Hippies.
 

So, I've come across a couple of threads in the last few days that have references to "hippies," and I'm wondering what this word means for people around here.

The usage of the word seems to be mostly negative, and I guess it always has been (draft-dodging, long-haired, free-lovers, anyone?)... but hell, it's been 40 years since the word was used regularly, so I want to know if its meaning has evolved at all.

My impression from today's use is that it refers to someone basically living outside the mainstream (e.g. eating organic food, spending more time than usual outdoors, being spiritual, being polyamorous, etc)? That's the vibe I'm getting... which is kinda weird, since if we are going to use the word "hippy" derogatorily, I'd venture to guess that a shit-ton of TFP'ers fall under that category (no doubt including myself).

Which is fine and all, but is it really such a negative thing? Is that the only word we can come up with to label people who live outside the mainstream? Or am I just missing out on some neologisms that have evolved in the last 40 years to replace this word?

Just curious what y'all think, as usual. :)

You use the term "hippie" as if it weren't a real word.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a hippie is: A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and customs of society, especially one who advocates extreme liberalism in sociopolitical attitudes and lifestyles.


Now as goes along with every single word in every single language, each has its own unique connotataion and denotation of various possible meanings and purposes.

Use the word or not, think it to be reserved for an era that has long since past, or use it to your habitual preferences in referring refer to the nieghborhood hoodlums that do nothing but hit the pipe; it is but a word.

What you put into that one word, and what you take it out of it as well, makes all the difference.

I use it to refer to people who annoy the shit outta me with their "metaphysical" cures, believing that all their ills can be cured by aligning their Chakras or Fluids or that a full body cleanse by drinking vinegar is the cure.

Quack Medicine, basically.

Those are hippies to me.

EDIT: Anyone who can appear on http://www.quackwatch.com/

The hippie sub-culture appears to be alive and well here in Southern Ontario. I have attended a couple of long-weekend music festivals which were populated by hippies of all ages. There are a lot of woolie sweaters, knotted hair braids, plaid shirts and drum circles - and if you wear a watch it gets noticed pretty quickly. I don't know about the free love stuff, but mind food has been known to be consumed by attendees at these music festivals from time to time. The people all seem to have day jobs, but not to support the lifestyle of upwardly mobile uber-consumers. Fun to visit, warm and friendly atmosphere throughout, and if I was to rework my life I could see having a strong strand of hippie in the warp and weft of my history. Organic foods, comfortable clothes, healthy choices and awareness of the happiness and spirit of others appears to be the mainstay of the hippies I have been with. A very low key group.

To me hippie refers to more environmentally and socially conscious people than myself.

eh.. i think that the hippie ideology have become morphed into fanatical freegans

I love that above paragraph because it makes me think they are living in a Mad Max type world BEFORE the catastrophic events that made it MadMax world.

I think of it as people all into the organic foods, preserving the earth, loving everything. All good things, but in my head a "hippie" has this as an obsession and mostly goes about it in a strange way. I also tend to view them as dirtier than most people, but that is just due to experience.

Also, having been into the whole punk scene in the past, my gut reaction to the word is bad, since generally hippies and punks don't get along.

But my sister is a self-proclaimed hippie and so was my college roomy, so regardless of what connotations the word means to me, I have liked most "hippies" I have known :)

All fine and good, as I said... I never meant to say it wasn't a real word. I'm just wondering why it gets used to describe anyone who likes nature (is that really so weird?) or eating organic food. And why it gets a negative connotation (your definition above does not suggest that there is anything morally wrong with said hippie)... especially when most of you guys seem to like hippies. :)

Or maybe a more interesting question... at what point does someone cross over into hippie territory? I mean, if we're talking about quacks and such, I have one uncle in particular who is obsessed with magnet-healing and ozone-cream and a whole host of other superstitious stuff... he's waiting for the aliens to come pick him up.

But to me, he's as far from a hippie as you get. He hates pretty much everyone (blatant racist), practically maintains his own militia, thinks everyone is out to get him, refuses to go to the dentist because he thinks the fillings will kill him, and has a conspiracy theory for everything. He's fat, crew-cut, white haired, wears button-down shirts that he tucks in to his jeans, and imports sweaters to sell for exorbitant prices.

