Hippies: Love or Hate?

[One Eyed Cat]

I've made my peace with the folks that truly live by that credos. I don't believe our generation has matched, let alone exceeded, any of their antics. I used to hate hippies. I think its due to seeing em as:

A. Sell-outs
B. Full of the silly free love shit. We don't all love another. I'm a strong believer in benevolent misanthropia however (I do believe in human potential)

It can also just be folks "rebelling" against the previous generation.

I do hate all those emo fucks though. I think most hippies would too though. Noone likes seeing their gig turned into a bunch of wanking. Civil Rights was the real deal. When those of us under 40 have a collective (as opposed to individual which a lot of us do have) firestorm like they did, I'll reconsider.

Patchouli Oil still reeks though. I remember that from crusty punks as much as hippies.

Hippies: Love or Hate? If you hate em, why?

JT

[Mindgames]

Timing is everything when asking a question like that.

http://www.blueblood.net/boards/showthread.php?t=8687

[One Eyed Cat]

Timing is everything when asking a question like that.

http://www.blueblood.net/boards/showthread.php?t=8687

[Velvet-Tongue]

lol @ Mindgames.

Now as far as hippies go. The common theme running through that community seems to be a lack of personal responsbility. That makes me rather sad. Free love is all fun and good (well..not really to me.) untill someone introduces a disease into the community. Then guess what, everyone gets to suffer because of the irresponsible choice of one.

Same thing goes along with drugs etc etc but thats really starting to head away from the hippy ideals and into stereotype land.

The whole freedom of expression and art is a great thing. Going closer to nature is a good thing (sometimes), vegetarianism/veganism. ( myself being a vegetarian makes me rather biased) is great aswell.

Basically it comes down to this. Hippies DO have some great ideas -but- need to temper it with alot of responsbility and knowledge aswell.

[Tinman]

Im wit south park, hippies suck ass, i think the original message was drowned out by, drugs, sex and them bein bums, they were just collectively tar'd wit the same brush and no one listened any more, great music, freebirds a classic.

[keiko]

Now when the "hippie movement" started there were some good ideas. The political activists, the art and expression, the environmentalism, etc etc. And then dope was introduced and they got all mushy and stupid. They call it "Dope" for a reason kids. Good ideas, to a point, Bad practices. Any one born after 1970 who claims "Hippie" as their creed needs to be beaten with a freaking bat. Hippie was a movement, an era, the "lifestyle" is just plain dumb (soap and water people, it won't kill you). The kids that run around now with their store bought tyedye and playing guitars at people just make me wanna scream.

- this would be a more coherent rant if i'd been caffeinated first-

~K

[Tinman]

They are simply poor copies of a time gone by, but wit u on the soap thing, whats that all a bout? save the world, dont wash? planet made mostly o water come on guys dive in! N yes ive had my caffine intake, big ass choc bar, n it was good!

[One Eyed Cat]

Now when the "hippie movement" started there were some good ideas. The political activists, the art and expression, the environmentalism, etc etc. And then dope was introduced and they got all mushy and stupid. They call it "Dope" for a reason kids. Good ideas, to a point, Bad practices. Any one born after 1970 who claims "Hippie" as their creed needs to be beaten with a freaking bat. Hippie was a movement, an era, the "lifestyle" is just plain dumb (soap and water people, it won't kill you). The kids that run around now with their store bought tyedye and playing guitars at people just make me wanna scream.

- this would be a more coherent rant if i'd been caffeinated first-

~K

Yah I meant the older folks who still have some coherent thought processes.

JT

[One Eyed Cat]

They are simply poor copies of a time gone by, but wit u on the soap thing, whats that all a bout? save the world, dont wash? planet made mostly o water come on guys dive in! N yes ive had my caffine intake, big ass choc bar, n it was good!

Not always. I meet a lot of younger folks influenced by hippies for the right reasons. As with anything, you'll also have a truckload of em just in it to be irresponsible.

JT

[One Eyed Cat]

lol @ Mindgames.

Now as far as hippies go. The common theme running through that community seems to be a lack of personal responsbility. That makes me rather sad. Free love is all fun and good (well..not really to me.) untill someone introduces a disease into the community. Then guess what, everyone gets to suffer because of the irresponsible choice of one.

Same thing goes along with drugs etc etc but thats really starting to head away from the hippy ideals and into stereotype land.

The whole freedom of expression and art is a great thing. Going closer to nature is a good thing (sometimes), vegetarianism/veganism. ( myself being a vegetarian makes me rather biased) is great aswell.

