Hippies

[kbg32]

Perhaps not to you. Reference.

American hippies culturally were different from their English counterparts.

 

[kbg32]

I should add politically as well.

 

[kiliii]

Oh boy, the labels.

I am indigenous to the Siberia/Chinese border. My blood flows deeply with the land. I am not a Native American however.

I hunt by bow and arrow and gather plants for medicines. My friend Jess, an Apache, does not, she goes to the grocery store. I am a professional photographer. My friend Judy Bluehorse is a native educator. Jess wears normal clothes. I wear buckskins.

The point is, all the stereotyping going on here bothers me quite a bit. When people marginalize you, they make you all the same, embodying all the characteristics they don't understand. I'm sure the women in this forum understand pretty well what I mean. I'm sure any minorities here do as well.

I'm not saying that hippies don't own that car in the photograph (which is a great shot, btw). But what on earth is a hippie? And why do we need to generalize to such an extent? I admit, there are -trends- in the way people live because they choose to associate themselves in certain groups. But the ability to tell who is living in that car, what their politics are, what their hygenic habits are, is not likely to be all that truthful.

I feel like a multi-dimensional person. I use the internet. I spend time with my girlfriend's family. I hunt and trap. I am an activist. I write and shoot for magazines. I don't imagine that anybody could guess who I am and get 3/4 of it right just by looking at a photograph of me. I'm sure that everybody else is every bit as deep and interesting. How bout we put that line of thought to rest?

 

[Jocko]

"American hippies culturally were different from their English counterparts."


By the country mile we were/are. 🙂

Surely not! Excuse me while I polish my monocle! 😀

 

[nitrox1]

I like the photo. Very nice job. You've got some steady hands!!😀


John...

 

[rogue_designer]

Oh boy, the labels.

I am indigenous to the Siberia/Chinese border. My blood flows deeply with the land. I am not a Native American however.

I hunt by bow and arrow and gather plants for medicines. My friend Jess, an Apache, does not, she goes to the grocery store. I am a professional photographer. My friend Judy Bluehorse is a native educator. Jess wears normal clothes. I wear buckskins.

The point is, all the stereotyping going on here bothers me quite a bit. When people marginalize you, they make you all the same, embodying all the characteristics they don't understand. I'm sure the women in this forum understand pretty well what I mean. I'm sure any minorities here do as well.

I'm not saying that hippies don't own that car in the photograph (which is a great shot, btw). But what on earth is a hippie? And why do we need to generalize to such an extent? I admit, there are -trends- in the way people live because they choose to associate themselves in certain groups. But the ability to tell who is living in that car, what their politics are, what their hygenic habits are, is not likely to be all that truthful.

I feel like a multi-dimensional person. I use the internet. I spend time with my girlfriend's family. I hunt and trap. I am an activist. I write and shoot for magazines. I don't imagine that anybody could guess who I am and get 3/4 of it right just by looking at a photograph of me. I'm sure that everybody else is every bit as deep and interesting. How bout we put that line of thought to rest?

Very nicely put. A well thought out post. And welcome to the RFF. 🙂

 

[traveller]

Oh boy, the labels.

I am indigenous to the Siberia/Chinese border. My blood flows deeply with the land. I am not a Native American however.

I hunt by bow and arrow and gather plants for medicines. My friend Jess, an Apache, does not, she goes to the grocery store. I am a professional photographer. My friend Judy Bluehorse is a native educator. Jess wears normal clothes. I wear buckskins.

The point is, all the stereotyping going on here bothers me quite a bit. When people marginalize you, they make you all the same, embodying all the characteristics they don't understand. I'm sure the women in this forum understand pretty well what I mean. I'm sure any minorities here do as well.

I'm not saying that hippies don't own that car in the photograph (which is a great shot, btw). But what on earth is a hippie? And why do we need to generalize to such an extent? I admit, there are -trends- in the way people live because they choose to associate themselves in certain groups. But the ability to tell who is living in that car, what their politics are, what their hygenic habits are, is not likely to be all that truthful.

