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America Needs Hippies: A Theory: Why Similar Fads Are Coming Back Into American Society And Why America Needs Hippies:
4 years ago · 2 · My thoughts , +6
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Hippies, during the '60s and early '70s, left an incredibly great impact on American society with anti-war propaganda, free love and drugs whether we, as a generation or as modern-day Americans would like to believe it or not. This impact during the Hippie Movement of America was large, many people left this Movement to "grow up". This is not the only Hippie Movement in America, however.
A similar movement that many may not know of dates back to the 1910s, that lasted until 1935. This development is known as Modernism, where women and people of colour could finally speak their minds after a long many 100 years of being oppressed. This was a time after the Civil War and closer to World War I when people of colour could leave their previous slave owners and properly join American society, although difficult in the Southern states. Yes, the times were rather different. Many women and people of different ethnicities would be disregarded as drunkards or under the influence since, during this period, alcohol was heavily dispersed. People of different ethnic backgrounds could vote and women during this time did as well. Not only were oppressed people able to vote, but art was created, and many styles of art were created such as Surrealism and Cubism. Progressive poets showed off their works and expressed their emotions in plain or in inquisitive fashions. In other words, things did change. People of this time were hippies in their merit.
Hippies symbolise changing today's pain for tomorrow's peace. Many people do not realise the deeply-rooted influence that hippies have left onto American society. Similar movements come and go in America, especially during times of turmoil. The political and social climate before and after 2016 was worse and got worse for marginalised groups of people and for people who did not want that sort of change. As a result of that, many saw a boom of negativity and little positivity and a lot of ignorance. America had previously encountered an uprising issue with healthcare and is currently encountering a depleting currency. But during times of upheavals, we see fads develop.
These fads are created to distract from the negativity that is apparent in America. As said above, the social and political climate was set ablaze and no one could control it, some people were not happy with it.
In American society, there will always be another movement of some sort, as that is what America was built upon. Hippies will stand up for what they deem peaceful. Hippies have always been in our society and we should always welcome them. They help to create more ideologies of positivity.
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There are men around today in Australia with long white or grey hair who were 1960s hippies. They like to talk about the hippie days. The Vietnam war was on and Aussie guys were called up according to their birthdays. The young male hippies in the 60s wanted society to change. They didn't want to live the way their dads did with a 9 to 5 job, a mortgage, a car, and a family to support. So hippie communes were set up. The 60's was a time of music, dancing, and drugs. It was a party that lasted a few years. There were a vast number of bands and singers, many Australian and the English bands were embraced here as well. Especially The Beatles. It was a sad time too as lives were lost in Vietnam and here in Australia to drug overdoses. The hippies ignored the war as they were too busy having a good time. They were teenagers and this war was just something else on the news. Someone who owned a huge property in NSW loaned it out for a concert. It was just like Woodstock with many singers and bands. 200,000 hippies attended that. It didn't become as well known as Woodstock, though. A man got on stage there and warned the crowd of coming pollution, but no one took notice and everyone was off their faces an drugs anyway. The hippies' called themselves mods and their enemies were the sharpies and when the mods were in Sydney's CBD sharpies would often try to start fights with them. But the mods wouldn't be in the fights so the sharpies called the mods fairies and other similar names. When the 70s arrived the hippies began to disappear and so did the singers and bands. Only 3 bands rose up in the seventies, and they were Sherbet, Skyhooks, and The Little River Band. The hippie communes disappeared as well and everyone grew up and joined in with society. Also in the 60s the parents couldn't understand what their teenage kids were doing. They would have enough of them and kick them out. Sydney's King Cross was a place where homeless street kids lived. The poets who showed off their work in the 50s in USA were called Beatniks.
ReplyGood essay and I definitely agree with your argument that Hippies left a powerful impression on American culture. However, I think the internet has made a revival or successor group unlikely.
The Hippies were the counter-culture of their time, but I believe the internet has birthed so many new groups and brought so many underground scenes into the light. I think this has made the difference between "mainstream" and "counter-culture" blurry, if it even still exists. I'm not sure we'll ever have a group like the Hippies again, but I wouldn't mind being wrong.
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