It is more than ironic that those who came of age and consciousness in time for the first Earth Day in 1970, now find hope not in the leader of their own country, but rather in the leader of an Andean country of indigenous peoples. Maybe not so ironic, however, considering that the Hippie movement that launched the celebration of life and love at Woodstock and in San Francisco also catalyzed environmental awareness, based in part on indigenous philosophy.
Perhaps to the credit cartel’s chagrin, it was also the Hippies who reintroduced the concept of communal ownership, establishing community gardens and cooperative schools and stores throughout the country. When one examines the Hippie philosophy in its entirety, it is hard to find fault with its substance, even if one is not inclined to adopt the style.
After enduring forty years of mockery by the mainstream, it is fair to say that the Hippies were, and are, right. Put that in Wall Street’s pipe and smoke it.
Partly right. But I think Vine Deloria made a good point about them in Custer Died For Your Sins:
“I remember spending a whole afternoon talking with a number of hippies who had stopped in Denver on the way west. They were tribally oriented but refused to consider customs as anything more than regulations in disguise. Yet it was by rejecting customs that the hippies failed to tribalize and became comical shadows rather than modern incarnations of tribes.”
Thanks for sharing that quote, Owen. I have to agree. Hippies certainly set a good example, but their lack of organization was a fatal mistake. They settled into a rut which impaired their vision and ultimately defeated them as a movement.
It’s the same mistake that activists are making today; but instead of love and good will it’s confrontation and protest. It’s just not enough.
Thanks, Owen.
As young people trying to find our own way toward peace and love within a culture of war and hate, we unavoidably had our shortcomings. As we matured, some of us came to understand those better.
For those who committed themselves to opposing aggression, indigenous peoples became natural allies, even if our severance from our ancestral indigenous roots left us unfulfilled. Discovering the sacred values inherent in our own heritages, though, helped us to achieve a degree of dignity we would otherwise have not.
Authors like Josep Fontana and Jamake Highwater helped me put some of the ideological challenges of diaspora in perspective.
Thanks, Ahni.
Looking at the positive aspects of Hippies, we did manage to mainstream the ideas of environmentalism within the dominant culture. Our efforts even managed to forestall expansion of the nuclear power industry, as well as to make some headway in making holistic medicine an acceptable practice.
Our efforts to remove unreasonable restrictions on the use of entheogens has been a mixed bag, but our overarching countercultural movement did have some lasting effects.
Considering the insanity of American society, especially in the early Hippie era, we didn’t do too bad for a bunch of teenagers.