For the dopers that were around in the mid/late sixties and early seventies:
Were you a hippie? Whether you answer yes or no, what did being a hippie mean to you? Was it all drugs and free love, or was it political/social rebellion as well? What were the ideals of the hippie movement? Why did the hippie movement end?
I may have some other questions based on people’s answers.
Been there done that and still believe:
Actually it was way more complicated than that. Viet Nam was the big elephant. The draft lotto was excruciating. Watching on TV to find out what your number was… Guys enlisting with low numbers etc. Guys getting married and having kids for deferments prior to the lotto. Returning vets, both pro and anti war.
Sex was a big thing because the pill had just been invented and STD’s had been totally conquered via anti-biotics.
And drugs, heh. Everybody did drugs. Drinking and smoking were just expected. My high school had a smoking lounge for the students, with no parental sign-off required. Dope was passed around openly at school dances. My HS advisor told me where to buy dope and use it so as not to get caught. I wrote a paper in freshman anthropology class based on my observations of friends dropping acid and got an A. In college the guy in charge of residence life, a Nam vet, used to wander the dorms and remind everyone to pop popcorn if they were smoking dope to hide the smell.
I have a brother who graduated college in '73 or so. Long hair, nonconformist, rebellious hippie. His license plate says ANARKI.
Oh, and politics, most of the people I knew were totally against the war by that time. Even my Dad who was a WWII and Korean war vet was against it. He told my brother that if he got a low number in the lottery he would drive him to Canada because no kid of his was going to be cannon fodder in Nam.
Just remember, don’t trust anybody over 30. 
I am a latecomer to the party, VietNam having been over before I was out of Junior High School (what you’d call Middle School nowadays), and not being in any danger of being drafted. But technically speaking I “was around” in the late 60s, etc.
The question in the OP about whether it was drugs & free love OR social/political rebellion is perhaps best answered by the feminist folk: The personal IS political. How we lived was political. The drugs & free love was not distinctive & different / apart from caring about how society was set up, architecturally or in terms of who occupied the offices of power. It was all the same process. Finding something alternative new & different, doing our own thinking, arriving at our own conclusions.
By the time I graduated from High School I assumed the economic system, i.e, MONEY, the money SYSTEM, meaning therefore both the market economy and the soclialist alternative and virtually every other economic system in existence, was obsolete and would die in my lifetime, possibly in the next 10-20 years, to be replaced by something not attempting to quantify folks’ contributions or put a price tag on what folks needed.
I also assumed the end of any kind of authoritatian regime. Meaning that there woudl no longer be anyone “in charge”, anyone with authority over anyone else. We would find a way to live as political equals.
I disbelieved in the family, believing that sexual coupling was one thing, reproductive coparenting another, and that people’s natures were ill-matched to long-term monogamy for the former but that long-term commitments for coparenting could coexist with and yet be a separate and different thing than romantic partnerings.
I was a militant children’s libber and figured the ultimate revolution was with the end of the institution of childhood. To allow full participation and equal authority to anyone regardless of age.
A lot of what was “hippie” was rethinking, seeing everything afresh, and being idealistic without being harnessed to “certain absolutes” that were conventionally considered immutable aspects of what it means to be a society.
The half-generation preceding me contained lots of brilliant thinkers, as well as the usual & predictable mass of folks who just did what the folks around them were doing. Lots of “hippies” were stupid sheep–people without an original thought in their heads. Such is typical of any generation. What made the gen different was that the center of gravity was so thoroughly entwined with “do your own thing” and to embrace deep thoughts and reconsider everything afresh.
I want to add something, if I may: critical mass.
We had a strong shared understanding that SOCIETY was a shared notion; and that if people ceased to share those notions and instead shared OTHER notions, it’s not like the social structures existed anywhere except in people’s minds. Changing how people think WAS THE REVOLUTION.
We thought we were in reaching distance of critical mass on a wide scope of issues. That more and more people would cease to think in the old terms and take for granted the compelling truth of the new ones until we outnumbered them. Economic, social, sexual, and other human-organizational structures were increasingly moving towards OURS and not THEIRS. A bit more and we were going to HAVE IT. Critical mass.
We underestimated the fear of NO NORMS AT ALL, increasingly widely held by folks whose old worldview was being upended, but who had no comprehension of our vision. They wanted a return to the past and they pushed for it.