Basically it comes down to this. Hippies DO have some great ideas -but- need to temper it with alot of responsbility and knowledge aswell.

My kudos on your dedication to vegetarianism. It is something I still struggle with due to metabolism. I think you are right. I will go further. I think that the primary source of hippie hatred emanates from punk rock. Why? They felt the hippies did not take things "far enough". I never classified myself as a "punk" as such, but I was around for a lot. The same responsibility was lacking in that "movement" as it existed in the Bay Area as well. The reasons tended to revolve more strictly around drugs, however. Plenty of sex: but it wasn't quite the same thing as "free love".

When will we ever learn?

Jackie T

[Michelle Aston]

I am not a hippie but I have played on the big screen. Does that make me an opportunistic capitalistic swine? I think so, but I don't like to bathe on my days off either, and every day I seem to be getting more like my mother. Awesome.

[One Eyed Cat]

I am not a hippie but I have played on the big screen. Does that make me an opportunistic capitalistic swine? I think so, but I don't like to bathe on my days off either, and every day I seem to be getting more like my mother. Awesome.

Movies inflict no direct damage on the aspects of this mortal coil I actually care about. It wouldn't bother me personally how much money you made.

Gets all Freudian: So do you like your mother Michelle?

JT

[Exquisite]

Parents were hippies and unfortunately not very good ones, all they took from it was rampant drug use and not washing so that kind I don't have much use for. But people who are genuinely trying to be environmental and look after the earth I have all the time in the world for.

[Black Spiral Dancer]

I neither love nor hate them. I have an acceptance of most people as long as they recipricate that acceptance. Not into the whole drug-use thing, but heck, if they want to do it, let them. Who am I to judge? I partake of alcohol on a regular basis (not excessively) so who am I to condemn somone else? My feeling is, don't force your beliefs down my throat, and I won't force mine down your's. If someone offers me drugs, I will politely say no thanks. If they continually offers them, I will take the drug and flsh them down the loo. If they take offense at that, I will say "Now you know how I feel about being offered them after telling you no thanks!"
Live and let live.

[One Eyed Cat]

Live and let live.

What does this mean to you in practice? It makes for nice rhetoric. Like it or not though, even us dark-minded folk are part of a community. Our actions may well affect each other or the community as a whole. You judge. I judge. We all judge. Life would be quite dull if we all remained indifferent.

JT

[One Eyed Cat]

Parents were hippies and unfortunately not very good ones, all they took from it was rampant drug use and not washing so that kind I don't have much use for. But people who are genuinely trying to be environmental and look after the earth I have all the time in the world for.

Groovin'. I'm definitely willing to sacrifice "economic efficiency" for a bit of a mountain breeze. I would not make a terribly convincing hippie.

JT

[Xochitl]

Can't stand them. I grew up in the rockies & I knew of so many people who acted like hippies & lived off the national park system being a burden. Didn't give a crap about the environment. If they had to actually live like a survivalist they would actually die. Real hippies, ain't a fan of them either, I am the offspring of such folk & yes they did bring up some issues that needed addressing, like civil rights, women's rights, basically equal rights but then they just kept on making everything all about them & how the world wasn't fair to them. They had a chance to really make the world a better place & all 90% of them did is make everything all about them. Most of them are never happy when they had more that most generations before them did. Sad.

[One Eyed Cat]

Can't stand them. I grew up in the rockies & I knew of so many people who acted like hippies & lived off the national park system being a burden. Didn't give a crap about the environment. If they had to actually live like a survivalist they would actually die. Real hippies, ain't a fan of them either, I am the offspring of such folk & yes they did bring up some issues that needed addressing, like civil rights, women's rights, basically equal rights but then they just kept on making everything all about them & how the world wasn't fair to them. They had a chance to really make the world a better place & all 90% of them did is make everything all about them. Most of them are never happy when they had more that most generations before them did. Sad.

Well. I would hate anyone who didn't care about the environment certainly. I guess you are seeing the self-obsession many see in the baby boomer generation? I'm a Bay Area Kid. Took awhile to get over those old goats. I fail to see us whippersnappers as any better. More honest about it perhaps.

How does one live off the National Park System? That's sad (if anyone) lacks basic survival skills.

