I have known exactly two people I would call proper hippies.

I've spent real time with a guy on a permaculture farm, an old hippy. He worked. He got up at six and fixed the shears and harvested plums and did deals with the local farmers to get wine and produced tons of organic home-grown stuff made dinner. I strimmed ivy off the old outhouse so his pals could come and build it up and I helped him move loads of tiles he'd salvaged from a dump and pulled up a fence with my hands and carefully preserved all the posts and wire for future use and workd the vegetable garden, weeding small bits and cleaning tools and suchlike. I made a chessboard out of some old wood and some dye I made from tree-bark and blackcurrant juice and gave it to him as a present. We talked about work and life and politics and we drank wine and avoided meat and I fell into the habit of getting up at six, like him, working for a bit, then stopping for a bit, working for a bit, then stopping for a bit... One day I looked back at how many hours I'd done in a day and it was something like 13, but I had taken little breaks all through and rested when I wanted to and worked when I wanted to. I was phenomenally productive, I don't think Ive ever been as productive before or since. He didn't boss me or charge rent, if I worked he was happy. He didn't even particularly tell me what to do. Mostly I looked around to see what needed doing and asked him if I could do it. He was usually delighted. I loved it there. He was working on setting up a software company to cater specifically to ethical organisations and had become an expert in sanitation in low technology environments. The only thing we ever had even mild friction over was music. I like classical and he likes world music (ick!). He was a serious and very humble dude. I respect him totally.

He'd been to loads of festivals. He didn't say anything about them at all. He'd stopped taking drugs years ago.

I know another hippy. He used to turn up to our parties and greet everyone with "hello youngster". He would find the largest and most comfortable chair in the house and try to hold court. He'd roll these absolutely unsmokable spliffs with miniscule amounts of dope in them that he'd blagged off the other people at the party (he usually walked off with the rest of the amount he had "borrowed" to roll spliffs with because he was better at rolling than other people, he said (he wasn't)) and lecture people about how unenlightened their politics were. He kept getting my name wrong. I used to try to be polite and talk to him about the numerous events he liked to tell everyone about but if I opened my mouth to say three words he interrupted me and changed the subject. I was working in a hospital at that time, the nightshift in Casualty, and when he found that out he started telling me how hospitals worked. He kept borrowing money off people and not giving it back and wanting to stay overnight with people who didn't have the crash-space and he wouldn't put up with anything on the stereo other than hippy stuff from the 60s.

So, hippies, this generation Xer has seen both sides of you, and knows which one he prefers :D Really, they couldn't have been more different. People are people, I guess.

And if that's not condescending I don't know what is! So there.

Groovy scammer

as "hippies"? I'm curious. Because of their age. Or because they once did drugs?

By the way, the word is "hippie." "Hippy" means someone with very large hips.

Anyway, I wonder what you think of when you think of "hippie."

Good post - thanks..................

They been perplexing me for months, but not enough to ask about.

But you explained it, thanks.

Hips don't lie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp5JGBISwHw

Ladies up in here tonight
No fighting, no fighting
We got the refugees up in here
No fighting, no fighting

Shakira, Shakira

I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man wants to speak Spanish
Como se llama (si), bonita (si), mi casa (si, Shakira Shakira), su casa
Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body

And I'm on tonight
You know my hips don't lie
And I'm starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see baby, this is perfection

Hey Girl, I can see your body moving
And it's driving me crazy
And I didn't have the slightest idea
Until I saw you dancing

And when you walk up on the dance floor
Nobody cannot ignore the way you move your body, girl
And everything so unexpected - the way you right and left it
So you can keep on shaking it

I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama (si), bonita (si), mi casa (si, Shakira Shakira), su casa
Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body

And I'm on tonight
You know my hips don't lie
And I am starting to feel you boy
Come on lets go, real slow
Don't you see baby asi es perfecto

Oh I know I am on tonight my hips don't lie
And I am starting to feel it's right
All the attraction, the tension
Don't you see baby, this is perfection
Shakira, Shakira

Oh boy, I can see your body moving
Half animal, half man
I don't, don't really know what I'm doing
But you seem to have a plan
My will and self restraint
Have come to fail now, fail now
See, I am doing what I can, but I can't so you know
That's a bit too hard to explain

Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle de día

Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle de día

I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama (si), bonita (si), mi casa (si, Shakira Shakira), su casa
Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that
You know you got me hypnotized
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body

