What started the Hippie/Counterculture movement during the 60s? (influences, presidents, Hoover)
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Kids who had long hair and bell bottoms and colorful shirts and were against the war and enjoyed sex, drugs and rock and roll, maybe attended a few rallies and demonstrations, also were pursuing an education, had part time jobs, and fully expected to join the establishment in one capacity or another, which they did. To people with conservative values they were all commie hippies, still are. Probably the same number actually left society to join communes as did people joining convents and seminaries.
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Originally Posted by Hefe
One obvious mistake some people on this thread are making is conflating boomers with hippies. Most boomers, who probably had sideburns & facial hair in the early 1970s & smoked some weed, they weren't hippies, that is countercultural. All hippies were boomers but very few boomers were hippies.
As for the delusional fever dreams & displaced, unresolved anger towards kids during a brief period over a half century ago... says more about others than the actual requested topic. Sad.
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It was probably the pendulum swinging back the other way after several decades of hyper patriotism and zero tolerance for alternative lifestyles. Many more people suddenly attended colleges where alt views and lifestyles are far more common. Then the Vietnam War made people question whether their nation and way of life was really always correct.
What started the 60s Hippie/Counter Culture Movement
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Originally Posted by FrankAce
First let me say that I'm young and this is before my time. But what exactly set it off? Was it the assassination of JFK? The Vietnam War? I noticed this was a time of self-indulgence, feelings, pleasure, etc. Is all this accurate? Anyone live during this era? What were your experiences? What do you remember most? What's the biggest pro and con of this movement?
Spoiled, hedonistic young adults and young men who wanted others to fight to further the United States’ interests. I tried to avoid dopers, I married and prepared for military service while in college, I reported for military service shortly after graduation, I had a child, I finished two years of active duty in the Army and was discharged, after which I got a job. I remember most the joy derived from my infant daughter. I saw no pros coming out of this movement. The cons: lifes lost to drug addiction, poorly thought out relationships, time wasted in becoming a meaningful member of society.
Yes, by the early 1970s it was just about all over. A counter culture had emerged but the real hippies were "dead." The good that they had tried to bring about was being attacked and hijacked by others. The hippies didn't last that long. I think their peaceful protests and their ideas about being more kind, preserving the environment, becoming more self sufficient and less materialistic, and ending the war did bring about some improvements in America, but not as much as they had desired. Call their dreams naive; maybe they were.
It was the hippies in the late '60s singing, "One two three, what are we fighting for? Don't know, I don't give a d___, Next stop is Viet Nam. Five six seven open up the pearly gates. Well, there ain't no time to wonder why. Whoopie! We're all gonna die."
or "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
.....and how many times must the cannonballs fly before they're forever banned"
These rather sad and prophetic songs were like the hymns of the hippies. All Hell broke loose after that but the true hippie era was over. EARLY Boomers, born right after WWII=hippies.
The end of the "true hippie era" really ended when the war ceased. We were talking about our POWs and MIAs at that point.
Those who went to live on communes discovered that all was not Peace and Love. Food had to be obtained, outhouses had to be cleaned, flies had to be dealt with, clothing needed to be procured... IOW reality collided with the mercurial dream of the Summer of Love.
But that era accomplished much for which we may be thankful. Never again will we unquestioningly lie down and die when/if our government tells us to do so.
Haven't read the whole thread yet so I don't know if this has been mentioned but Dave McGowan is somewhat of the master historian of the Hippy era and if you can believe half of what he says (much of which is verifiable) it's pretty scary what was the root cause of the culture.
You can find him on You Tube and other places on the web but his most concentrated work is here:
I challenge you to define "patriotism" within the context of this discussion.
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Originally Posted by in_newengland
EARLY Boomers, born right after WWII=hippies.
Certain words are over used and meaningless. Patriotism is one of them, certainly in this context and perhaps at any time when there is great polarization. I prefer the term hyper-American here because that generation mostly believed strongly in the values and ideas that America could be better than it was. We said the pledge and sang "My Country Tis of Thee..." every morning in school. The appeal of JFK ignited a huge segment of the population. Young people were joining the Peace Corps. The Civil Rights Movement was going strong. We were fighting a war (for good or ill), competing in the space race, waging a war on poverty, and maintaining the strongest economy in the world. But there were important things falling through the cracks and there was a sense that the country was not fulfilling its promise. Expectations of the younger generation were quite high and not being met. Complacency (and conformity) was considered "patriotic" by the establishment and the older generations. The youthful criticism was conveyed in ways that people perceive as unpatriotic but it had to be loud and tough and controversial to get attention. Burning draft cards or burning flags was an expression of disgust and discontent with the oppression that people felt. There is a thin line between imposed conformity and oppression. The white backlash against the Civil Rights marchers combined with the draft and the daily body count in a pointless war ignited strong passions of protest.