JT

[Exquisite]

Can't stand them. I grew up in the rockies & I knew of so many people who acted like hippies & lived off the national park system being a burden. Didn't give a crap about the environment. If they had to actually live like a survivalist they would actually die. Real hippies, ain't a fan of them either, I am the offspring of such folk & yes they did bring up some issues that needed addressing, like civil rights, women's rights, basically equal rights but then they just kept on making everything all about them & how the world wasn't fair to them. They had a chance to really make the world a better place & all 90% of them did is make everything all about them. Most of them are never happy when they had more that most generations before them did. Sad.

Holy crap I love you Xochitl! You are so right!

[Xochitl]

Funny you should ask about those national park people. They generally live in a falling apart RV out of the campsites using their showers, toilets and electrical hook ups until they wear out their welcome & drive to the nearest fast food joint to buy food when they need it. At least when old people do it they generally have a nice RV & some cash to blow in Branson.

These hippies kids wouldn't know the first thing about a fishing pole or a bow & arrow or how to grow their own garden. They just torment the park rangers & people in small towns near by & travel from different national park to national park. There is even a name for them, in places like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada & New Mexico, although it escapes me at the moment. They beg at different spots in the local towns for change. Annoying since their parents are usually sending them $. They really know nothing about politics or what is going on in the world, which is what those hippie types are supposed to be doing. Right?

I knew a girl who did that but all the while her parents set her up with whatever she wanted, landrovers etc. I knew a guy who did the Phish thing & told me about the Trustafarians. Trust fund kids who just did all the hippie stuff for the drug aspect of it. I am sure some of them are nice people but it is very annoying to people who really do live off the land & know what they are doing & to those who really follow politics and understand why & why not the world is fucked up. I thought that is what the whole hippie thing was about?

As for Baby boomers don't get me started. What a bunch of boobs, who sold out as soon as they could.

[Mr Karl]

where I come from they're called 'shrubbies'

[One Eyed Cat]

Funny you should ask about those national park people. They generally live in a falling apart RV out of the campsites using their showers, toilets and electrical hook ups until they wear out their welcome & drive to the nearest fast food joint to buy food when they need it. At least when old people do it they generally have a nice RV & some cash to blow in Branson.

These hippies kids wouldn't know the first thing about a fishing pole or a bow & arrow or how to grow their own garden. They just torment the park rangers & people in small towns near by & travel from different national park to national park. There is even a name for them, in places like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada & New Mexico, although it escapes me at the moment. They beg at different spots in the local towns for change. Annoying since their parents are usually sending them $. They really know nothing about politics or what is going on in the world, which is what those hippie types are supposed to be doing. Right?

I knew a girl who did that but all the while her parents set her up with whatever she wanted, landrovers etc. I knew a guy who did the Phish thing & told me about the Trustafarians. Trust fund kids who just did all the hippie stuff for the drug aspect of it. I am sure some of them are nice people but it is very annoying to people who really do live off the land & know what they are doing & to those who really follow politics and understand why & why not the world is fucked up. I thought that is what the whole hippie thing was about?

As for Baby boomers don't get me started. What a bunch of boobs, who sold out as soon as they could.

I know aged hippies that aren't like that though. I think you just see a majority are. The kids, I don't know, just sound like spoiled brats. They just take up space. They are really neither good nor bad per se.

JT

[One Eyed Cat]

where I come from they're called 'shrubbies'

Granolas = Cali/West Coast. It seems to include the decent ones and the snapperheads alike though. I suppose every word is defiled though.

JT

[Donald Rilea]

Funny you should ask about those national park people. They generally live in a falling apart RV out of the campsites using their showers, toilets and electrical hook ups until they wear out their welcome & drive to the nearest fast food joint to buy food when they need it. At least when old people do it they generally have a nice RV & some cash to blow in Branson.

These hippies kids wouldn't know the first thing about a fishing pole or a bow & arrow or how to grow their own garden. They just torment the park rangers & people in small towns near by & travel from different national park to national park. There is even a name for them, in places like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada & New Mexico, although it escapes me at the moment. They beg at different spots in the local towns for change. Annoying since their parents are usually sending them $. They really know nothing about politics or what is going on in the world, which is what those hippie types are supposed to be doing. Right?

I knew a girl who did that but all the while her parents set her up with whatever she wanted, landrovers etc. I knew a guy who did the Phish thing & told me about the Trustafarians. Trust fund kids who just did all the hippie stuff for the drug aspect of it. I am sure some of them are nice people but it is very annoying to people who really do live off the land & know what they are doing & to those who really follow politics and understand why & why not the world is fucked up. I thought that is what the whole hippie thing was about?

As for Baby boomers don't get me started. What a bunch of boobs, who sold out as soon as they could.