We also underestimated the need for STRUCTURE. All the good easy-going intentions in the world were not sufficient to organize anything once a sufficiently complex set of decisions were in need of answers. Dismissing the MONEY SYSTEM and the AUTHORITY HIERARCHY was all well fine and good but in the absence of both, good vibrations alone weren’t making outcomes of a predictable & dependable nature happen. And we never embraced any kind of alternative decision-making structure, so it remained a juxtaposition of freeform chaos versus spirit-killing order. And, predictably, people ultimately wanted order.
Couple of comments about that era:
Hippie was a term used by the press and older people - we usually called ourselves freaks or heads, as in “John is cool, he’s a head (smokes dope) and a heavy duty freak (long hair, appropriate clothes and attitude).”
One thing to remember, as mentioned by AHunter3, was the sheer mass of people. Remember, this is the baby boomer generation and there were lots and lots of us, everywhere!
The best thing I remember is that we talked politics and got involved. Ralph Nader motivated people to organize for the environment, The Greening Of America was a book that flew off the shelves, people would sit up late at night in dorm rooms debating the war and, yes, getting stoned out of our minds a the same time.
The so-called “free love” that people refer to had a LOT to do with birth control pills suddenly available for women, the Stonewall riots for Gay rights, and again - getting stoned out of our minds and horny as hell.
Yes, there were some really embarrassing fashions, and some really wild-eyed, vague notions of a revolution that never quite panned out; however, this was also the golden age of the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Led Zepplin, Bob Dylan and many more groups that still sell millions of copies of their music, even today; it was also the age of huge demonstrations that had a lot to do with changing American views of the Vietnam War and civil rights. Kent State might not mean anything to some of you, but back then, it was a polarizing moment that solidified the student movements on campuses, large and small, throughout the US. The SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) was a left wing radical group that pretty much had the FBI working overtime, as well as the Weather Underground (even more radical) and the infamous Black Panthers. This was also the era of underground newspapers that flourished throughout the US, with wild graphics, radical articles and yes, ads for concerts and new music albums thrown in.
This was also the beginning of many sub-cults; vegetarians and natural food advocates (if I never eat brown rice again, life will be good), yoga and meditation groups, food co-ops and communes - and my guess is that Sedona, Arizona is probably the best place to find the last remnants of those group founders.
Yes, the idealism eventually faded away for most and we “sold out” to big business, mortgages and car payments and things we never though would affect our lives - but many from that era are probably big Obama fans and excited to see at least a small surge of student activism on campuses today.
It was truly a glorious era, one that I am happy to have been a part of, but I don’t necessarily want to see those pictures of myself…the long hair to my shoulders, OK, but let’s just say clothing fashion was not a high point of the era.
DMark is right about no one self-identifiying as a hippie. The major groups in my little corner of the universe were jocks, greasers and freaks.
DMark is wrong about the fashion. What’s not to love about fringed leather jackets, moccasins or better yet dirty bare feet, fringed vests, big bell hip hugger levis that were so tight you had to lay on your back to get them fastened (after sitting in the tub with them on so they shrunk down to fit only you), cut-off jeans so short your cheeks hung out (boys and girls), head bands, tiny little braids with beads, and of course tie dye. :smack:
About the hair; I sure loved me some long haired boys. My mother still talks about meeting the future Mrsin for the first time and blurting out “Oh my God, Walter*, he looks just like Jesus Christ!” I think it was the sandals in the snow that pushed her over the edge.
*Not my Dad’s real name.
As far as political activism, not so much for me. I got involved with local politics but nothing national, except the routine walk outs, sit-ins etc. protesting the war and Kent State. I think most of the political organizers on the national level at the time were older and from a higher socio-economic class.
I was born in 1970.
I have pictures of my dad holding me - he was wearing jeans and a sport shirt. He had a decent haircut and sideburns. Worked at the steel mill. Mom was the same way.
They were 25 when I came around.
It seems to me, and the hippies in the crowd will likely confirm this, that my folks were the norm and them the exception.
I am not sure if it was your brother, but I remember the plate (probably another state) and it used to get me really paranoid because I thought it was a drug cop confessing to his profession. A Nark I. People used explain to me that I was indeed irrationally paranoid and the plate was merely a political statement, but they never convinced me.
While I get the sense you’re looking at a particular historical phenomenon, I do feel the urge to point out that it’s not over. There is still a counter-culture with many of the same values and ideals and hangups and aesthetic today. And they’re (we’re) just as brilliant/stupid/inspiring/frustrating as they were back in the day.
