Gimnazija u Leskovcu

Maturski rad iz :

Engleskog jezika

Tema :

Hippie movement

Mentor : Kandidat:
Mirjana Nikolić Aleksandra Ristović

Jun 2009

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 CONTENTS

1. Introduction 3

2. “The Times, They Are A – Changing"

The fifties and early sixties 3

2.1. Increasing affluence 3

2.2. Rising danger 4
2.3. New culture 4

3. “If you’re going to San Francisco…”

Hippie Movement 6
3.1. Etymology 6
3.2. New culture of living 6
3.3. Hip style of clothing 7
3.4. Festivals 8
3.5. “Purple Haze all in my brain” 10
3.6. Irreconcilable differences 10

4. ”And it's one, two, three,

what are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam…” 11

4.1. The Vietnam War 11

4.2. Protest marches 13

5. Hippie music 13

6. Conclusion 16

7. Literature 17

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 1. Introduction

Many associations and images pop up in one’s head when he hears the
word “Hippie”: strangely clothed young people with long hair and unshaved
beards, with flowers attached to their tie-dyed shirts, always smiling and
having glassy eyes due to smoking marijuana, driving around in colorfully
painted VWs and listening to singers like Bob Dylan singing about war and
peace and the world where all people can live together without fighting
against each other. Although this image may be true partially, it is a
stereotype. The Hippie Movement was far more complex, more than just
sitting together in front of a military installation, singing “where have all the
flowers gone” and smoking “grass”. It did not appear from nowhere, there
were several reasons why such an uprising of young people had to take
place and several reasons why it had to fail in the end.

2.”The Times, They Are A – Changing"

The fifties and early sixties

2.1. Increasing affluence

To understand what caused the creation of what finally became the Hippie
Movement, one has to take a look at the situation after the Second World
War and in the 1950s. From an economical point of view, everything
seemed perfect for the middle-class American: the victory in the war
caused an enthusiastic spirit in the people’s minds, in combination with the
late after-effects of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” policy, the private industry fully
focusing on civil purposes and the possibility to enter trade with Europe
again; economic growth rates were extremely high. With this stable

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economical background, low unemployment rates and growing personal
assets, people could have a big family without the risk of not being able to
feed the children. The birth rates in the years directly after the war were
extremely high, the generation born in the years between 1945 and about
1957-1960 is known as the “Baby Boomers”. What had been a dream in the
years before now became reality: a nice white house in the suburbs, a
refrigerator and a TV set inside, a huge car in the yard, the kids playing
football with their father in the garden, the mother bringing them chilled
Coca-Cola – a perfect idyll of an affluent society.

2.2. Rising danger

To some people, this scenario was only the attempt of the average
American to veil the rising political dangers. The Soviet Union, also a winner
of World War II, had become the second superpower beside the USA. With
the separation of Germany, the Cold War began to reach out his icy fingers.
The biggest threat to people not only in America but all over the world was
the growing danger of a war led with weapons of mass destruction. This
always present danger had big effects in the daily life of the Americans.

2.3. New culture

Not only on a political but also on a cultural level things were changing.
Although it was only a subculture of literature, the so-called “beatniks” had
a big influence of the upcoming New Left and the Hippie Movement. They
called themselves “Beat Generation”, with the meaning of both “beaten”
and “beatific”. Their poems were heavily influenced by the mentioned
political problems, religions of the Far East and the experiences of World
War II. The philosophy of the Beat Generation was the base of the one of
the Hippie Movement, although the beatniks had a rather pessimistic view
on their topics, they did not try to change anything, whereas the Hippies

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tried to see the positive things and make the best out of their life, including
the protest against current circumstances.

The Times They Are A-Changin’

Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round people There's a battle outside

wherever you roam And it is raging.
and admit that the waters It'll soon shake your windows
around you have grown and rattle your walls
and accept it that soon for the times they are a-changing.
you’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you Come mothers and fathers
Is worth saving throughout the land
Then you better start swimming and don't criticize
Or you'll sink like a stone what you can't understand
for the times they are a-changing. your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Come writers and critics your old road is
Who prophesize with your pen rapidly aging.
And keep your eyes wide Please get out of the new one
The chance won't come again if you can't lend your hand
And don't speak too soon for the times they are a-changing.
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no telling who The line it is drawn
That it's naming. The curse it is cast
For the loser now The slow one now
will be later to win Will later be fast
for the times they are a-changing. As the present now
Will later be past
Come senators, congressmen The order is
Please heed the call Rapidly fading.
Don't stand in the doorway And the first one now
Don't block up the hall will later be last
For he that gets hurt for the times they are a-changing.
Will be he who has stalled