Interesting summation about Baby Boomers, though, having been born in '64 myself, I belong to the very last sub-segment of that generation. Funny thing is, I'd say, from my worm's-eye view, that Jerry Rubin embodied the radical, "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30" crowd, but, come the '70's, and especially the end of the Viet-Nam War and all that, he became an EST member, and, in the '80's, some sort of Wall Street, go-go investor-type chappie. As for what he did in the '90's and is doing now, have no idea, and couldn't care fucking less what he does.

Thing about talking about the Baby Boomers, like with any generalisation about generations and their sub-segments, is that many common experiences and feelings are shared across class, racial, ethnic, religious and other lines, those lines, and the experiences that they also engender, also change how different individuals and groups within a generation or generational sub-segment are gonna perceive the world.

A New York Puerto Rican kid born in 1946 is definitely gonna have a much different world-view from a middle-class, white suburban kid born in Shaker Heights in 1954, or an African-American kid born and raised, say, in Oakland California in 1962. The societies in those regions might have been similar, but, there were, and are, considerable regional and historical differences between each region, and how people have inter-acted with each other there.

Tack on a few more factors like, say, what the parents' political orientations were, while the kid was growing up, or being disabled or non-disabled, and... well, the picture becomes even more complicated from there.

Thing is, in a way, those kids who were born between 1962 to 1970, and who came of age during the Reagan and first Bush Administrations, or the late Baby Boomer and Generation X generations, might best be called "Reagan's Kids", as it was during his time, and George H.W. Bush's, that they had their teen-age and young adult experiences, which have, at least partially, helped to shape their outlooks as full adults.

As for myself, well, having been born in Albequerque, New Mexico, raised in Winnemucca, Reno and Sparks Nevada, as the adopted son of two "Silent Generation"(Dad was born in '27, while my Mom was born in '37), parents, raised European-American lower middle-class to working-class, and having been diagnosed as a high-functioning autistic at age 11, well, what can best sum me up is that, I am SUPREMELY screwed-up !!!!!


But, that, of course, is par for the course, especially livin' in Nevada, Land of the Not-So-Free and Home of the Very Strange.

As for them Hip-Pie types, haven't know very many, either '60's vintage, or current flock. Of those I've been acquainted with, some of 'em have been good eggs, and others, I wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole if you paid me a million dollars(US, Canadian, Australian or Hong Kong). All depends on the person and how they treat me and other people.

'Least, that's how I figure it.

[keiko]

Found this while I was digging in my pic files.



Thought it was fitting

~K

[Velvet-Tongue]

[QUOTE=Black Spiral Dancer]I neither love nor hate them. I have an acceptance of most people as long as they recipricate that acceptance. Not into the whole drug-use thing, but heck, if they want to do it, let them. Who am I to judge? I partake of alcohol on a regular basis (not excessively) so who am I to condemn somone else? QUOTE]

Mostly because alcohol is legal and does not support crime.

Just saying : )

[Velvet-Tongue]

Funny you should ask about those national park people. They generally live in a falling apart RV out of the campsites using their showers, toilets and electrical hook ups until they wear out their welcome & drive to the nearest fast food joint to buy food when they need it. At least when old people do it they generally have a nice RV & some cash to blow in Branson.

These hippies kids wouldn't know the first thing about a fishing pole or a bow & arrow or how to grow their own garden. They just torment the park rangers & people in small towns near by & travel from different national park to national park. There is even a name for them, in places like Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada & New Mexico, although it escapes me at the moment. They beg at different spots in the local towns for change. Annoying since their parents are usually sending them $. They really know nothing about politics or what is going on in the world, which is what those hippie types are supposed to be doing. Right?

I knew a girl who did that but all the while her parents set her up with whatever she wanted, landrovers etc. I knew a guy who did the Phish thing & told me about the Trustafarians. Trust fund kids who just did all the hippie stuff for the drug aspect of it. I am sure some of them are nice people but it is very annoying to people who really do live off the land & know what they are doing & to those who really follow politics and understand why & why not the world is fucked up. I thought that is what the whole hippie thing was about?

As for Baby boomers don't get me started. What a bunch of boobs, who sold out as soon as they could.

Sounds like a buncha hobos living together.

[Baby_Switchblade]

I don't mind hippies... I try to be accepting of all people from all backgrounds... as far as I'm concerned they're not a problem. But I don't like activist type hippes that chain themselves to trees and bulldozers and stuff. I hate those.