Senorita, feel the conga, let me see you move like you come from Colombia

Mira en Barranquilla se baila así, say it!
Mira en Barranquilla se baila así


No fighting
No fighting


Roll with it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWptXUblA4E

When life is too much, roll with it, baby
Dont stop and lose your touch, oh no, baby
Hard times knocking on your door, Ill tell them you aint there no more
Get on through it, roll with it, baby
Luckll come and then slip away, youve gotta move, bring it back to stay

You just roll with it, baby, come on and just roll with it, baby
You and me, roll with it, baby, hang on and just roll with it, baby

The way that you love is good as money
I swear by stars above, sweet as honey
People think youre down and out, you show them what its all about
You can make it, roll with it, baby
When this world turns its back on you, hang in and do that sweet thing you do

You just roll with it, baby, you just roll with it, baby
Come on and just roll with it, baby, you and me, just roll with it, baby

Now therell be a day youll get there, baby, youll hear the music play, youll dance, baby
Youll leave bad times way behind, nothing but good times on your mind
You can do it, roll with it, baby
Then youll see life will be so nice, its just a step up to paradise
You just roll with it, baby, you just roll with it, baby
You and me, just roll with it, baby, come on and just roll with it, baby

Or even the lack of modesty in the video clip of the Steve Winwood song posted, I have a couple question.

How many people suffered and died in wars for profit? How many people die and suffer because of lack of health care in a profit first system?

Which is worse?

The freeper that misspelled public option, and made it pubic option on the protest sign was against hippies!

... but really I think it's the wrong thing to call them - it seems to me that you really DID have to be there to be a true hippy. I think it's wrong to have the same term for modern people with the same (ummm, well, *similar*) values. To me, the term ought to apply only to people who were present at the beginning of the movement. The two I described were. I think followers-on should be called "post-hippies" or something. Their values and habits of thought are certainly congruent enough, I think, and different enough from the source group, for them to be thought of as a properly characterised separate group (if you're going to go to the trouble of labelling movements bound by commonly held beliefs, which is, hey, fraught with mishap!).

But I suppose that could just be me being pedantic. I can't think of good reasons for maintaining that position, now that you ask, actually, other than a desire for some sort of tidiness when people talk about history.

Hm. Is that wrong?

I'm allegedly generation X. But I only recently *became* generation X, it used to be people born up until about a couple of years before I was born. Then the marketing analysts decided to relabel us all.

I suppose I prefer to use labels that I think accurately reflect historical human phenomena (uuurg, that feels like a nasty phrase, but I can't think of a better one) rather than convenient marketing labels.

There! That's nice and progressive! And it was all sitting there in my head without me knowing! Clever old me!

yes, people can call themselves whatever they want, but that doesn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

A hippie - and, yes, it's where I come from - is someone who believes in peace and love and brother/sisterhood, who works to effect positive and harmless change in the most non-violent manner available, who believes in doing good with whatever we might have, who believes that she truly is her brother's keeper, who always has room for one more at the table, who tries to help.

Someone who is comfortable with letting people live and be whoever they are. This in no way means a hippie is going to sit by quietly while someone does harm or behaves badly, because, no, that's not what we're about - never were.

It's about doing the best we can and loving one another.

It's that simple.

You're going to have to scale back all those words and lofty concepts and watch more closely. Believing that someone is a hippie because he says he is, or because he has long hair and a beard and likes certain music while engaging with a fat doobie, well, you're getting fooled.

Still, it's awfully hard to label people. So, for me, I'd just as soon pass on doing it...........................................

that "hippies" was an extraordinarily broad term. After all, whatever is cool, and might get you layed is the way of all youth.

Your first example, a small subdivision of hippie, could perhaps be called a "flower child", or someone who had a deep passion for walking a talk, materializing an alternative philosophy.

As for the second dude, it's not hard at all to grow your hair, and read a few books.

I know two as well. Arlo Guthrie and Alice (as in "Alice's Restaurant")
So what? That was another time and place, and I was a hippie then too,.......who just grew up. Still love the music though. One of my very favorites from the era is "Spirit in the Sky" And I"m still crazy about the music from "Hair" My favorite song by Arlo (other than "City of New Orleans") is "dead skunk in the middle of the road"
Ever heard that one? By the way....I believed in and fought for a cause....PEACE and CIVIL RIGHTS. I didn't do the drug thing....just the music and the love.

Loudon Wainwright III wrote it and I loved his version.

if you check google, there's some talk about Louden Wainright III being sued by the Woody Guthrie estate for lifting the song from him!!! If any one is interested, Arlo will be performing on Aug. 22nd at the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. (Woodstock) Wish I could go, because my Grampa was the origional owner of that land where "Woodstock" took place, and all of my ancestors are buried at the Bethel cemetary!!! I could visit them too!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqTSev-_lQ

Been a while since I've heard it, thanks for the reminder. :-) :hi:

:silly:

Too young to be a hippie and too old to be a punk. (That ought to be a song chorus.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Viw5W5OODkQ

That's me singing (LOL).