Does he qualify as a hippie? How much ground is this word supposed to cover?

Abaya, don't take this personally please, but I think you're confusing "nutjob" or "crackpot" and "hippie". I don't mean any offense to your family, but your uncle isn't a hippie.

Generally "hippie" has peaceful connotations, usually peaceful to the extreme. That may mean pacificism or just a laid back attitude, but your uncle strikes me as far too aggressive for hippieness.

The negativity around hippies, in my opinion and experience, arises from their dismissiveness about confrontations and their rejection that confrontation can be a useful tool.

:lol: Thanks Jazz, but honestly you'd have to try really hard to offend me about my uncle... he offends me by simply existing, the way he does... I try to avoid him as much as possible!! :lol:

Anyway, I see what you're getting at... to you, being a hippie is a bad thing because it connotes a kind of passivity that isn't constructive to society. Interesting. Well, then my uncle certainly is not one!! He's just crazy. :)

My mother was a hippie back in the day. I have an aunt (and her girlfriend of some 25 years) who lived in Northern California for many, many years and who could both, probably, be identified as hippies. Although no one in the family ever refers to them by that name - they're just S & H. And they're fantastic people - well educated, interesting, involved. As long as they're good, I don't care how people choose to live. And I could certainly think of worse ideas to live by than those of social tolerance and responsibility and patronage of the planet.

And the concept of chakras is connected to a history of medical care that has kept billions of people healthy for more than two millenia. It has nothing to do with hippies. Maybe it's just that hippies have an open mind and are willing to accept that just because a concept hasn't emerged out of the last few centuries of Western European tradition doesn't make it bullshit.

abaya, I hope that you picked up on my hippy-like response to your uncle. I was trying to make a subtle point, although I might have been too subtle in retrospect.

Hippies as a group are neither good nor bad. Look no further than cynthetiq's signature for proof. They are just like any other group that has good and bad folks making it up. Passivity is definitely necessary at times, but I don't think that it can be the overriding and unifying principle for a successful society, which is what many hippies would have you believe. Nor do I believe that conflict is always the best approach to any given problem.

Well yes, this is what I'm saying... since when are these negative things? But other members are illustrating it a bit more for me, since I can see why such total open-mindedness might be less than productive. But then again, I'm one to err on the side of relativity :) so maybe that makes me a borderline hippie. Anthropologists are notoriously hippie-like, anyway... going native and all. :D

EDIT: after Jazz's last post... No, I hear you on that one. I mean, I guess I never saw hippies as a bad thing, maybe because I thought EVERYone went through a hippie phase (at least, 40 years ago)... and it wasn't negative. So I'm just surprised at how it's been used lately, not just on TFP but elsewhere... like some kind of derogatory label. It just didn't occur to me that it was a bad thing, and it still doesn't.

and the organic food eating types... those are the "crunch granolas people" to me.

Non indigenous people who are into drum circles.

I bet it has, HIPPIE! :)

I'm a big hippy. I love to eat natural foods and go for hikes, I constantly buck against authority and protest things like war and out of control government and corporations, but I bathe regularly, am clean-shaven with short hair, and I wear clothes that are made of regular materials and not hemp. I'm a modern hippy.

I blame Nixon and Cartman for turning the term into a negative. Not only do I not see it as a negative, but I see it as a positive. Thomas Jefferson was a hippy. Think about that.

I think the best characterization of the liberals who could be called hippys today would be neo-hippy.

I refer to my ISP as "Hippy Broadband". Any time I have a problem, it takes 2 or 3 days til they get around to it.If needed, they'll drive over in their VW microbus and have a look. They run on their own schedule with a lack of urgency that drives me nuts.

I view hippy as term term that defines people that are laid back to the point of apathy. I don't view hippies or apathy as a bad thing, necessarily. Just an annoyance sometimes.

Hippys were trying to stop the Vietnam war. I'd hardly call that apathy. Apathy is everything but hippys.

I am. I also can see that Thomas Jefferson was a rich land owner that owned slaves.

I think that negates any hippy-ness he has about him.