Here’s the website of one of the groups that throws some pretty sweet gatherings of these folks in the Eastern part of the US. Burning Man, of course, is a huge and well-known one in the Southwest. And before you say, “But, WhyNot, Burning Man is for artists and adventurers, not just hippies!”, go back a reread what others have already said: “hippie” is now and was then an external label, not generally one that you apply to yourself.
I was about two years too young to be in the crest of the wave, but I was close enough to it.
Coupla things I remember:
Damn near every kid I knew did drugs at some time or another – usually smoking dope, but I knew of at least one kid who got hooked on heroin. I think more of my friends smoked dope than drank.
Music was the great common thread in that era. No matter what your other personal tastes were, everyone was at least comfortable with the same music. It was quite normal for music at a party to include the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Hendrix, James Brown, the Monkees and the Supremes.
Vietnam was like an acid that ate through the entire generation. It made everyone become politically involved, whether or not we wanted to be. Everyone knew someone in the military, many of us knew someone who had died or been injured in the war, and even those who supported the war in theory had no great desire to go over there and get their ass shot off. Young men were trying to get into college, stay in college, get into the Reserve or National Guard, or figure out a way to be 4-F (physically incapable of performing military service.)
And after Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assasinated (and Nixon was elected) you didn’t have to be a born cynic to believe the “system” didn’t work.
At least in my group, I think the sex thing was somewhat overrated. The kids who were having sex were pretty much the same ones who would have been having sex in the 50s, the 70s or the 80s. The big difference (and it really was big) is that high school couples who were “going steady” were pretty much assumed to be having sex, while a few years earlier they might have waited until after graduation, or at least the prom.
But to be a “hippie” meant living on a farm somewhere and working for only a subsistance income (or living on the streets and panhandling, which was somewhat more romantic than it is now). That was rare.
I was a little old for the movement but I grew up brainwashed in Texas. I moved to Santa Cruz, CA in 1963 and discovered personal freedom. That was what being a hippie was all about to me. If I ever lived in the “good old days,” it was during the 60s and early 70s.
I marched in the protests against the War in Nam. It was not all hearts and flowers. There were plenty of people who would attack marchers. In Detroit the main group was Breakthrough ,funded by a local car dealer. Peace marches were not peaceful. They could be dangerous.
Since I am not a smoker ,the weed generation bypassed me. It still does. There was some commune living going on. Renting a big house then allowing people of all sexes to crash was common. Sex was no different. You just didn’t have to worry about getting a girl pregnant.
The long hair went out when everybody started to wear it. It no longer was differentiating.
Where did you go to high school? Winston-Salem?
I was in the middle of the whole thing, temporally, if not geographically. I graduated high school in 1968, which was quite the happening year.
No one ever called someone else a hippie, except ironically; as DMark said, that was a term invented by the press. Or at least popularized by and taken to the bank by the press. But since we all basically know what we’re talking about, and terms like “head” have long since fallen into disuse, it’s as good a term as any.
No, I wasn’t one. I had long hair, took advantage of the pill (but didn’t sleep around), did some drugs, loved the music, and hated the Vietnam war and the draft. On the other hand, I had no particular use for the idea of revolution, did not have leftist politics (I’m more to the left now than I was then, in a lot of ways), didn’t really like drugs, didn’t think communal living was all that hot an idea, and did not think that having money was all that bad a bad thing. I was, I think, a fairly normal middle-class college kid.
Very few people I remember had any ideals that were particularly hippie-ish. What some did have was an annoying tendency to mouth a bunch of vacuous crap, and when you disagreed, dismissively say, “Well, that’s your thing” or some equally annoying phrase that meant “fuck you, idiot.” There was very little knowledge floating around of where the whole thing came from. That which we associate with hippies grew out of the beat generation, but with more and stronger drugs, and rock music instead of jazz and, of course, the pill. I guess it became a kind of anarchic mass movement mainly because the world of the 50s and early 60s was so mind-numbingly drab, and young people figured there just had to be more fun in life. So, loud colors, loud music, lots of sex, and lots of drugs. But it was mostly an illusion, and almost everyone I knew saw it as such. It ended because there was nothing, really, to sustain it. A few people maybe got off living in shit, and a lot more got off on being as hedonistic as possible on mom and dad’s money; but in the end, most people just had to get out there and work. And then, playtime’s over.
