The full story of the hippies is much more complex than what is commonly imagined or understood. I'm reminded of this by those who comment every time I write about hippies. There is always so much I leave out.
* There are still hippies.
* In the 60s, we preferred to be called freaks, hippie was a slur. We've since reclaimed it and I use it as a term of convenience since only the freaks would know what I was talking about otherwise.
* There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a hippie (nor is there anything wrong with not being one).
* Being a hippie was fun. Hippies felt like everyone ought to try and have a little along the way.
* The original hippies preceded the Summer of Love, many of them considering 1967 the end of the movement, dead by commercialism. There was a funeral.
* Nevertheless, the movement, or a second wave of it, continued at least into the 70s or around the time of Kent State. The movement faded into the background as violence reigned but never really went away, thriving today in the Rainbow Family and elsewhere.
* There was a wide range of hippie types and it didn't mean exactly the same thing to everyone. There was some silliness to be sure, okay a lot, but the stereotypes are mostly inaccurate, often wildly so.
* Google hippie in Google Images. The results are ridiculous. A hundred idiotic stereotypes for every real hippie. And that's because of how hard we've been trashed by the conservative mainstream precisely because we were a real threat to the assholes of the world – who, alas, reigned triumphant in the end. We were denied our love in and I, for one, resent it.
* We could have had a better world.
* The 1% was our enemy then as now.
There is always a light side to being a hippie, hippies being a fun loving folk, but there was a very serious side to the movement for those attuned to such things. We were out to save the world. And we came close to doing it.
There was a time when we walked like giants on the land.
(The first 10 minutes of this is awesome, and the rest ain't bad, just long. I quote the most pertinent verse below, for those in a hurry.)
Me and some of my friends
We were gonna save the world
We were trying to make it better
We were ready to save the world
But then the weather changed
And the white got stained
And it fell apart
And it breaks my heart
But think about how close we came
I wanna walk like a giant on the land
I wanna walk like a giant on the land
Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Walk Like A Giant
People often remind me of the many ways in which we profoundly changed the world and it's true, but we didn't change it nearly enough. We lost the 60s revolution. We buckled to the violence of the right wing opposition. Not enough people backed our revolution and it failed in the face of violence, not unlike what we saw with Occupy. We failed to overcome the ruthlessness and cruelty of the ruling class. Our revolution fell apart. And it breaks my heart. Just look where we are: we've become fossil fuel gluttons, bullies, torturers, science deniers. The mindless pillaging of the earth never skipped a beat. We can't even slow it. Where's the hippie revolution when you need it?
Like any social movement, the hippie phenomena was a large and complex thing consisting of many strands. It was the weaving together of various cultural influences including music, politics, social struggle, the causes of peace, equality and racial justice and an expression of modern angst flowing from the human search for meaning. It also included much pain and yearning, springing as it did in part from the civil rights movement and the social contradictions all of that brought into focus, but it sought to embrace humanity in all its forms in the most hopeful of ways.
Despite the fact that the movement occurred in tandem with the bitter civil rights struggle and the violent antiwar/pro-war clashes, or maybe because of it, it sought to make love greater than hate, peace greater than war, cooperation greater than competition. It also called into question the value of mindless (our word was 'plastic') consumerism and the corporate assault on the environment. It was prescient in so many profound ways. It was a deep questioning of all that was so obviously wrong with us. It proposed greater empathy and compassion, radical socioeconomic change and a more thoughtful approach to our relationships, to each other and to the earth.
I don't know to what extent any of us truly understood how absolutely critical these matters would become to the fate of humanity – but I think we all sort of felt it in our bones. Civilization was on an unsustainable path. We weren't wrong.
Okay, so this isn't the full story of the hippies either. It would take a great while to cover all of that ground. It was so many things to so many people, and can be discussed and understood on so many different levels. What I think is important to understand about the hippies is that their revolutionary spirit is still there to be drawn upon and their message is still the one everyone needs to hear: greater empathy and compassion, radical socioeconomic change and a more thoughtful approach to our relationships, to each other and to the earth. The need for that benign wisdom has never been greater.
Love each other and our mother planet and conduct yourselves accordingly.
Who cannot NOW see the handwriting on the wall?
We weren't wrong then and we're not wrong now.
Peace and love, brothers and sisters. Peace and love.