I was about to make this huge rant about "American hippie" = "British liberal", but you kinda covered some of the floor...

Oh, well... at least have this:
http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z...m7/liberal.jpg

:lol:
fair enough.

Okay, so will didn't touch on it, but I shall...

By referring to the mold that Jefferson fit into as a person, I suppose at first glance you would infer he was not a "hippie"(please spell it right from now on! :rolleyes:).

But the ideals that he had for a new way of life free from governing monarchs, theories of human rights and responsibilites for all and not only for the privileged, as well as the compassion he bestowed upon all others, especially his own slaves, would classify him as a "person who deviates from the societal norms", i.e. a hippie/liberal, et al.. :p

So does most of the non-Western world (+ Iceland, especially when it comes to our ISP). :lol: I guess they're all hippies, then. :)

I did spell it right initially but it looks weird to write hippieness. <--- see it looks funny.

Anyways, that description seems like it would encompass buddhists too.

buddhist = hippie

Now you beat me to it!

I was watching a History channel show the other day on the '60s and '70s, and they continuously referred to the politically active "hippies" as "counter-culture" activists. I think they were making a necessary distinction between hippies who wanted free love and weed, but didn't actively pursue anything, and the "counter-culture" movement which made dramatic statements and movements.

I think that the counter-culture movement eventually degraded into the connotation of hippies today; not many are political activists. Most are lazy pot-smokers with an obsession with nature, holistic healing “techniques,” and very little political unity.

Why is that to be viewed as "normal", you must always have urgent and pressing matters on hand, never having enough time, and generally rushing through life?

Is that why we view hippies negatively, because they enjoy the freedom and wont to be calm, serene, and flowing in their everday affairs/arguments/beliefs.

Another word that pops into my mind is "Zen", while here in the western world it is viewed half-and-half as opening one's mind to the possibilities or just fanciful laziness.

I do not see it as a healthy habit for our society to categorize, label, and judge others accordingly in an effort to elevate our own status as superiors.


Mind your own damn business! Live and let die. :)

Who was saying it negatively? :) When I hear hippie... I usually hear it in a positive light and it's meant as a compliment. Those who say it in a negative tone...they just haven't gotten in touch with their inner hippie yearnings....

Hippie to me means someone who contemplates the world around them, seeks some understanding of themselves and others and perhaps thinks outside the mainstream, this could be either in relationship, political or religious terms or all three.

Bascially, the only thing I don't align with on the 'hippie image' is the drug acceptance/participation part. Because I never was accepting of that, it's just not me and I don't like to be around it, I'm quite square when it comes to that. Oh and free love is only positive if you're using condoms...

Man.. maybe I'm not a hippie after all...


sweetpea

Wow, I think almost everyone in my entire town would fall under this definition. Especially our city government officials "I don't know, let's table this affordable housing commission meeting a few months so construction costs will soar another 10% and we'll table it again because we can't possibly see how to make affordable housing affordable at that point".

When I use the term hippy in a serious manner I think of the Rainbow Family. Nice people, not my cup of tea.

When I use hippy in a joking term I think of blue-grass music lovers who travel from blue grass festival to festival and have found some way to dance to a fiddle.

I am rubber, you are glue....ehhh, forget it. I probably am a hippie. I do wear sandals every day... :p

To me it seems a good percentage of people here might be hippies, including me by some measures. Anybody wanna start a commune? I still associate hippies as some kind of developmental transition from beatniks, so I have a soft spot for beatniks, too.

I'm such a hippy that I don't even type the 'ie' at the end of the word, instead opting for the 'y' as in 'y are we in Iraq?' or 'y not give peace a chance?'.

I'm such a hippie that I was not at all bothered that this made even a scoop of sense.

EDIT: I see the sprinkles now :p

Hip = fashionably current
y = y the hell are we fighting for something that's going to run out in a few years?

oh god no wonder you own a mac.

Actually I own a Mac because I survived the Mac clone wars of the 90s. I won't be getting an iPhone tomorrow, though.

It's no crime to be hip!

I swear to god that if you link to anything like "Hip to be Square" by Huey Lewis and the News, I'll give you a week's long vacation to ponder your sins...

