling yourself a hippie, you are polarizing yourself, putting yourself at odds with these people. One isn't usually likely to listen to his opposition.
We are all people - there's no reason to categorize ourselves too much further than that.

 

I don't know if your logic is flawed, but the image of Jews walking amongst a bunch of Nazi's just popped into my head.

Do you really think that works?

 

We are not speaking of war; I think your analogy is flawed.

 

I'm not sure that it qualifies as elitism. Elitism is when you set yourself above a person, group, or class of people. What we did was set ourselves apart from them. You are not elitist simply because you don't share the same politics or ideology as someone else. In order to be elitist, you have to think that you're better, smarter, or in some way superior. I'm sure many of us did think that our philosophy was superior, but I'm not so sure that we felt personally superior.

Yes, you're talking about change from within, which is basically what happened to most of the old hippies. I would wager that most of the old farts posting here have regular jobs and homes and families, these days. We're all doing the things that everyone else in the world does to be... for lack of a better phrase "commercially successful." But, we put our touch on things where ever and when ever we can. My own personal mission is to get people to examine things from as many different angles as I can, before they make up their minds. Too many people just read the paper and accept it as truth.

However, in the 60's we did cause, or at least further the cause, of a good many social changes and we did it from outside the establishment. We protested peacefully everywhere that we could until the violence was brought to us - and conservative America got to watch cops beating or killing kids on their TVs on a regular basis. It doesn't take too much of that to get people wondering what the hell is going on. The times, they were a changing.

Can that happen today? I dunno. I think working from the inside is the best bet, right now. There just aren't enough people getting behind a focused cause, these days. I don't think people are pissed off enough about the way things are. Think about your own life; are you finding it necessary to leave home because you can't stand the values of your parents, or the life you're trapped in? If not, you're probably not ready to be part of a movement. I don't think there are many people who are ready.

 

You set yourself apart from them internally. I am arguing that the only reason to put the label of 'hippie' on yourself is if you think hippies are better, thereby showing elitism.

Hm.. this is something I must ponder.

I don't know that the times did change at all by the hippies.

The black rights movement was successful on it's own merit. The woman's rights movement was successful on it's own merit.
But what did the hippies achieve? An end to war? An end to oppressive policies?

 

Not at all. Black and white are labels, too. They set one race apart from another. Both races use those words. I don't think that it's defacto proof that there is elitism involved. Sunday School Teacher and Gardener are also two different labels that have nothing to do with elitism. They just differentiate one profession from another.

To set yourself apart from other groups of people is not proof of elitism.
You assume that hippies felt they were better. I'm saying the felt that their ideology was better, not that they, themselves, were better.

I would say that the black rights movement and women's rights movements made great advancements during that time, but I wouldn't say they were successful in the sense that they won - it's ongoing. The hippies were the daily "face of change" on America's TV sets in the late 60's. They were out there passively demonstrating to the world that whites and blacks and all races could work and live together harmoniously. It's difficult to measure what we may have won or changed. Just the fact that we were out there, basically on a world stage, showing our discontent with the social and political mores of the times had either a profound or subliminal effect on the viewers. Groundswell change like that does not have clear indicators. No one goes on record as saying, "Okay, we give up. You win." But, change did happen and the hippies had a large hand in it - even if it was only to lend strength of numbers and frequent protests to the various causes.

There are some analysts who would say that the hippies were a very great influence on ending the war in Vietnam. The internet is full of reference to hippie influences on our culture. Probably the most important change we brought about was to show people that it is necessary to question authority and to stop believing that our leaders, our parents, our clergy, our advisors, were infallible.