"Hippie" is sometimes assigned or confused with "Yippie", the Youth International Party founded by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. The Yippies were chiefly remembered for the 1968 Chicago convention riots and, with some SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) members, the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial. People still have heart palpitations over the SDS but if you read their 1964 Port Huron Statement most of it will seem mild and quite familiar today, but it was considered unacceptably radical at the time. Here is a link: http://www.progressivefox.com/misc_d...nStatement.pdf
If you had long hair or wore unconventional clothes you were probably labeled a Hippie at some point so it really has no meaning.
I was a big McGowan fan until he joined the people who said Sandy Hook was a hoax. It hit close to home because it resembled those who said 911 was a hoax, the buildings were empty, the mourners were paid actors, etc. We knew several people who died on 911 and it was no hoax, and the mourners were not actors. I really resented people who put those ideas forward. The same arguments were made by Dave and others including Alex Jones about Sandy Hook. That's when I changed my opinion on the truth of anything Dave had written about. At the time he expressed these views on Sandy Hook he had a brain tumor and terminal cancer, so I wondered if that had affected his reasoning, or if all of his theories that the hippies, Charley Manson, and successful rock musicians of that era were related to and/or directed by the intelligence community, a manufactured movement to change the culture, were just as flawed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lodestar
Haven't read the whole thread yet so I don't know if this has been mentioned but Dave McGowan is somewhat of the master historian of the Hippy era and if you can believe half of what he says (much of which is verifiable) it's pretty scary what was the root cause of the culture.
You can find him on You Tube and other places on the web but his most concentrated work is here:
I believe the SDS had about 30,000 members in 1969, out of 5 million or so college students and 20 million or so college age people. So the SDS represented less than one percent of college students and a fraction of 1% of college aged people. Even though the majority of college students probably agreed with their aims, less than 1% participated. I think this is true to the current day. People have strong opinions on politics but less than a percent on either side are politically active in any meaningful way.
Less than 20% of boomer draft age males wound up in Vietnam, but it was a concern to every boomer male at the time, and their girlfriends, wives and families.
Despite the hippie revolution people are just as divided in their opinions on civil rights, wars, drugs, police, the military, the environment as they were then. This is what keeps things the same in many places. The status quo moves very slowly, and some times to more repressive rather than progressive directions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunGrins
Certain words are over used and meaningless. Patriotism is one of them, certainly in this context and perhaps at any time when there is great polarization. I prefer the term hyper-American here because that generation mostly believed strongly in the values and ideas that America could be better than it was. We said the pledge and sang "My Country Tis of Thee..." every morning in school. The appeal of JFK ignited a huge segment of the population. Young people were joining the Peace Corps. The Civil Rights Movement was going strong. We were fighting a war (for good or ill), competing in the space race, waging a war on poverty, and maintaining the strongest economy in the world. But there were important things falling through the cracks and there was a sense that the country was not fulfilling its promise. Expectations of the younger generation were quite high and not being met. Complacency (and conformity) was considered "patriotic" by the establishment and the older generations. The youthful criticism was conveyed in ways that people perceive as unpatriotic but it had to be loud and tough and controversial to get attention. Burning draft cards or burning flags was an expression of disgust and discontent with the oppression that people felt. There is a thin line between imposed conformity and oppression. The white backlash against the Civil Rights marchers combined with the draft and the daily body count in a pointless war ignited strong passions of protest.
"Hippie" is sometimes assigned or confused with "Yippie", the Youth International Party founded by Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman. The Yippies were chiefly remembered for the 1968 Chicago convention riots and, with some SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) members, the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial. People still have heart palpitations over the SDS but if you read their 1964 Port Huron Statement most of it will seem mild and quite familiar today, but it was considered unacceptably radical at the time. Here is a link: http://www.progressivefox.com/misc_d...nStatement.pdf
If you had long hair or wore unconventional clothes you were probably labeled a Hippie at some point so it really has no meaning.
Spoiled, hedonistic young adults and young men who wanted others to fight to further the United States’ interests. I tried to avoid dopers, I married and prepared for military service while in college, I reported for military service shortly after graduation, I had a child, I finished two years of active duty in the Army and was discharged, after which I got a job. I remember most the joy derived from my infant daughter. I saw no pros coming out of this movement. The cons: lifes lost to drug addiction, poorly thought out relationships, time wasted in becoming a meaningful member of society.
I, along with several others, have pointed out that the counter culture represented a minority, even among youth. Your story confirms that along with the hippies, there were also the squares.
The burning question now is not how the hippies got started, but how do we stop them from taking over the planet? We don't have the technology to beam them into space like the Trouble With Tribbles episode on Star Trek. Henry Kissinger, the most accomplished person still living, has achieved more than any world leader still alive. Kissinger has not published any books on how to get rid of hippies. I fear the day Henry dies because nobody else is smart enough to run the World Bank and it will be overrun by hippies. The whole world economic system will fall.
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What started the 60s Hippie/Counter Culture Movement