:wave:

What if you've fashionably late? Are you "lip"?

Mac owner = hippie. Agreed. :D

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...vel/newton.jpg
Then I guess Sir Isaac Netwon was a hippy, too!

aw...:sad:

Way to threadjack, ya hippies! :devious:



*grumble*never having a care in the world*grumble*

to me, the defining characteristic of the hippie as type is patchouli.
i fucking hate that smell.

i am not one, but i play one on tv apparently. ok so i eat organic food and think sustainability probably a better idea than the world-as-limitless-potential-parking-lot rationality of american capitalism in general. i have a beard and my hair is a bit long. and from time to time traces of cannabis have been found in my bloodstream (contact high they call it).
but tempermentally, i am not one.
like i said a hate patchouli.
i detest phish and wont listen to the dead unless i am forced socially into it.
those people--patchouli drenched phish=heads--those are the neohippie types. those of us who would prefer to be nailed to a plank than attend a phish event are Other than that.
dont believe what you see.

I like patchouli...

...and I have a few dead and phish songs at home on my computer...












....oh my god :eek:

Patchouli and Phish and other such p words aren't a prerequisite to being a hippy. I'm listening to Led Zeppelin (BBC Recordings, Disc 2) right now. I smell like... um Tide? I dunno, maybe deodorant or body wash. Neo-hippieism isn't about bathing in flowers and taking a few years off work to sit naked on grass with your face painted. I hate face painting. A lot. To me it's always been about devotion to social and political responsibility along with the willingness to be one's self, sometimes in the face of normalcy.

msmedia:

yeah--see how it goes?

it took a bit of work to find Important Criteria To Demonstrate the Existentially Important-ish Claim that I Am Not A Hippie and the central meta-criterion was Find Criteria That You Do Not Have Nor Are Likely To Get.

whence phish.
the most important select criterion: i dont think them funny and i dont find them interesting to listen to.
therefore i am not amongst the set of those who find phish funny or interesting to listen to.
those that do are neohippies.
therefore i am not one.

syllogisms are fun. i also have a couple that demonstrate that i am not president of the united states. i feel these are important elements to have available for conversational purposes. they help get past those interminable seeming deadspots. you know, those zones which emerge when you realize that you have nothing to say. these do not have to originate in hostility or anything else--they blow in like weather. so having syllogisms at the ready is good. demonstrating that you are not the president of the united states can be functional.
the only problem comes with parties, because they present a whole series of situations in which there is nothing to say----but because they are parties, you sometimes forget things and so can find later that you have demonstrated 4 or more times to the same person that you are not president of the united states over the course of the same evening. this renders the customary "who the fuck was that guy and what's with the enormous hat with feather?" more open-ended a question than one might prefer.

or so i have heard.

but wait... you aren't describing hippie, which is patchouli and phish, you're describing hippY or neo-hippieism (ugh I hate that tripthong)

Maybe we should have subcategories.

Thomas Jefferson wasn't a hippie, but Benjamin Franklin most certainly was.

The Franklin stove was actually a bong.

Let's see...just got back from yoga class...currently dressed in outfit of yoga pants, tank top, and Teva sandals with a Columbia fleece over it all.

I wouldn't say I'm a hippy/hippie--I'm a damn Oregonian.

Do I want to a hug a tree? Sure. What kind of cereal do I eat? Nature's Path Optimum Slim. Do I buy organic fruit? Yes. Do I recycle? Absolutely--it's one of the primary identifiers of an Oregonian. Do I use alternative forms of transportation? Of course--I have a bicycle and a bus pass, and would rather use either before using the car (which is a '94 Volvo station wagon with liberal bumperstickers). Yes, I shop at our local food co-op, where I like to buy tempeh to make tempeh tacos (chipotle flavor), and tofu for stirfry (they sell it in bulk!). I eat a mostly vegetarian diet. I prefer organic, free-trade coffee, chocolate, and tea, if possible. I go to the farmer's market once a week to buy all my local produce. I vote, volunteer, get outdoors, do yoga, do pilates, play Ultimate Frisbee, and like to be naked. Notably, I do shave.