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 and the whole country is in rage – the
blacks, the Civil Right Movement, the
This song can be seen as a critical students not willing to take part in the
description of the circumstances in the Cold War.
late ‘50s and early ‘60s. The world is
facing problems never seen before,
there is a big threat by the atomic bomb

3.”If you’re going to San Francisco…”

The Hippie Movement

Throughout history, the world has seen some generations that have made
an impact more than all of its predecessors. The decade between 1960 and
1970 was definitely one of those eras. The people did not follow the
teachings of its elders, but rejected them for and alternative culture which
was their very own. The Hippie Movement started in San Francisco,
California and during the 1960s a radical group called the Hippies shocked
America with their alternative lifestyle and radical beliefs.

3.1. Etymology

The Hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the
United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world. The
word “hippie” derives from hipster and was initially used to describe
beatniks who had moved into San Francisco’s Haight- Ashbury district.

The young people coming to San Francisco adapted the bohemian lifestyle
of their beat idols, whose philosophy and wisdom they admired. Old
beatniks called them “junior grade hipsters” or in short “Hippies” – a term
the countercultural youth soon used for itself in a provocative way. In the
Haight- Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco, they found a suitable
home – old and cheap Victorian houses and liberal inhabitants.

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3.2 New culture of living

Hippies came from many different places and had many different
backgrounds. All Hippies were young, from ages of 15 to 25. They left their
families and did it for many different reasons. Some rejected their parents’
ideas, some just wanted to get away and others simply were outcasts who
could only fit in with the Hippie population.

The Hippies established new forms of living together: communes and free
love. Communes were households in which everybody had the same rank,
independent of the person’s sex, occupation…Ideally, a commune was
situated somewhere out in the country – a little farm in the nature,
completely build of pure natural materials, growing crops in a very natural
way (no use of chemicals), people wearing self-made clothes made of
natural fabric. Love should be completely free within such a community, no
marriage should be needed and children should not obey a certain couple
but being grown up by the whole group. Beside the fact that these
communes nearly never worked in reality, the average American was not
fond of their new forms of living.

3.3. Hip style of clothing

Clothes and fashion were a big part of the Hippie’s self-identification. From
the point of clothing, everything could be worn if it had the right look – a
bit dirty, frazzled, with lots of buttons including the obligatory peace
symbol. In the early time of the Movement, Army clothing was very
popular, green and brown colors, originally thought to be easier for hiding
in the woods and meadows, showed the mental connection to everything
natural and in the same way, wearing camouflage clothing as a peace-
loving rebel was something provocative.

Women wore wide skirts, sometimes tie-dyed, sometimes with “normal”

patterns, often showing flowers. Wearing cloths resembling to those of
Indians were also very common, especially necklaces of nice stones or

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colorful headbands, which had a welcome second purpose: they kept the
long hair from falling into the face.

3.4. Festivals

Hippies flocked to a certain area of San Francisco on the corner of Haight

Street and Ashbury Street. In the years of 1965 and 1966 the Hippies took
over the Haight -Ashbury district. There they lived and spread their
psychedelic theme throughout the whole area. In the Haight-Ashbury
district were two parks that all Hippies knew well. The more famous of the
two was the Golden Gate Park.
Park The single most important event that put
the Hippies on the map was held at the Golden Gate Park.
Park It was called The
Trips Festival.

The Trips Festival was one-week festival designed to celebrate the LSD
experience. Besides this festival dozens of other events took place at the
Golden Gate Park, some of which were free concerts by The Grateful Dead
and Jefferson Airplane and Anti-War rallies held by Hippie political leaders.

The other Park is called The Buena Vista Park and it is known for housing
hippies at night and for socializing during the day. At the 1960s progressed,
the youth in America united and in 1969
400,000 young people materialized for
three dizzying days to listen to rock and
blues music, to wear funny clothing or no
clothes at all, to talk, sing, dance, clap
hands, drink beer or smoke pot and make

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love. This festival was held in a small town in up-state New York and came
to be called Woodstock.

