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  1. Hippies

    Hippies Hippies Hippie, spelled hippy in the United Kingdom, refers to a subgroup of the 1960s and early 1970s counterculture that began in the United States, becoming

  2. The Hippies

    The Hippies American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was

  3. Hippies

    Hippies So, were the hippies of the 1960s a conformist or non conformist movement? Well, the term "Hippies" refer to a subgroup of the 1960s counterculture lifestyle

  4. How The Hippies Changed The World

    How the hippies changed the world "People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around- the music and the ideas"

  5. Hippies

    hippies "Old hippies don't die, they just lie low until the laughter stops and their time comes round again."(Stolley 238) Counterculture by definition is a culture,

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The Hippies

Submitted by vrpatel on June 15, 2005

Category: American History
Words: 2354 | Pages: 10
Views: 242
Popularity Rank: 59,706
Average Member Grade: N/A (Add a Comment / Grade this Paper)

American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies' solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely.
The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life. Hippies were often portrayed as criminals, subversive to the morals and best interest of the public. Although misunderstood, the hippie had a great impact throughout the country, still surviving today in American culture. The term "hippie" itself became a universal term in the late sixties. It originated in a 1967 article in Ramparts, entitled "The Social History of the Hippies." Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement. (Yablonsky 28) Even before this, the word "hip" described someone who was "in" and "down", wise to what was going on around him. By the 1960s, some of America's youth created a gap between themselves and their parents. They grew their hair long because it was natural and therefore considered beautiful.
At first, the idea of men with long hair was absurd and society considered it a sign of homosexuality. When it became clear that the establishment felt so strongly about hair, the attitudes of young rebels changed. One young man responded after being questioned about his unkempt appearance: Growing hair does not mean that I am or am not a homosexual. It does mean that I am willing to stand up for my rights as a human being and that includes my right to be harmless to all people. It also...

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