But I contend that this all makes me more a resident of Corvallis, Oregon than a hippie/hippy/whatever.

I will admit I like getting high. A lot. Again--that's an Oregon thing.

You know, I just read an article the other day about Portland and how progressive they were about zoning so that you didn't have to drive 20 minutes to make a simple grocery run and other things like that. It seems like the whole state of Oregon has their shit together... hmmmm... I may have found my new home. :)

I'd say your a hippy, and that is the point of this thread, to find the meaning to people, right?

keep doing what ya doing :thumbsup:

I live a 2-minute walk from Fred Meyers, 7-11, 2 coffeeshops, a pizza place, a bar, a dry cleaner's, a laundromat, and a strip mall with assorted businesses, including a FedEx/Kinko's. I also live a 15-minute walk from Oregon State University and all of the things associated with it. The beautiful thing about Corvallis in particular is that even if you go downtown (where the good bars are), and drink, there is (during the school year) a night bus to get you home, or cabs (any time), or your feet (most places are less than a 30-minute walk from downtown).

There is a general emphasis here on the idea of "smart growth". Compare metro Portland to metro Seattle. Both areas have seen a lot of growth in the last ten years, but the key difference is that Portland has something called the Urban Growth Boundary. They also have a regional governing board called Metro which oversees the entire Portland metropolitan area (which covers three counties) and makes sure that transportation and service needs are being met within the urban growth boundary before attempting additional expansion. The UGB encourages reuse and revitalization of older neighborhoods, and the supervision of Metro means that the region is looking at a bigger picture that includes mass transit (like the Portland streetcar, MAX light rail line and the extensive bus system). Seattle is trying to play catch-up with Portland when it comes to mass transit, and they have no UGB, so the suburbs keep pushing further and further outward--which equals sprawl. Meanwhile, in Portland, we are redeveloping older areas into higher density housing and commercial districts.

Oregon's other cities follow Portland's lead in this idea of "smart growth" for the most part. There are a few cities that haven't--Salem, Oregon (the capitol), and Albany, Oregon being two I can think of. Most of the areas that don't adhere to the idea of smart growth are rural and economically depressed, and looking to grow in order to grow their economy. But generally, there's the idea that we don't like sprawl, and we want to have as sustainable an existence as possible--which means not eating up farmland with tract housing.

I think there is a bit of confusion about what a hippie is because like any subculture its definition shifts over time. As more people identified as "hippie" as it approached mainstream acceptance the definition becomes difficult to pin.

For example, one can suggest that the hippies were counter culture, and during the 60s that is very much the case. As a group they did things (grew their hair, protested the war, dropped out and lit up) that *massively* offended the mainstream (i.e. their parent's generation). Youth like to do this, generally speaking, and have been doing to some extent for generations (at one time big band music was really out there!).

Having been a child of the 70s and 80s (i was born in 68), I generally hated the hippies. they represent a) my parent's generation (not that my parents were even close to being hippies), the baby boomers b) a movement whose ideas of peace and love, while commendable in general, were naive beyond the pale.

Most of the trappings of hippie culture - the clothes, the patchouli, much of the music I just don't like. the strong associations with political and cultural naiveté, with a generational movement that eventually lost its way (it morphed into the hedonism of the 70s) and with dewy nostalgia (more importantly someone else's nostalgia - I have a lot of issues with nostalgia in general but that's best left to another discussion).

You might say, "what's so funny 'bout peace love and understanding" but I would counter that elvis costello was no hippie.

Wow... that. is. awesome.

I was very interested in moving to Seattle next, but it's just way too expensive for me at the moment and I know I'd hate the transportation issues. I couldn't stand living in Tampa because it is ridiculously engineered... basically 75% of the area is sprawl... making it a pain to drive anywhere. Portland sounds like it would be a very smart alternative to Seattle, thank you for posting all this info! I'll PM you sometime so that we don't keep threadjacking. :)

shit, i've oftened described myself as a hippie with a work ethic and hygiene. you never know what someone means when they refer to a 'hippie' or the 'hippie culture,' it's pretty subjective.

i draw distinction with this phish bashing. phish was great up to lawn boy. damn you roach. they were interesting! they were!

as far as patchoicliaudiali goes....what an awful smell. why not just say ' i haven't bathed today." ?

i think the term is essentially worn out. it's like saying 'fuck you.' it can mean so many things, that its worthless on its own, and only derives meaning from its context. bundled within the hippie group, you've got sustainability folks, you've got trustafarians, you've got college kids just smoking herb for the first time, you've got people just looking for a group to belong to. when it was seminal, it might have been more tightly defined...but now, it pretty much just stands for people who dress a certain way and are part of the 'counterculture,' not 'conforming to society.' whatever that actually means.