I feel like a multi-dimensional person. I use the internet. I spend time with my girlfriend's family. I hunt and trap. I am an activist. I write and shoot for magazines. I don't imagine that anybody could guess who I am and get 3/4 of it right just by looking at a photograph of me. I'm sure that everybody else is every bit as deep and interesting. How bout we put that line of thought to rest?

Good point of view.
Welcome

 

[lynn]

I refer - with not the slightest hesitation or embarrassment - to the time between my 18th and my 22nd as my Hippie Years. It was a glorious part of my young adulthood - the whole package: Vancouver, flowers-in-your-hair, patchouli, the Georgia Straight, beadshops, brown rice, Long Beach, Sooke, Other Stuff - and it formed me. It was Alternative, but innocently and optimistically so, and I was happy. As you can see. 🙂

 

[Jocko]

But what on earth is a hippie?

Well Kiliii, if we're to trust the language historians, the answer is pretty simple. "Hippy" goes back to the marching bands formed by black ex-servicement after the civil war. To be "Hip" (as in the command "Hip two three four") was to be in tune with the rhythm, to understand the hidden beat of things that most people missed.

And of course, according to that veritable King of the Hippies Mr Thoreau, that meant that "if a man does not keep pace with his companions perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away".

Don't mistake lables for insults. Hippy is a badge of glory, and more than half the good things of the earth came from grubby bearded dreamers.

Cheers, Ian

 

[kiliii]

Don't mistake lables for insults. Hippy is a badge of glory, and more than half the good things of the earth came from grubby bearded dreamers.

Ian, I agree with you on that. I worry that today when people refer to 'hippie' they conjure up an imagine in their heads that's not quite accurate and certainly not accurate with folks that would call themselves hippies today. Hell, I've been called a hippie before, by people who have no idea of the historical context of the word and believe that anyone that walks in the woods is a hippie. LOL, I try to remember that when Lewis and Clark came to town, they were the ones that never took baths-- the native peoples bathed every day. Stereotyping means people extrapolate a lot of information about you based on one piece of information. Don't it just incense you when people do that?

I'm not fond of lumping the various alternative groups into a single category-- there is so much difference even between 'environmentalists' and 'hippies', but they all get called 'tree-huggers'. It's a way of dismissing someone who belongs to a culture that is not your own so that you don't have to know anything about it.

I just read over my post and it sounds potentially angry. I'm not, really! I do get tired of having to defend every minority group and alternative-minded individual to those few insular individuals.

BTW, Lynn, what are you drinking in that photo? Looks good...

 

[merciful]

As long as you're defending the skins as well, we're all cool here!

I'm not, really! I do get tired of having to defend every minority group and alternative-minded individual to those few insular individuals.

 

[Iyidin_Kyeimo]

Peace man!

Hippies or skinheads?



😛

 

[Trius]

Kiliii,

Megwetch.

 

[kiliii]

Megwetch?What is that?

 

[f8&go]

kiliii,

Nice to meet you; thanks for your post.

lynn,

Thanks for your post & pic. Could've come
from my own album, an image of a former
love. By the way, is that an American Motors
product in the background? That former
lover I mentioned took ours when she
ran off joined the circus!


I am a hippie, but you couldn't tell by looking.
Also, I'd rather not but could, if necessary, kill you;
you probably couldn't tell that either. Hippies are not
necessarily naive. The essence of hippiness is tolerance,
gentleness, openness & individuality, bellbottoms optional.

If we have to re-instate the draft
to support our military (which MAY be just, necessary
and good) we'll see a new generation of hippies.
When I was a young hippie the war was killing as many Americans
in a month or so as we've lost so far in the last 3&1/2 years.

My hippie-ness was also informed partly by the assasinations,
civil rights struggles and cold-war paranoia of a hard era.
Go ahead and think, feel, speak as you wish. The hippies
can deal with it, we've seen it before.

 

[MadMan2k]

Some interesting posts in this thread for sure...

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I use the word 'hippy' to describe someone I'm not really labeling them or insulting them, and I think the same tends to be true when other people my age or so use the word. Maybe it means they have long hair, or dress like they're from the 70's, or whatever... It's just what I thought of when I saw the ratty car with a trailer and a cop talking to them in the parking lot.