There were some really good things that came out of it all, of course. The civil rights movement predated the hippies, but from that we got it into our heads that equality was probably not a bad idea. The women’s movement and environmental movement were outgrowths of the 60s that, I think, have had a net positive effect on society.
There were also nasty things, like abusive and murderous cults, which seemed to swell exponentially with people who’d gotten too strung out on drugs.
If any one thing is most responsible for the demise of the hippies, it was the end of our involvement in the Vietnam war. Without that rallying point, the political and communal aspects of the whole thing fell apart.
And no, I don’t think Altamont had anything to do with anything. It was a clusterfuck, nothing more. Kent State happened after Altamont, and that galvanized people of my generation like nothing before it. Where documentarians get off calling Altamont some sort of bookend I don’t know.
In the end, I think America just settled back into what it’s always been. A number of writers in the 19th century (and later) noted that America was a place where you could make a fortune, but where nobody gave a damn if you succeeded or failed. The importance of making money (and flaunting it), the importance success vs. failure, and the importance of not having much of a safety net have always been part of the American fabric, and these are all opposed to what the hippies claimed to be about.
This bugs me a bit. The start of the Boomers may have been the Hippie Generation, but the Boomers peaked around the time I was born, in 1955, and continued (depending on whose definition you use) until 1964 or so. MOST Boomers never really had a chance to experience the supposed Boomer experiences – we were too young to have watched Howdy Doody or the Mickey Mouse club in their initial runs. We weren’t in danger of being drafted. We were too young to go to Woodstock.
AHunter3 sounds like he’s about my age, and identifies more with the movement, but I was mainly on the sidelines. But I could never understand the belief in the coming Revolution. It didn’t seem realistic at all.
There was a house that had a loose-living commune in it in my town. Everyone thought of it as “the hippie house”, but nobody seemed to know the people living there.
My younger brother Tom was a true hippie. He partook freely of weed and other mind-altering substances, played music and made art, refused to get a haircut and fucked every eligible female willing to spare the 10 minutes. He wasn’t a political radical, mind you. He thought Marxism was a witty saying by Groucho. His political radicalization would come later, but still be caused by echoes of Vietnam and the civil rights movement. But he was a flower child, to be sure. When he enlisted – his first attempt to “get straight” – I wasn’t sure which would suffer more damage, him or the Navy. It was a tossup.
I was far too uptight (our father was a policeman, and I cared deeply about making the old man happy) to enjoy Tom’s lifestyle. I envied it some, especially the sex part; I mean, the kid bedded some bodacious babes! Instead, I discretely lost my virginity to an older woman in college and then married a local Catholic farm girl who wanted nothing more than the Smallville dream. I managed to escape the draft, but lost two schoolmates in Vietnam in the fall of 1969.
Forty years on, Tom’s trying to get back the childhood memories that were destroyed by a couple of decades of drug and alcohol abuse; he hasn’t seen his oldest daughter (she’d be in her early thirties now) since Reagan was president, he’s on his third marriage and fourth career and, at the tender age of 53, has held the same job for a record three straight years. His immediate family is a patchwork of stepchildren, ex-wives and alienated offspring, and he’s in heaven because that’s the best it’s been since he was 19. He’s sober, straight and life is good again.
What Tom and I share to this day is our firm belief that Vietnam was a royal fuck-up dating back to before either of us was born. We retain most of the liberal beliefs that we first flirted with back then. And here’s the irony: We both escaped Vietnam, but did serve in the military, and have spent the past thirty years believing there would never again be a military debacle like it. A year ago his son returned from Iraq for the last time (he’s finally, finally all the way out, unreachable by stop-loss) and my son is due to be deployed (to Bahrain, thank God, but still …) in a month.
What a long, strange trip it’s been, indeed.
But it wasn’t all that drab. I graduated from high school in 1969 and had already determined that I was going to live the Playboy lifestyle. I didn’t, of course, because our small town in eastern Colorado was pitifully short of discotheques and penthouse bachelor pads – and jobs that pay well enough to support them. But I still dreamed of the life I saw advertised in glossy magazines and on TV. I went to college and worked my ass off at the local TV station because I wanted a wide-track Pontiac in the garage and a Curtis-Mathis in the den and Johnny Walker Red in the liquor cabinet and my wife, Barbara Eden, hosting backyard pool parties and weekend barbecues. The world was a very exciting place to us non-hippies, and there was lots of color and noise and partying going on among the Beach Boys set. I know, some people found that boring and even laughable – my brother certainly did – but to me it was the all-American dream.