My parents met in a "singles only" apartment complex in the late 70s. My dad once referred to one of his employees as smelling like "old dirty bong water". When I was 5 and told my mom that I wanted to marry a prince, she pulled over to the side of the road (we were, obviously, in the car at the time), turned it off, and proceeded to give me the first of many lectures as to why I should never rely on a man to take care of me. :lol:

Now, I'm what you would call "fiscally conservative, socially liberal", I work for a large corporate law firm, I don't drive a hybrid car, my non-hybrid has zero stickers on it, and I haven't taken the bus since I needed to for financial reasons. Right there, that says I'm definitely not a hippie.

However, I also wear sandals in my free (non-work) time, enjoy a bongload every now and then, burn incense in my home, eat all organic and whole foods, am a big proponent of alternative healthcare, and I wish the government would just leave us the F alone on most "hot button" issues. Most of my friends are trustafarians, we have a "knitting circle" that makes tiny afghans for premature babies, and we only use 100% natural fibers to make them. On that note, I intend to quit my job and become an alpaca farmer sometime over the next 10 years so that I can produce my own yarn for said preemie blankets.

So ....

what am I? LOL... Am I a fake hippie? :crazy:

Congrats, abaya, for creating a thread that went platinum in one day.

My connotation of hippie is positive. It seems to be fashionable currently to refer to them in the negative. I've never been fashionable.

My own slanted opinion of them is that they began in Greenwich Village as beatniks and slowly gravitated westward. The more musical of them became a dichotomy as they simultaneously represented peace, love, and understanding while also posing as the American pop music answer to the British Invasion. And just like any great movement that involves humans, there will always be bad apples in the bunch who ruin it for everybody else. In The Big Chill, Tom Berenger's character says something like, "We thought everybody who looked like us and talked like us would also think like us."

The song Creeque Alley by Mamas & the Papas explains a lot.

Additionally, I was born in 1960, so I knew them well.

This is what Websters had to say on the subject.

hippie
One entry found for hippie.

Main Entry: hip·pie
Variant(s): or hip·py /'hi-pE/
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural hippies
Etymology: 4hip + -ie
: a usually young person who rejects the mores of established society (as by dressing unconventionally or favoring communal living) and advocates a nonviolent ethic; broadly : a long-haired unconventionally dressed young person

Abaya, hippies are conformists that followed a trendy movement from the 60's in an effort to be non-mainstream but became mainstream by following the trend. Most outgrew being hippies and are now yuppies. The negative connotations derive from stereotypes of hippie behavior - lack of hygiene, laziness, being fake, hypocritical, following the crowd, protesting because it's trendy, trying to force their ideology on others etc, etc.

I vehemently disagree that Mac users = hippie. I am a mac user and no way in hell am I anywhere near a hippie. I work for a living, bathe regularly, do not try to force my views on others, etc etc.

The liberal label has been abused. Hippies are not liberal, the more extreme believe in communes etc which is antithetical of liberal ideology.

Thomas Jefferson was NOT a hippie, he was a libertarian (big, big difference). Neither was Ben Franklin.

Wow, some people have some very extreme views of hippies.

- Most hippies bathe. They even did back in the 60s.
- I can't think of any hippy that ever forced their view on anyone. They gathered with like minded people and exchanged ideas, albeit occasionally in a very loud voice or over a loudspeaker. They tried to spark interest in peace.
- It's hardly lazy to oppose a war.

Hippy hatred was bread by those who make either war or satire. If you get your politics from Nixon, LBJ, or Eric Cartman, you should question those sources.

