By SJ Otto
A few days ago I found this article which is called, “How to Be a
Modern Hippie,” by Colleen. I found it
interesting because I was somewhat of a Hippie starting in my high school days
and in my early 20s. In some ways, I still am today. I found this article in
with another Hippie story, “What Are Hippies
Called Today?” Hippies were a big thing in the 1960s. By the 1970s
we were calling ourselves Freaks.[1] We were a little different from the
Hippies, but we were really pretty similar. By the 1970s we had to have out own
identity that differentiated us from the Hippies. We couldn’t just imitate
people from ten years past.
Today, there is no “Freak scene.” The Hippies today are not the same as
those that were visible in
He has long hair. Both of us probably considered ourselves to be Hippies in our
high school days and fallowing. Originally much of that was a cultural thing.
We were counter-culture people along with many of our friends were. We all had
long hair, smoked pot, took LSD at times and we listened to rock and roll of
that time period. Colleen’s article mentioned Led Zeppelin and Jefferson
Airplane. Tom always liked Led Zeppelin and I always liked Jefferson Airplane.
Today, Tom listens mostly to Led Zeppelin. I still like Jefferson Airplane but
I also like punk rock, such as Die Toten Hosen.
Much of what I have written about, so far, has been cultural things such
as music, hair styles and drug use.
My politics have evolved since I was in high school.
As with the Freaks, I was an anarchist, in those days. Today I am a socialist. I
began to read and follow Salvador Allende, the Marxist and socialist president
of
Colleen writes about Hippies caring about animals. I’ve always liked animals. I studied
Hinduism in high school. I never became a Hindu. But I did adopt some of those
beliefs. One of them is that animal life has value. I won’t kill an animal, not
even an insect, unless it is necessary. I avoid any practice that causes pain
to animals. I try to respect them. I am not a vegetarian, but I believe in
respecting those animals that we eat. I avoid anything the causes such animals
any pain, such as boiling lobsters or eating veal which
is a tortured animal. I only kill insects that are a nuisance, such as roaches
and mosquitoes. I don’t kill spiders in my house or insects that cause no harm.
But back to the Hippie article, Colleen discusses the rejection of
traditional mainstream values:
“Their rejection of
mainstream values was surprising because they were the very people who were in
position to gain the most—in jobs,
political access, and
money—from the existing system. That these young people chose to drop out from
lives in which they had clear advantages was a sign to many that perhaps
something really was wrong with the system.
The civil rights
movement was attracting national attention by the mid-1950s, and the New Left
became a factor in American politics in 1962
following the release of
its “Port Huron Statement,” a stirring announcement of youthful
political idealism.”
Again, here is something I have in common with the Hippies. I definitely
feel outside the mainstream. I definitely have little interest in the pursuit
of money and I don’t aspire to be wealthy as I am supposed to, according to the
system and its supporters.
Colleen wrote about some of the theoreticians of the Hippies. Some such
as Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg were not that political. Others, such as
Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were very political. Rubin turned to the right
after the Hippies and Yippies[3] began to die out. Hippies were a
strange movement that included some leftists and some cultural figures who had
no interest in politics at all. Others such as Rubin, ended up as political
conservatives.
I suppose there are some young Hippies around today. For many Hippies,
as my self, we are in our 60s, 70s and older. We are a dying bread. But we are
still Hippies. Some young Marxists I have seen, commenting on line, have said
they see Hippies as being conservative, right-wing, reactionary. I don’t know
how they formed these opinions but I don’t agree at all. In the 60s and 70s we
defied the status quo. We challenged the system on many levels. We challenged
the culture and the politics. We were often met with opposition and it was not
always pleasant or benevolent. Any one who wants to see examples of that
opposition can see the move Easy Rider. The
Hippies were often treated badly and it can be seen in that movie.
The Hippies today are small in
number compared to those of the 1960s and 1970s. Many of those early hippies
cut their hair, put on a suit and got a high paying job. They lost all their
early values. Some of us have retained at least some of those values. I’m proud
to be one of those.
This article is condensed from
the article I originally wrote for Artsy Fartsy. For the entire article click
here.
Here I sit in
a counter-culture bar, Kirby's, with my wife, Cam Gentry.
The above picture ^ is Tom Saad.
[1] Steve Otto, War on Drugs/ War on
People, (Ide House, Los Colinas, 1995),
“The Freaks,” p. 146.
[2] As
this article says, many Hippies are writers, musicians or artists. Tom has been
an artist since his high school days. Here are some examples of his work:
[3] See
also Steve Otto, Memoirs Of A
Drugged-up, Sex-crazed Yippie, (Authorhouse,
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