What Does Hippie movement Mean
The hippie movement (also written hippy or hippie) was known as the emergence of an American countercultural demonstration in the 1960s , which later spread to the entire world and professed the values of non-violent anarchy , pacifism, and revolution. sexuality, concern for the environment and rejection of the capitalist status quo and Western materialism.
The spirit of the hippie movement was opposed to consumerism and professed a simple and detached life , contrary to the homogenizing tendencies of the system. Their imaginary valued artistic and musical expressions such as psychedelic rock , groove and folk, as well as unusual experiences for the time such as free love, recreational drug use (especially marijuana, LSD and other hallucinogens) through which they aspired to heightened states of consciousness, and religious doctrines from the eastern world.
The movement emerged as a youth current at odds with the Vietnam War and the American government of the time, and its lifestyle and fighting values endured in later generations (the so-called neo-hippies) after they were absorbed into the system. around 1980. Many hippie holdouts still exist .
Some of the top hippie icons are artists and musicians like The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Carlos Santana, Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, and many others.
It can serve you: Environmental movement
Where was the hippie movement born?
The beginning as such of the hippie movement took place in the 1960s, thanks to the popularization of the values of the previous beat generation (or beatnick ), whose criticism of the system was inherited by hippies, although not their cynicism, existentialism and funeral attire (brown and black). The hippies preferred a more positive and colorful view of the same claims. However, the word hippie comes from "hipster", which was the nickname for beatnicks like the poet Allen Ginsberg.
San Francisco was a Mecca city for hippies , in that sense, since both movements converged there. There they would be influenced by rebellious folk music and by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, famous for their communal lifestyle and frequent drug use. Shortly after, psychedelia arose and in 1967 the so-called "summer of love", where the different tendencies of the movement converged, from countercultural and alternative products, beat poetry and Hindu mantras, American aboriginal icons and almost 20,000 people gathered in this city .
Media attention popularized the movement and the celebrated Woodstock concert in 1969 was attended by nearly 50,000 people from across the country. Official communes had been created and there was already an intense conservative reaction, trying to associate the movement with racial crimes and even with the criminal record of the famous murderer Charles Manson, whose long hair and disheveled beard made him look like just another hippie.
Why did the hippie movement emerge?
The hippies emerged as a response to the Keynesian policies applied in the United States after World War II , and whose aim was to achieve the welfare state through the scientific and rational organization of work ("Taylorism") and the promotion of chain work ("Fordism"), which had anonymizing and homogenizing effects on the life of the population .
This model encouraged constant consumption as a mechanism for social and economic growth, which produced a lulling of social vindictive struggles in the United States , fostering comfort and gentrification. The family thus became the nucleus of society , strongly controlled by conservative, sexist, racist, religious and deeply anti-communist values, promoted by government McCarthyism, in the middle of the Cold War against communism (Korea, Vietnam, etc.).
The youth thus raised the banner of social struggle, hand in hand with women's liberation and racial equality (the “black panthers”). Thus, the hippies decided to withdraw from society and create a new one on their own, embracing other values that did not lead to warmongering and supremacy.
Consequences of the hippie movement
Despite the absorption of the hippie movement by the system, it lasted for decades and its alternative and pacifist legacy can still be perceived today .
The hippies played a decisive role in the internal opposition to the Vietnam War and the radical policies of the time, and provided decisive support to the struggles for gender equality, racial equality, and the acceptance of homosexuality in the West. His influence on the arts , cinema , literature and culture in general is recognized.
Hippie ideology
The hippies were deeply rebellious, which in their time was tantamount to saying antiwar, anti-capitalist, opposed to gentrification and the mediocrity of the consumer society . They disbelieved the traditional concepts of family , religion , morals, and good manners , and embraced exploration, innovation , universal brotherhood, sexual freedom, and nomadism, thus taking frequent trips throughout the United States.
They were radically iconoclastic, at least for their time, growing their hair long and wearing flowered clothes, in outright contravention of a society that rigidly distinguished gender roles. Furthermore, they openly supported environmental and eco-socialist initiatives , often embracing anarchism , libertarian socialism, or communal life.