"Hippy" is a compliment, and is only used in a derogatory way by those who don't understand it.

I guess it all depends on your experience and viewpoint.

Mine comes from personal experience. Most hippies (I have encountered) have a peculiar odor (maybe it's the patchouli?). But then again, this is the stereotype and prevailing view.

Most of the hippies are fanatical about their views and DO try to force it on others (which is what turns me off). I share some beliefs with them but don't appreciate the manner in which they choose to deliver their message. Actually, I don't like anyone forcing their views on me, hippy or not.

I think hippies are extreme which is why there is a backlash (hatred is rather strong). Extreme at either end is usually provocative. I don't get my politics from Nixon (who created the Environmental Protection Agency by the way, maybe he was a "hippie"), LBJ or Eric Cartmen.

Whether or not hippie is used as a derogative depends on how you view hippie but it is my general experience that hippie is most definitely derogative.

Clearly! And this thread is good evidence of your point... which is why I started it. I felt like I had no idea what "hippie" meant anymore, and couldn't understand why it was seen negatively. Now I see why some people view it negatively (though I still don't... you go, SnowyOwl!) Then again, Oregon resident = Hippie by nature. ;) We Seattleites up north are just plain yuppy (or is that yuppIE?), I think. :D Thank you, Microsoft, Starbucks, and Costco.

I've learned a lot about people's conceptions of hippies in the last 24 hours. I had no idea that so many people thought hippies smelled bad/never bathed... does being French = hippie, then? ;) (I kid, I kid.)

Come to think of it, is Hippie a purely American concept, or can it apply to other countries as well? Of course, with Europe's emphasis on liberal values and environmental awareness, the whole damn continent might qualify as Hippie. The Netherlands in particular. :D

Anyway, carry on...

Or even more in particular the Czechs knows as "Bohemians." They're the ones that seem to have been doing this the longest. I would imagine the hippie-lifestyle association with gypsies and Bohemians is not coincidental. A perfect mix of wandering, half-criminal free-spirits mixed with the bored children of the middle and upper-middle class. Yep, that would just about do it.

La vie boheme!

EDIT ADDED: Of course, here in the South we have our own version of gypsies - the Irish Travelers. What else would you expect from Dixie - a conservative gypsy con-artist with a work-ethic. They are monstrously fascinating and I've always wished I was secretly one but I just hadn't discovered my lost bloodline to them yet.

EDIT AGAIN: Read carefully. I didn't say the Travelers were hippies - I said they were gypsies. BIG difference. BIG difference.

holy shit, wareagl threw the Travelers into this? i don't know if i'd call them hippies, so much...we've got a huge enclave of them just down the road from where i sit.

as far as the hygiene bit, it's not so much that a lot of "hippies" i know/knew never bathed...they just didn't "do" deodorant. sometimes...sometimes, they have those little crystal thingies that you could rub under your armpits to make you feel like you'd done something, but when you actually had just rubbed a rock under your armpits. still smell. and [b]then[b] there's the whole patchosiauiiali thing.

i personally don't have a positive or negative view of hippies until i meet the person or people. i find that when i meet a hippie that i do like, they are pretty much some of my favorite people; them's my people.

I had to sleep on this thread before responding. I know two couples who self-identify as "hippies". Both are in their 50's. One couple remains true to their hippie past, they are eco-friendly, still socialist in their politics and demonstrate sincere compassion to those in need. They are non-religious but are probably more in tuned with true Christian values--non-judgmental, helping strangers in need, etc. To me, they embody the hippie values of peace and love.
The other couple, are hippies only in name. They take in stray animals but then unleash them on the neighborhood for the rest of us to take care of. They don't take them to the vet to be spayed or if they are injured. They put garbage in front of our house and then when confronted say "hey i just thought you might want this, man". The husband works for a social justice group but beats his wife regularly. She isn't allowed to work because he doesn't like it. But they both profess to be hippies. It just comes across as really hypocritical.

I guess my point is, to self identify as a hippie is more than eating granola, its about lifestyle, and really demonstrating the values at the core of the movement.