Woodstock was designed as a profit-making venture, aptly titled

‘Woodstock Ventures”. It became a free concert only after it became
obvious that the event was going to draw hundreds of thousands of people
that the organizers had prepared for. Around 186,000 tickets were sold
beforehand and organizers anticipated approximately 200,000 festival-
goers would turn up. The festival was held during the time of military
conflict abroad and racial discord at home and participants quickly became
aware that the event had taken on a meaning beyond its original intent.
Although the festival was remarkably peaceful given the number of people
and conditions involved, there were two recorded fatalities:

1) a heroin overdose

2) an occupied sleeping bag accidentally being run over by a tractor

in a nearby hayfield

There were also two births recorded at the event (one in a car caught in
traffic and another in a helicopter) and four miscarriages. Yet, in tune with
the idealistic hopes of the 1960s, Woodstock satisfied most attendees.
Especially memorable were the sense of social harmony, the quality of
music, the overwhelming mass of people, many sporting bohemian dresses,
behavior and attitudes.

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3.5.”Purple Haze all in my brain…”

One of the basic foundations of the Hippie movement was the flagrant use
of illegal drugs. From 1960 to 1970 the number of Americans who had tried
marijuana had increased from a few hundred thousand to 8,000,000. The
majority of these new users were from 12 years old to college seniors. To
some Hippies, drugs and music were the most important aspects of their
lives. LSD was the most important drug of the actual San Francisco scene –
not marijuana, as it is often thought. The “real” Hippies preferred due to its
far more impressive effects and they thought that LSD “put you in touch

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with your surroundings”. The city officials were not very happy with drug
addicts surging in their town and thus, acid became forbidden in the whole
USA on 16th of October 1966 (although from a medical point of view, LSD
does not, against public opinion, cause physical dependence). The
prohibition did not lead to a lower consuming of LSD, with the Hippie
Movement becoming larger and larger in the late sixties, drug usage grew
accordingly. Drugs were also very popular theme in many bands songs.
Jimmy Hendrix’s “Purple Haze “is about marijuana, “Lucy in the sky with
Diamonds” is a Beatles’ song about LSD.

Flower people showed their complete rejection of the American way of life
by wearing long hair parted in the middle, colorful casual clothes, eccentric
attire like bell-shaped blue jeans, large Indian hemp shirts, and cotton
bands round their foreheads or necks. The hippies' creativity revealed itself
in music, too.

3.6. Irreconcilable differences

Hippies did some out of ordinary things that were as shocking as their way
of dressing. It was common for them to put a nickel in a parking meter,
then set up blankets and lie down in the space for a half an hour. This was
unusual behavior so it is not strange that public did not take them seriously.
America was outraged at how strange these people were and at the same
time in tears at how funny they were. Even though the Hippies were
entertaining, in reality they were devastating the American family and were
tearing the country in two. All those new styles caused the disapproval of
the older generation – which surely was also a purpose, a radically new
appearance to distinguish oneself from the narrow-minded parents and the
conservative society. This provocation had its effect: a big number of young
people were thrown out of their homes by conservative fathers, a boy who
did not want to cut his hair – unbelievable! Those homeless teens were
only assured in their attitude, seeing that society indeed did not want them.
They often found their way to “promised land”, to San Francisco, where the
community grew bigger and bigger and no one complained about tie-dyed
shirts and too long hairs.

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While the adults of the time were conservative, hard-working and caring
mainly about the money, the Hippies did not care about any of that. They
were party animals. Many did not work unless it was completely necessary,
they never went to church nor did they care for saving virginity until after
they were married. Hippies’ easy going attitudes and fun and games
lifestyle were put away when the topic of politics came up.

4.”And it's one, two, three,

What are we fighting for ?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam…”

4.1. The Vietnam War

The war in Vietnam was one of the most important factors in the whole
Hippie Movement and the central political “event” in the late sixties. The
USA was never officially in war with North Vietnam; their whole military
forces in the area had the status of “military advisors” of the Republic of
South Vietnam. This war was terrible for the young American soldiers, who
had been drafted in big numbers, not wanting to fight a war against a
country they had nothing to do with, so this war became the biggest target
of the young people’s rebellion.

