were the "hippies" wrong

Discussion in 'Philosophy' started by jin, Jun 17, 2007.

  1. hey whats up i am new so i thought this would be a decent first post. To elaborate on my question i am basically asking were the hippies from the 60's really that wrong, because now a lot of people want to act like the hippies were wrong, like they were a "scourge" on american society a blemish in the american past like slavery, and that they lost. but really did they, i mean they helped put an end to a war they advocated peace in the face of a society that wanted no change and was very against any kind of "radical thought" and they basically started the counter culture that many of us here are a part of so i mean really were they wrong if so i would like to hear why.
     
  2. Hippies, as it turned out with the help of psychologists like Abraham Maslow, were a new breed of citizen that rose from previous confines. Hippies were more "self-actualizing" people. It was then found that what most hippies really wanted was to stand out more as individuals; and once this was discovered, it was used by corporations and the government to form people into what they are today.
     
  3. Selfish pricks? :p
     
  4. I like to think that some of us here are the "hippies" of our respected generations.


    Were the hippies wrong- no, they had different beliefs than others.
     
  5. Thats funny, last night I watched a history channel show on hippies. Maybe this is what prompted you to make this thread?

    Anyways, Yes, people do act like hippies were a scourge.

    Richard Nixon was elected to wipe them from american society (hence completely outlawing marijuana with minimum mandatory sentences). Marijuana was one thing they all had in common, but aside from making that illegal, cops were literally shooting and beating to death protesters.

    It all died after nixon was elected.
     
  6. The hippie philosophy is not wrong, but it can lead to degeneracy. Change is not always good. Some status quo is necessary for the perpetuation of society, imo.
     
  7. all around accurate responses here



    Hippies have been made wrong by people so generally, but I still use the word.

    Cause I think that kind of spirit is in need by most of us.



    told this woman at work that I liked her shirt, that it was kind of hippiesh, and she paused, but she got it. It was a cool shirt, and this girl is so cookie cutter in a way. It
    was good on her.


    Glad that people are still interested in what happened, because I really doubt we'd be chatting the way we do on grasscity if it wasn't for the hippies.
     
  8. Were the hippies Wrong:

    Yes.

    Simple as that.

    :D
     
  9. i dont believe they were wrong,, its just that what they, were doing was ''SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE'', and the gov. of the time seen what would come down the pike if they didnt supress it,,,,,

    when the gov. opened fire on the california college kids for '' protesting'' that put a new block in what our country will do to supress a ''thought pattern'' not of it's own,,,,, and basically ended this movement.....

    hippies didnt die, they have just went underground.... i consider myself as a ''hippie''....

    history will allways show you the light,,,, in ancient china, a lot of the populatin was hooked on opium, and thier leader of the time ordered a '' death on the spot'' sentance for anyone ''using'',, which is where the word 'HIP'' come from, the opium houses of the time was full of addicts, who would lay on thier hips all day!!!!!

    in our countrys early history, when towns were just being formed,,,, the local chinaman, was the only drug dealer around,,,, having '' opium houses,,,'' getting the cowboys of that era,, FUCKED UP!!!! opium and a 6-shooter was a bad combination..... and soon the locals had these houses burned down,,,, and banned all opium,,,,, then come the snake oil salesmen,,,, and the main ingredient of all thier products were,, COCAINE,,,,, and soon this too was shut down!!!!!!

    then come pot!!!! then more cocaine in the 70's and now it's crack,,,,,,herion,,,, e.t.c.,,,,,, but no-ones said nothing about booze,,,,, besides the small prohibitin era,,,,, but that didnt last long........

    so now do you think what the hippies did was so bad!!!! i think not.....:hippie::hippie::hippie:
     
  10. I don't think the philosophies of the hippies were around long enough for anyone to judge a pattern of right or wrong, as those are subjective terms. The truth of the rebellious anti-status quo factions are always present, whatever it is called.

    Hippie philosophy was a manifestation of the individuals reaction to the society of conformist, lockstep, military thinking that was steeping America in the post WWII society. Punks did the same thing, reacting to hippies. Hip-Hop later would bring the same rebellion to the 'hoods of America.

    All the hippies were, at the time, was the youth, astutely becoming aware that the games the older generation played were sick, repetitive declarations of the principles of profit over character, the same game inherited by the youth of previous generations. But the hippies had the mass media for the first time in the history of the world, to prove that what was said was largely hypocritical, causing a large scale rejection, at least temporarily, of the status quo.

    The problem is that so many individuals of that generation later abandoned the philosophy, convinced themselves it was wrong, and then went out to form a core of conservative idiots, filled with self-loathing for ever trying a more liberal style( Think Bush), who now think that progressive social policies are somehow tied to their own flawed, rejected pasts.

    And you know I could use a good love-in right about now....:cool:
     
  11. Well, the problem with the hippie-movement was that it was all too idealistic. Sure it were fine ideals and all, but ideals do not necessarily translate into what is pragmatic.

    Modern society is based upon merit. Hippie ideals did not produce any tangible merit. Unless you look at parts of the entertainment industry ofcourse.

    Like it or not, humans are basically individualistic. The hippiemovement like the communist movement, seeked to erase the competitiveness and individuality from human nature. That is starting on the entirely different end of things. All ideals must be compatible with human nature, or they will not work.

    That is not to say human nature cannot be changed. It do, and have. But it have always been through small incremental gradual steps and the occasional leap. Evolution, not revolution.
     
  12. I was in my mid-teens in the UK at the height of hippy power, but I think the mood here it created was universal.

    The threat it posed wasn't so much the hippy ideals as they're commonly shown, free love and plenty of acid:), but that the civil rights movement grew with hippydom. With the advent of the hippy movement, people became much more socially active, and joe public protested openly - and often - in demonstrations, when say, five years before, anyone taking to the streets was thought of as a radical.