Put me in the "Travelers aren't hippies" camp. Travelers are just redneck gypsies, at least the ones that I knew.

I think that the stereotype for the hippie is still locked into the 1968 version. The male hippie has a long beard and hair, wears John Lennon glasses and drives a VW bus. The female version wears a shapeless dress, doesn't shave either and has renamed herself "Moonbeam". Both have an odor of pot, unwashed bodies, wheat grass and beans about them.

Those folks grew up and got jobs a long time ago.

What's the modern hippie? The ones I know have jobs now. One's one of the best woodworkers in Iowa. Another one restores old houses in Chicago and is a millionaire a few times over. Neither of those guys smell unless they've been on a job site all day. Interestingly, both drive a Prius. You'd never know by looking at them, but both of them are self-described hippies, and they're both rabid liberals.

I don't think we have any Travelers up in the PNW... never heard of 'em before.

We did have a band of Roma show up in downtown Reykjavik a couple months back. They got deported after a few too many days of playing the accordion in front of the supermarket (Iceland doesn't do street music).

As for driving a Prius... reminds me of that South Park episode (here I am bringing Cartman back into this) where they go to SF and everyone loves the smell of their own farts. Does that define a modern hippie as well? A kind of secular holier-than-thou attitude, even if they communicate it oh-so-subtly?

The Travelers are notorious down here for bilking old people out of their life savings after the hurricanes a few years back for "roof repairs." They are neither hippies nor quaint bands of gypsies.

Huh. Are they really Irish? What were they doing before the hurricanes? This is something new to me...

They are first and foremost con-artists and thieves. Modern day flim flam artists. They speak their own language (a celtic mix, as there is a lot of celtic blood in the South) and they live completely off the grid (no social security, etc.). During the cold-weather months they live in large enclaves of campers and mobile homes at "bases" in various states, but during the warm-weather months they drift outward and scam people out of their money mostly through phony home-repair services. A percentage of their "take" is put into the community pot to get them through the winter. You must be born into them to be one of them as they observe ancient rites of bloodlines and marriage.

Grancey has one of their rings, which was thrown out as a group of them were being chased out of our county years ago.

And as I mentioned in my second edit above - I did not say the Travelers were hippies. I said they were gypsies. Irish gypsies.

I suppose this is a kind of threadjack, but then again it's my thread, lol...

For some reason this conjures up an image of Brad Pitt in the movie Snatch... anyone see that? I had no idea what language he was speaking... and couldn't figure out what the hell he was supposed to be in the movie. A British gypsy? Now it all comes together... I think.

I think that more than anything this is a great example how words evoke different meanings, situations, emotions.

I am finding that the American English is very poor at conveying thoughts across with words, because so many people come up with many different meanings from the same word.

The two groups are closely related. If I remember correctly, the Irish Travelers in both the UK and the US are related to the Roma (gypsies) of Southern Europe, so all 3 groups have some big commonalities.

The US ones are generally not viewed very kindly where I grew up, and a childhood friend of mine was completely convinced that they stole his bicycle when they left town. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't, but he held a grudge into high school against all Travelers.

Well, here we go with Wikipedia again... (bolding mine)
You learn something every day... thanks for enlightening me, folks. :) And Cyn: I agree. American English can be a bit too vague for me sometimes (even though it's my native language).

/looks for equivalent of "hippie" in Icelandic dictionary...

That could be a result of how diverse we are and dynamic. Remember when bad meant good? Or sick? I once called some kid on the basketball court a "sick ass" player and he was very offended. We had to explain to him what it meant before he finally calmed down and understood it as a compliment. Southern slang, Northern dialect, Ebonics; all contribute to American English', uh, colorful language.

its not the language itself that is vague...it's the people. too many people giving their own meanings to words.

English has over 400,000 words (and growing) while French has something like 40,000 (and strictly controlled by the govt).

Most languages have words that have no english translation.

Schadenfruede is one example. It has a very distinct meaning that cannot be misunderstood. Most American English words have multiple meanings, that is not including slang where bad means good.

But not only do they have different definitions, but there are many "beliefs" as to what they mean. Another example as to various definitions is what poor means. My definition will not be yours, I'm quite sure of it.