• What was the hippie movement?
• Where was the hippie movement born?
• Why did the hippie movement emerge?
• Consequences of the hippie movement
• Hippie ideology

We explain what the hippie movement was and what was its origin. Why does it arise and what were its consequences. Hippie ideology.

Antibelicistas, anticapitalistas, opposed to gentrification and the consumer society.

What was the hippie movement?

The hippie movement (also written hippy or hippie) was known as the emergence of an American countercultural manifestation in the 1960s, which later spread to the entire world and professed the values ​​of the anarchy nonviolent, pacifism, sexual revolution, concern for the environment and the rejection of status quo capitalist and the materialism of the West.

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. His imagination valued artistic and musical expressions such as the rock psychedelic, 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 doctrines religious from the eastern world.

The movement emerged as a youth current at odds with the Vietnam War and the government American of the time, and their 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.

Where was the hippie movement born?

The word hippie comes from "hipster".

The beginning as such of the hippie movement took place in the 1960s, thanks to the popularization of the values ​​of the previous generation beat (or beatnick), whose criticism of the system was inherited by the hippies, although their cynicism was not, existentialism and funeral garb (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 the two movements converged there. There they would be influenced by the music rebellious folk and Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, famous for their communal lifestyle and frequent drug use. Shortly after, psychedelia emerged and in 1967 the so-called “summer of love”, where the different trends of the movement converged, from countercultural and alternative products, beat poetry and Hindu mantras, North American aboriginal icons and almost 20,000 people gathered in this town.

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 scruffy beard made him look like just another hippie.

Why did the hippie movement emerge?

Hippies emerge as a response to the Keynesian policies applied in the United States after the WWII, and that their 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 consumption constant as a mechanism of social and economic growth, which produced a lulling of the social vindictive struggles in the United States, fostering comfort and gentrification. The family thus became the nucleus of the society, strongly controlled by conservative, sexist, racist, religious and deeply anti-communist values, promoted by the government McCarthyism, in the middle of the Cold War against the communism (Korea, Vietnam, etc.).

Thus, the youth 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, race equality and the acceptance of homosexuality in the West. Its influence on Arts, the movie theater, the literature and the culture it is generally recognized.

Hippie ideology

The hippies were deeply rebellious, which in their time was equivalent to saying antiwar, anti-capitalist, opposed to the gentrification and mediocrity of the consumer society. They disbelieved the traditional concepts of family, religion, moral and good traditions, and embraced exploration, innovation, universal brotherhood, sexual freedom and nomadism, so they undertook frequent trips throughout the United States.

They were radically iconoclastic, at least for their time, growing long hair and wearing flowery clothes, in frank contravention of a society that rigidly distinguished gender roles. In addition, they openly supported environmental and eco-socialist initiatives, often embracing the anarchism, the socialism libertarian or communal life.