Hippie (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what a hippie and what the history of the movement is like. Furthermore, what are the characteristics of the culture hippie.

hippie story — The *hippies* They sought enlightenment, adventure and new spiritual models.

What is a hippie?

A hippie either hippy (written in hippie Spanish) He is a member of the countercultural and pacifist movement of the same name emerged in the United States in the 1960s, or also a person who currently embraces the ideals, way of life and clothing of said counterculture.

The movement hippie It emerged at a time of great social unrest in the United States and became the spokesperson for a message of rupture with the lifestyle established up to that point. One of their main demands was the rejection of the participation of the United States in the Vietnam War (1955-1975), but this extended to other areas and aspects of traditional American culture, such as attachment to family values, strict sexual morality, and an essentially materialistic model of life.

In that way, the hippies cultivated a communal, pacifist and idealistic lifestyle whose great values were free love and sex, the rejection of trends and the fashions of capitalism, and experimentation with drugs and psychotropics as a way to access a higher state of consciousness. It was a movement with little interest in politics and the world of personal and professional success, which instead practiced nomadism, community life and artistic expression at all levels.

The movement hippie transcended American borders and had a significant global impact in the second half of the 20th century. To a large extent because the hippies They sought enlightenment, adventure and new alternative spiritual models to capitalist materialism in different nations in the eastern part of the world, such as India, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan or Turkey, among other destinations considered “exotic.”

On the other hand, the movement had a great impact on music, especially American rock and the massive concerts attended by its members are known, as is the case of the famous Woodstock of 1969.

Origins of the term hippie

the word hippie arose as a derivative of the term hipsterwith which members of the previous subculture identified known as beatnikssince many of the countercultural values of the beatniks were present in the movement hippie. These terms they all came from the word hip“avant-garde” or “bohemian” which in the early 1960s was widely used to refer to followers of African-American music (especially jazz).

History of the movement hippie

hippie characteristics — The *hippies* They toured the United States spreading a countercultural message.

The hippies emerged in the United States in the 1960s, originally in the white middle-class university environment. They were part of the generation baby boombut unlike their contemporaries, they rejected the traditional model of society, considering it materialist and repressed. Heirs of the so-called generation beathad their place of pilgrimage in the city of San Francisco.

Another important antecedent of hippie were the “Merry Pranksters”, a collective of poets and artists of the generation beat that, aboard a school bus decorated with psychedelic motifs (and named the furthura combination of further“beyond”, and future“future”), toured the country spreading a countercultural message, experimenting with psychedelic drugs, and filming their antics and experiences.

The summer of 1967, known as “the summer of love,” can be considered the debut of culture hippie in the United States. Between January and June of that year, different mass events of rock music, beat poetry and the sale of countercultural products were held, in which drugs and free sex were experimented with, to the great scandal of American conservative sectors. From then on, the presence in the media of the hippie It was permanent, although not always well-intentioned.

However, it was the following year, at the 1968 Democratic Party national convention, when the hippies made their debut on the political scene, through the practice of happening and satirical humor: they presented a pig nicknamed “Lyndon Pegasus Pig” as a presidential candidate, and expressed their first slogans of clear and open opposition to the war in Vietnam.

The following year is considered the peak of the movement hippie. In August 1969, the famous Woodstock concert took place in White Lake, New York where 500,000 young people from all over the country gathered to listen to musicians such as Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, The Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Santana, The Who and Jimi Hendrix, among others.

Culture characteristics hippie

Broadly speaking, the culture hippie It was characterized by the following:

They practiced a bohemian lifestyle, far from traditional moral and social values of the mid-20th century, especially as it relates to sex and love. His usual slogan was “Make love, not war” (“Let's make love, not war”).
They expressed a open opposition to American international policy during the Cold War without embracing the ideals of communism or really getting involved in the competition between parties. It was a movement very little interested in traditional politics.
They proposed as an alternative to materialism and industrial capitalism a return to the nomadic roots of the human being, community and sustainable social organization and the search for new horizons of consciousness through mystical or religious practices from other cultures and experimentation with psychotropic drugs such as marijuana and LSD.
cultivated music, poetry and the arts as a form of expression of the transcendent truth of the person, without pursuing great ambitions and without models of commercial success.
They defended the essential values of solidarity, fraternity, acceptance and tolerance as well as environmentalism, spirituality and indigenism. They rejected consumerism and could lean towards socialist or communist positions, but they rarely joined a militancy or party.
cultivated a free sexuality open to practices of various types (homosexuality, group sex, public sex), under the slogan of “if it feels good, do it!” Similarly, love was understood as something free, without taboos, and not necessarily limited to a single person.
used to dress in extravagant ways with old clothes, recycled or made by themselves, and they rejected the rigid standards of hygiene and good conduct of the time. The men wore their hair long and grew long beards, the women did not wear bras, did not shave their armpits or legs, and wore their pants on their hips (hipin English). The latter was eventually associated with the name of the movement itself.
Some of the great icons of the movement hippie were: John Lennon, Ravi Shankar, Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, René Barjavel among others.

Importance of hippie culture

The culture hippie dealt a serious blow to the rigid American and Western morality of the mid-20th century and became a spokesperson for the discontent that existed within the capitalist countries, at a time when the world was radically divided between capitalist countries and communist countries. His message transcended the borders of his country and endures many decades later, despite the fact that a good part of the movement's members, when they matured, reintegrated into the system from which they had renounced.

The hippies constituted an important antecedent for many subsequent social and political movements and were key in the history of feminism, environmentalism and the sexual revolution of the second half of the 20th century. Furthermore, his movement was the antecedent of the models of spirituality New Age and alternative that became very popular during the 1980s.

Finally, the importance of movement hippie in contemporary music is enormous, since It brought together the feeling of rebellion and experimentation that between 1960 and 1970 marked the destiny of rock in the West.

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