Hippie Movement consisted mainly of students, and soon, a lot of young

men flew from the army, preferably to San Francisco, and “draft card
burnings” were staged in front of military installations, with a lot of media
presence. Destroying your draft card was sentenced with jail up to six years,
but the police faced the problem that they were not able to take legal
action against several thousand young men at one time.

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In Vietnam itself, the situation was horrible. The war in the jungle, the fight
against an often invisible enemy caused extreme psychological problems
among the soldiers. A lot of them retreated into a surreal world of their
own, some went completely man, became unbelievably cruel and a far
bigger number started taking drugs- marijuana and LSD consume was a
very big problem among the military forces in Vietnam.

4.2. Protest marches

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This situation was reported to the Americans at home and it caused
massive protests; thousands of young people went on the street regularly,
blockaded roads and governmental buildings, sitting there for days, singing
songs, taking drugs…

Having strongest feelings for the Vietnam War and for the Civil Right
Movement, the Hippies made their beliefs known to the world. The Hippies
were aware that the war was being lost and that thousands of American
soldiers were dying. They took it upon themselves to make their beliefs
heard. They put together a protest larger than ever before. Once organized
not just did Hippies come, but also students, intellectuals and radicals took
part in it. This protest was held in Washington DC. 250,000 protesters
gathered for one common goal- they wanted their troops to come back
home and for the United States involvement in the war to be ended.

5. Hippie music

Flower people showed their complete rejection of the American way of life
by wearing long hair parted in the middle, colorful casual clothes, eccentric
attire like bell-shaped blue jeans, large Indian hemp shirts, and cotton
bands round their foreheads or necks. The hippies' creativity revealed itself
in music, too. Hippies used music to express themselves emotionally,
spiritually, and politically.  Music can make a statement, give voice to a
movement, and even unite us.  As hippies explore their inner world, music
guides them along in their quest for meaning.  Without drugs it can get you
high.  With drugs..., well, let's just say, music can be a religious experience.
Hippie music can be separated in two sectors:

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On the one hand was the “self-made” music. Sitting together with guitars,
tambourines, drums and harmonicas (or anything else which can be used to
produce sound) and making music, preferably under the influence of
marijuana or LSD, was very popular among Hippies. The songs played were
often of Folk origin or had its roots in countries far away. Such
performances often took place in public area like parks (there were always
some people in the Golden Gate Park making music one could join) or
during sit-ins and demonstrations. Singers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and
Arlo Guthrie brought folk music into the sixties with protest themes against
government oppression and war. They had taken the words of the beat
generation to a new level. Music festivals like the Newport Folk Festival
drew large crowd of like thinkers where they could not only enjoy the
music but share the common goals. These festivals grew in size and
number. Many areas banned the festivals because they were afraid of what
might happen.

On the other hand there was a professional music scene. Bands like
Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, The Mamas and the Papas or
Creedence Clearwater Revival created a completely new sound, unheard
before. The songs were often written and performed under influence of
psychedelic drugs; electrical guitars were the most important instruments.
For some reason drugs have been parts of music for generations, including
the blues and jazz performers of the 1920s and 30s. This just was the first
time it spread so far. Much of the drug use, dress and such were just a part
of the protest. Some, of course, were in it for the drugs alone.

In the early ‘60s music became more than just entertainment. It was now
music with a message. And the messages our poets sang helped us identify
with important issues and events greater than ourselves.  They spurred us
to action.  These songs had an impact on the consciousness of not just
hippies but all society.  Some of these songs also broke new ground
musically.  One way or another they hit us deeply, made us think, made us
dream, made us feel as one people. They touched millions of us, each in a
unique way. 

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 “How does it feel to be on your own,
with no direction home, like a
complete unknown, like a rolling
stone?” Bob Dylan

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 Conclusion

In spite of its rapid integration into the establishment, the Hippie

Movement had an undeniable merit: it represented the most
authentic reaction against the American way of life, imperialism
and repression of ethnic minorities.

It was a peaceful moment in history when a lot of people felt the

need to come together with thoughts, ideas, and emotions. It was
particularly in the music where the beauty of it all joined together
millions of people who needed to free themselves from the
everyday repetition that seemed to be misdirected. Hippies looked
closely at life tried to enjoy the moment.

“I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to

live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live
up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find
each other, it's beautiful.” Famous hippy quote

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Literature:
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie
2. www.hippy.com
3. oldhippie.jimgreenlee.com
4. www.history.com

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