So, yeah. You can just decide that the definition only fits nice people if you want. I certainly can't STOP you, in any meaningful sense.

:)

while the other person is "walking the walk" not just "talking the talk."

I reject your willful misinterpretation and I hope you don't try it on this one. Don't bother.

He wasn't entirely awful. He attended marches, he wrote pretty incisive invective against the appallingly blinkered establishment, he still does write, actually. He certainly knew his politics, in fact he was a good deal easier to talk to when was talking politics. He's vegan, also. He's not a BAD person. It's just that he used to be an absolutely appalling person to be around.

Once he was sharing a flat with one of my friends and her brother got sectioned and taken to the local loony bin. She got home eventually from trying to explain non-violent direct action to the admitting psychiatrist who thought her brother was faking a fit and on hearing the first sentence of her story as she was on the point of bursting into tears or throwing something heavy at the mirror "hippie" #2 (for lack of a better term) interrupted her to tell her that he'd had an awful day too because he couldn't find his tax return form.

He's a lot less of a twit these days, in fact.

I've met hippies from 50 states, two territories and six or seven provinces. They've all been good people.

PS: Assholes aren't hippies.

PPS: Welcome to DU, Zix!

The difference between an Anus and an Assh0le is you can't put your arm around an Anus.

there can be no definition of "hippies." But "assholes" are easily identified.

Um, I didn't really say assholes were hippies.

And welcome to DU. Glad you're here.:hi:

Nothing in your description suggests he has anything in common with that group/movement/philosophy/value system. Maybe he has a beard and smokes dope? That's really not a very good way to categorize. You can find the same in any redneck right wing biker bar in the US. Not stealing, but sharing dope would be a better criteria for applying that label.

Sorry, that was just stupid.

He won't be pleased, though. Can I quote you as my back-up?

that was foisted on us by a clueless media. I hated it back in the day when I was part of the counterculture -- also kind of a nebulous concept -- but I guess the media won the day, as usual, since it seems to be the accepted term now. I guess all we can do is embrace the label, as some African-Americans have embraced the N word.

But really it's unfair to try to lump everyone who had long hair and got stoned back in the late '60s into one homogenous group. We were all individuals with some things in common and many things not.

Not all of us were "turn on, turn off" either ! These "yung uns" just don't get it.:fistbump:

"Hippie" was a term invented by a clueless media.

We never called ourselves that.

Happy or are are you Sadhu?" After a bit, I translated the first into "Hippie." My reaction was confusion. Some of each maybe, but not most of what might be carried by either label. So my answer was "No, just a traveler."

The OP uses "Hippie" to include con artists and leaches, something most of those s/he would include in that nonsense label would not regard as "one of us."

I'm a Gen Xer, too, and I've known way more hippies. Most were in higher ed, but I've known many over the years. They've all been cool, interesting people who didn't have the hangups so many others I knew did.

There are probably more real ones in the States.

My dad worked at a big state university with physicists, and my mom taught high school. It was a pretty liberal social group.

I know exactly two people who have said "I have know exactly two hippies..."

One was a superb cook, wrote childrens mystery books for a living, smoked a pipe, fun to talk to, and an all around swell joe.

The other...


:wtf:

btw--wtf is a "spliff"

The type of which I don't know the euphemism for in the States, not being a citizen thereof.

I haven't smoked one in years, but still consider myself an aging hippie.

grandparents were born call a joint a spliff. i never knew that--it never even occurred to me to wonder about it. (lol)

welcome to du.

In college there was a girl who wore flowers in her hair, came to school barefoot, and never bathed. But she was just an average middle-class girl living at home playing a hippie and she changed her image shortly afterwards. She didn't live in a commune and do drugs or engage in free love all day. But hundreds and hundreds of young people around me were socially concerned, engaged in all kinds of civic-minded fund-raising drives for the poor, for civil rights, in support of the Indians on Alcatraz, and involved in anti-war activities. I don't think there were that many hard-core hippies around but there were many, many progressively minded kids who had long hair and for whom the words love and peace were very important. I knew a guy who lived in his van while attending the University of California and had long hair but I wouldn't consider him a hippie (a lot of people lived in their vans back then while attending classes). I think there's a tendency to see a lot of young people back then as hippies who had "dropped out" of society, but actually the vast majority of young long hairs were dedicated to getting an education and changing the world, not turning their backs on it.