Over at "Travel Penguin" I jokingly suggested that Blogger David might be a latter day hippy for he had posted a philosophical blogpost that was about peace and love and independent thinking, diverting one's focus away from current affairs and the associated angst.
Afterwards, I considered what a "hippy" actually was. What did you have to do? How did you have to act or present yourself in order to be classified as a bona fide "hippy"? Did anyone who bore that label ever classify themselves as hippies? Or maybe it was just a name attached to them by conservatives who sought to denigrate young people in search of a better, more peaceful tomorrow.
In the early spring of 2005, I was delighted to stand on the corner of Haight and Ashbury in San Francisco - the very womb of the American hippy movement. I guess my wife and children wondered - what the hell are we doing here in this unremarkable neighbourhood? But for me it was like the completion of a pilgrimage.
The so-called "hippies" of the late nineteen sixties were so goddamn "woke" that they were off the woke-scale. They were preaching peace and love, smoking pot, wearing flowers in their hair and angry as hell about the war in Vietnam.
Perhaps Donald Trump was a hippy in those days for he dodged the draft with absurd bone spur claims. Maybe he was seen in Golden Gate Park in a kaftan, smoking grass with the other draft dodgers and maybe he closed his eyes to listen to Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco"...
the hippies got a lot of bad press. You give some of their positive points. Many people were wanna be hippies and a bad example of peace.
ReplyDeleteI take it that you were not a hippy then Red?
DeleteI was definitely not a hippie but after that I didn't know what I was.
DeleteI remember the Hippie movement, it wasn't big in Australia and I was just a bit too young to be involved, but I liked the idea of free flowing robes and skirts and flowers in my hair. Many years later I now realise the other side, the weed smoking and other drug taking, the not washing of bodies or clothes, unprotected sex with many different partners, and I'm glad I wasn't part of it.
ReplyDelete"unprotected sex with many different partners"... that may have been true of a very small percentage of hippies. Most sought love with just one other.
Deletemost of my knowledge was from TV and repeated gossip I listened to at school.
DeleteLoved that song.
ReplyDeleteThe simplicity of it. The purity. Never such times again.
DeleteLike many "counter-culture" movements, at the core of the "Hippy" movement were those who really meant it, who genuinely wanted to make the world a better place. But there were also many who adapted part of the Hippy lifestyle as an excuse to take drugs and sh*g around with no responsibility for any consequences. Like Red says in his comment, they got a bad press, and it was the irresponsible pseudo-Hippies that were the cause for that negative image.
ReplyDeleteThe song is iconic; unfortunately, in the youtube video the singer's voice is not loud enough to overlay the slightly tinny sounding guitars.
Although the balance was poor, Scott McKenzie's singing came through just fine on my computer.
DeleteI should have fiddled with the speaker settings on my work laptop, where I was when I was listening to the song (not my "proper" computer, which is much better).
DeleteI can just picture you with a kaftan and a headband aroud your forehead.
ReplyDeletePeace and love Addy! Peace and love!
DeleteI was too young to have been a hippy, but I'm sure I would have been a very happy hippy.
ReplyDeleteWearing "Playboy" rabbit ears you could have also been hoppy!
DeleteI know about Haight and Ashbury, and it being associated with the times of hippies, but I don't actually know what its significance is. I should look it up. The song was good.
ReplyDeleteIt was in that neighbourhood that the first San Francisco "hippies" came together.
DeleteI agree with River and Meike. It was the young, not quite ready to grow up, who took to the lively hippy age. Also I remember 'The Battle of the Beanfield' in 1984 when the police smashed up the vans and physically assaulted the young people.
ReplyDeleteThe establishment certainly felt threatened by hippies and what they seemed to represent.
DeleteIn the U.K our biggest Summer Pop and Rock Festival is held at Glastonbury. And it's attended by many wannabe hippies that actually missed out, by many years, the height of the late 1960's. It's often said about them that they go to Glastonbury to relive a youth that they never actually had.
ReplyDeleteAnd then they go back to their regular jobs or educational establishments.
DeleteWe went to San Francisco w/my parents years ago. Made my dad drive us to the Red Victorian. I had always wanted to see it. And I still wear the T-shirt I got there that day.
ReplyDeleteI am sorry now that we did not stroll that far down Haight Street.
DeleteI remember the "hippie" movement, especially during the protests during the Vietnam War. My father used to curse at them and call them goddamned hippies. I always looked at them in wonderment, drawn to their carefree ways. I was too young to be an actual hippie, but I think I would have been out there protesting the war myself.