    Of course the governments were also worried by the idea that cannabis gave users a free-thinking, peaceful nature, it really wasn't what the UK or the US wanted at a time of tensions caused by the escalating arms race and Vietnam. The last thing our governments needed was free-thinking, happy people who might decide not to fight in any conflict for them.

    The end of the hippy movement, in the UK at least, was commercialism. At first hippies made up a small section of society that were admired by many, hated by equally many - then fashion took on hippy styles and imagery, TV and art the drug symbolism and language. Everybody became a hippy, it just became the norm and died as it lost its radical nature. The hippy ideals stayed on for a while in the public mind, but slowly it became a caricature of itself, and seen as old fashioned by newer generations.

    But, governments world wide have stung ever since the first anti-apartheid rallies from Martin Luther King, Hippies, and on into the anti-vietnam protests. The protests, the public voice of horror at the war, were bigger than the government, and the war ended because of that outrage.

    Due to the events and protests that happened between about 1960 and 1975, every subsequent government has learned to fear its people, and has continued to take greater action to try to remove the threat, and even the possibility, of that kind of public protest ever again. They're resorting to watered-down fascism now because that's the only thing they can do, when they know at any second the public worm could turn once more, and we all look at Iraq, Iran, Darfur, the arms trade, the lies and deceit and say, "Whooooaaa...this is no longer acceptable. We HAVE to rise up as a whole and act to stop it."

    Everything above has, to an oldie like me, happened in a very brief space of time, and I'm continually awed by the massive negative changes in law and society that I've seen. We went in in less than 40 years from a people who suddenly realised that they did have a voice and an ability to change things, to a people who don't know how to even begin to make their presence known - and the worst of it is that even if we did regain our feet, we would be prevented from taking action at every possible turn by the very people we elect.

    Goverments operate largely by appeasing the general ground-swell of public opinion. They want to stay in office so much that they'll take massive U-turns following public opinion just to be there, so what we say as a whole to them matters. They have their hands in the till, they don't want to have to worry about keeping us happy too, so will do anything to keep us out of their faces.

    Governments everywhere fear the public and losing control of us while they rip us off. It's about time we all became hippies again and made a bit of noise.

    MelT
     
  13. Making noise yes, becoming hippies, no :)

    I did not try to say all hippie ideals failed as such. Some did prevail. Ironically mostly in Europe and not the US where it spawned. As is evident by the legalization process that is no longer just limited to Holland, but also Switzerland, Germany the UK and to some extent Denmark. And California ofcourse, but that is a planet unto itself :p

    I like the anti-authority message of the hippie movement. I do not like the uniformity of it though. Not to mention the nonsense of new-age they pre-occupied themselves with. And it was just that uniformity that led to the downfall of hippies everywhere.

    The uniform got exploited (or rather, utilized) by business (and that is nothing more than individuals capitalizing on whatever. Or freedom if you wish), and thus it became harmless. As you say, the ideas drowned in harmless fashion.

    But look around and you can see the impact some facets of the hippie movement have made. Look at newsreels from the fifties, and just about all men walk around in the same dreary suit with a stupid hat. All women in some conservative dress or other.

    Today we can clothe ourself pretty much as we want. Score one for the hippies.

    But in the big picture of things, hippies made an important but ultimately insignificant impact on what we call modern western culture. We wouldn't be where we are without them, but in the matrix of current society, they did not contribute all that much.

    Their ideals were perhaps premature. Perhaps relaunching them in a mass movement might make them find more furtile ground to grow and develop in. But it will take a lot of miscontent getting such a movement happening.,
     
  14. out of the whole hippie movement one man stands out and that man is Timothy Leary. Read his 8 folds of the conciousness- brilliant.
     
  15. I don't consider the movement a failure at all...and do believe the movement changed the course of history.

    We are the hippy movement...it shapeshifted in a good way. But neither the hippy nor modern society truly "gets it". Our culture will continually shift bc "truth" shifts. It's a social thing. We are constantly "discovering" new things new ideas...and that's what the hippy movement was all about...freedom. Nothing new really...

    When we think we have finally "discovered" everything we (humans) get impatient and antsy bc we crave something new which manifests itself in social change...society won't evolve if it becomes stagnant...it's an evolutionary thing...change is good.
     
  16. Goddamned chronic, you made me think. Shame on you :D

    You are essentially correct. In my mind at least.

    Change is indeed good. :smoke:
     
  17. Good man as he was, give very, very little creedence to anything he said about 'levels' of consciousness'. Much of what he said was supposed to be high end Tibetan Buddhist thinking (but wasn't), which he continually, though probably accidentally, misinterpreted in just about every one of his writings. He made so much of his stuff up, and with no basis, that it's hard to find anything of actual value in terms of his idea of progressional enlightenment. He was playing the game too, feeding the market he created. It was expected of him, so he delivered.

    MelT
     
  18. I feel that the majority of "hippies" were just average people jumping on a fad. Sure, there were a large handful of people out there ACTUALLY trying to make a difference and fight for civil rights, gender equality, and the readjustment of American culture, but for the most part, it was a bandwagon: the way to rebel against the 50s "suburbia" society that was created out of the post-WWII prosperity.

    What better way to piss off your parents than to start smoking pot, taking psychedelics, and having many love partners?

    I feel like the flower movement is either too romanticized or deemed unworthy of serious discussion. The achievements in perception and music were indeed great, but remember, it WAS a fad for the most part. You have to look at issues from BOTH perspectives and make your own judgement. That's the meaning of life.
     
  19. Absolutely on the button.

    MelT
     

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