The word “hippie” is thought to
have been first used in 1965, by San Francisco Examiner reporter Michael
Fallon, in a story about the growing counterculture population in the city’s
Haight-Asbury district (which would become a legendary hippie enclave). The
term supposedly came from the word “hipster” and was originally associated with
the beatnik movement of the 1950s. “Beatniks” were those who ascribed to the
philosophy of the famous Beat Poets, such as Jack Kerouac, rejecting the
mainstream values of American consumer society. The term “hippie” was, at least
at first, used more by critical outsiders to the movement, who the hippies
themselves referred to as “straights.”
However it originated, the name “hippie” came to identify the members of a extremely diverse counterculture movement that began during the 1960s. There were many different kinds of hippies, but in general, they shared a peace-loving, sexually free philosophy of life; according to John McCleary’s The Hippie Dictionary, “the true hippie believes in and works for truth, generosity, peace, love, and tolerance” (246), which extended to all races and sexual orientations. In hippie culture, homosexuality and bisexuality, as well as partner-swapping “free love,” were largely practiced and accepted.
The hippie philosophy was also
influenced by “New Age” Eastern religion, which included belief in karma and
reincarnation, as well as practicing yoga and meditation. This non-Western
influence carried over into hippie fashion, too, which included eclectic,
multi-cultural clothing,
“love beads,” and psychedelic colors and patterns.
Hippies set themselves apart from society, sometimes quite literally by living
in rural communes and adopting an organic\vegetarian lifestyle, “living off the
land.”
The overall ideal of the hippie movement was the removal of oneself from mainstream culture. Many hippies came from upper-middle class suburban, educated families but felt compelled to reject that way of life. One common explanation is that they were reacting against the idealization of conservative American “family values” (i.e. the Leave It to Beaver mentality) which was still a dominant holdover from the 1950s. The hippie population in the 1960s was mostly made up of young people in their teens and early twenties; though obviously people aged with the movement, and some still consider themselves hippies to this day.
Drug use was another big part
of hippie culture. The characters in Hair sing about taking drugs from
marijuana and LSD, to peyote and shoe polish, to “some jungle vines somewhere,”
and this is a fairly accurate depiction of the hippie way of life. Drug use was
generally recreational, however, not leading to an addictive, “junkie”
lifestyle. For many hippies, taking drugs was less about achieving a high and
more about participating in a ritual of self-exploration and discovery. In his
book The Hippie Ghetto, William L. Partridge explains that hippies use
drugs to create a “shared psychic state” that the participants consider to “be
productive of a kind of rapport unavailable outside the context of that
ritual.” In any case, drug use, though widespread, was a highly complex and
personal issue among hippies, more about spiritual realization than physical
pleasure.
By the end of the 1960s, hippie culture had started to become commodified; that a show like Hair was able to achieve success on Broadway is indicative of this. As hippie style and music became more and more embedded in popular culture, it became harder to separate the “true believers” from those who just liked to go to Grateful Dead concerts and smoke pot while wearing flowers in their hair. The hippie movement may have become obsolete long ago, but it is still a recognizable influence on mainstream culture today, in everything from the Austin Powers movies to peace symbol bumper stickers to high-fashion clothing designs.
MORE ABOUT HIPPIES
The Hippie Dictionary
by John Bassett McCleary
(Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2002)
Hippie
by Barry Miles
(New York: Sterling
Publishing Co., Inc., 2004)
The Hippie Ghetto
by William L.
Partridge
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1973)
Summer of Love: Psychedelic
Art, Social Crisis and Counterculture in the 1960s
by Christoph
Grunenberg & Jonathan Harris
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2005)