ReplyDeleteYou could have worn a tie-dyed T-shirt and silken bellbottoms, with a gipsy bandana to hold your long hair in place.
DeleteWhen I went to college I lived about seven blocks from that street corner!
ReplyDeleteWere you at college in the summer of 2005 Bob?
DeleteLong long before that!
DeletePeople have such a narrow view of what that movement was all about. It was NOT just people wearing love beads and having long hair and smoking pot and dancing to groovy music.
ReplyDeleteAnd none of the hippies I knew were dirty. Okay? Showers and soap were not the enemy. The government's involvement in a senseless and cruel war that was using up our young men as cannon fodder was the enemy. The narrow-minded attitudes of the previous generations about race, sexual freedom, women's rights, music, personal appearance, and psychedelic drugs were the enemy.
It was a time of change and a time of questioning. It was a time of there being a sense of community which ranged across the entire world. Music and attitudes bound the community together. People experimented with different lifestyles, different expectations, different family and social structures.
There was joy.
This is not to say it was all putting daisies in the muzzles of the National Guard's guns while on acid or free concerts in the park. There were many problems associated with drugs, mostly the harder ones that crept into some lives. As always when any movement forms, insane people stepped in to gather followers to carry out their own personal evils. (Think of the Spanish Inquisition here.)
But I, for one, was proud to be called a hippie. I still am. Because of that I can grow food, bake bread, help deliver babies, recognize corporate and religious and government bullshit when I see it. I try to live by philosophies of non-violence, racial equality, gender equality, and yes, love.
And by the way- we had the best music. And I still hate bras.
Thank you for this proud defence of hippies. It was a "movement" born out of frustration with the status quo and the tired old channels that "the system" tried to force all young people down. "Hippy" was frequently used as a derogatory term but I support you in seeking to reclaim that word for it represented hope, love and a nicer way of living.
DeleteOh! And I forgot to mention that it was our interest in diets that were more natural and less processed with less chemicals and often vegetarian that have led to a whole new way of looking at food. I doubt Bosh would be around if not for the hippies.
DeleteIn historical context, I do see what you mean.
DeleteI lived during the 60s and adopted some of the hippy ways in the way I dressed - hip hugger bell bottom jeans that dragged on the ground getting nicely frayed. I was in college during that time so we did have demonstrations and talked of peace but we also partied a lot. Most of the college students I knew did the same.
ReplyDeleteNice to know that hippiedom touched you Ellen.
DeleteI am not quite old enough to have been a hippy in the 60's. Over the past 30 years I have mellowed and become much kinder and accepting. I see it is progress, as waking up from being self centered and rude. (I was a yuppy jerk in my 30's.) I am proud to have woken up to kindness for others.
ReplyDelete"kindness for others" was surely a hallmark of the hippy movement.
DeleteYou might find this article interesting. I know I did. It boggles the mind that hippies would become republicans.
ReplyDeletehttps://jonathanrileywriter.medium.com/why-hippies-are-now-republicans-76975c0007e1
Thanks Pixie. I will check that link out later.
DeleteI was in a quaint country establishment on the south coast enjoying a musical evening whence a gentleman of my age stood very close and impressed me at the time with the announcement " I was at Woodstock " My husband was not impressed - flis x
ReplyDeleteDid he mean Woodstock in Oxfordshire?
DeletePossibly - but as we were both swaying against a wall at the time whilst a cool band of musicians performed I was under the impression it was in the US of A - flis x
Deletei have always considered myself to be a bit of a hippy..... but it's a sliding scale.... i mean.... i care about animals and the planet..... i've "expanded" my mind and my waistline.... been vegan........ never bought patchouli oil though, so perhaps i am out...... i'm just a big old square these days
ReplyDeleteI would like to think that there's a bit of hippy in most wholesome, fair-minded people.
DeleteLOL -- the thought of Donald Trump as a hippie is funny (as well as offensive to hippies). I went to Haight/Ashbury in 1990 when I visited San Francisco and it was a thrilling experience, even though that whole area was gentrified by then (and is no doubt even more so now). I suspect hippies seldom branded themselves as hippies. I think it was a name attached to them by the power structure.
ReplyDeleteI think the term was used in a dismissive manner but hippydom opened the gate to alternative ways of living.
DeleteFor me, San Francisco always brings back memories of Eric Burdon and the Animals 'San Franciscan Nights' rather than Scott McKenzie. But then, I was always a fan of Burdon, his 'House of the Rising Sun' was a classic track.
ReplyDeleteNothing about the orange despot suggests he was even close to a hippie!
ReplyDelete