Why is it that kids in college (or kids around my age, anyway) feel the need to go through this hippie lifestyle exploration? Sure, the hippie ideal is nice with the whole community aspect, but... If you were to go back in time to the mid-60's to the mid-1970's and actually speak to an honest-to-God hippie... Well, if you make it past the horrible smell (au naturale, my ass), you'll realize that hippie theories are merely drug-induced nonsense. And whether they like to admit it or not, they were inspired by the beatnik media stereotype from the 50's, which was based on the distorted view of live people and Jack Kerouac's fictional spirituality. You know the people in cafes with berets and black outfits who snap their fingers at the end of a supposedly deep "performance" of a haiku-esque poem... Well, those are the beatniks, the starters of the hippie movement.
Hippies, in general, saw the dominant culture at the time to be a corrupt, hardened body that strove to have complete control over every aspect of their lives. This might make you think of George Orwell's 1984. I know it did me. Now, I'm as much a Beatles lover as the next woman-- in fact, I'm a big fan-- but they were the ones that made the hippie movement catch on in the US. Good job, guys. You made drugs and casual sex the cool thing to do. It's because of the hippies that AIDS got to be (and is still) such a serious problem. The hippie ideal of pacifism and anti-war is nice and, in theory, a good idea, but that Utopian society is impossible due to the human incapability of working without motivation. People need the prospect of receiving a reward for doing something or else that something will never get done. That's where we are ridiculously stupid. This peace that hippies keep pushing for is non-existent. We screwed up any chance of peace left for humanity long, long ago Anyways, though, hippies were deluded enough to think that they could actually change human nature. They were so doped up all of the time on cannabis and hallucinogens such as LSD that they were incapable of rational thought. Timothy Leary, a professor at Harvard of all places, said, "Expand your consciousness and find ecstasy and revelation within." This is all well and good, but such revelation and ecstasy is found via a massive quantity of drugs. I'd rather keep as many brain cells as I can, thanks.
I'm not saying that I think the hippie ideal is completely misguided. I think that a good portion of it is misguided, and quite a few of of their viewpoints are the results of a lifestyle dictated by the use of drugs... Their idea of having a true sense of community, while a bit lofty of an expectation for the human race, is a great idea. To have a community where everyone relies on everyone else. That, to be honest, is the preferrable Christian lifestyle. That's what the body of Christ is supposed to be like. Unfortunately, though, humans are fallible. I would love to say that there is a chance that such an environment can be created and thrive in adversity, but... there are too many people (especially in the US) that are so testy about changing, so set in their ways that they won't even consider something that might make the world a better place. I'd be all for a nice sense of community, but I really doubt that people will ever get to that point.
Oh well. I guess we can all decide that humans, in general, suck.
~Stef
Hippies, in general, saw the dominant culture at the time to be a corrupt, hardened body that strove to have complete control over every aspect of their lives. This might make you think of George Orwell's 1984. I know it did me. Now, I'm as much a Beatles lover as the next woman-- in fact, I'm a big fan-- but they were the ones that made the hippie movement catch on in the US. Good job, guys. You made drugs and casual sex the cool thing to do. It's because of the hippies that AIDS got to be (and is still) such a serious problem. The hippie ideal of pacifism and anti-war is nice and, in theory, a good idea, but that Utopian society is impossible due to the human incapability of working without motivation. People need the prospect of receiving a reward for doing something or else that something will never get done. That's where we are ridiculously stupid. This peace that hippies keep pushing for is non-existent. We screwed up any chance of peace left for humanity long, long ago Anyways, though, hippies were deluded enough to think that they could actually change human nature. They were so doped up all of the time on cannabis and hallucinogens such as LSD that they were incapable of rational thought. Timothy Leary, a professor at Harvard of all places, said, "Expand your consciousness and find ecstasy and revelation within." This is all well and good, but such revelation and ecstasy is found via a massive quantity of drugs. I'd rather keep as many brain cells as I can, thanks.
I'm not saying that I think the hippie ideal is completely misguided. I think that a good portion of it is misguided, and quite a few of of their viewpoints are the results of a lifestyle dictated by the use of drugs... Their idea of having a true sense of community, while a bit lofty of an expectation for the human race, is a great idea. To have a community where everyone relies on everyone else. That, to be honest, is the preferrable Christian lifestyle. That's what the body of Christ is supposed to be like. Unfortunately, though, humans are fallible. I would love to say that there is a chance that such an environment can be created and thrive in adversity, but... there are too many people (especially in the US) that are so testy about changing, so set in their ways that they won't even consider something that might make the world a better place. I'd be all for a nice sense of community, but I really doubt that people will ever get to that point.
Oh well. I guess we can all decide that humans, in general, suck.
~Stef
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