What Was The Significance Of The Hippie Movement In The 60's

The Hippie Movement was the most well known and influential movement of the 60’s.The countercultural movement originated as a youth movement in college campuses around the US, eventually spreading into the UK and Canada. Not only was it a political movement, it was also a lifestyle. The Hippies had an array of concerns but the main tenet was about being happy. Most rejected large institutions, the middle class, and conformed society. Their attitudes toward life contained little thought or concern for the consequences of their actions. Feeling dissatisfied and alienated from the middle class, which they saw as monopolized by materialism, the Hippies created their own distinctive lifestyle. Everything about the Hippie lifestyle was different,
from their religious views to the clothes they wore. Their clothes matched their free, easy going lifestyle. Believing that what you wore was a public statement of who you are, casual, free flowing dress was he way to go for the hippies. Items like and bell bottom jeans and dresses are just two of the distinctive wear.They favored long hair, most men grew long beards and most women had long beaded hair. Using the ideals of Buddhism and other Eastern religions are their reference, Hippies also popularize holistic medicine and vegetarianism based on expulsion of unprocessed foods. The hippie lifestyle was also largely based on music.
Such singers like Bob Dylan, and Jimmy Hendrix and bands like the Beatles were among those closely identified with the movement. Genres of music like folk and rock were at the center stage for music at the time. Rock and roll was a groundbreaking new type of art because it encouraged peaceful expression, while also bringing together groups of people and connecting them allowing them to identify and relate with one another through a means that they could all relate to, share, and understand.(Clark 3) Any Hippies participated in the sharing of their culture by musical gatherings and concerts. These also influenced and encouraged the liberating values of the hippie culture.The sexual revolution was in full swing during the 60’s and greater access to birth control, allowed women to have full control over their bodies. This freedom contributed to the liberal sexual ideas of the time, and eliminated a major consequence of sex leading to a more nonchalant attitude toward sex. Public nudity, living together and having relations outside of wedlock, shattered norms and became common. Music along with the sexual revolution popularized drug usage in youths. Hippies not only recreationally used drugs like Marijuana, and hallucinogenics but also promoted the usage. Drugs like these were especially popular, because they created head trips, justifying the practice as a way of expanding
consciousness. As a political movement Hippies stood their ground on what they knew was right, peace.
A popular phrase being “make love, not war”, the most important ideals of the Hippies were nonviolence and love. A significant cause of the time was the Vietnam war. The Vietnam war was looked at as being a failed mission, men were constantly being drafted and killed. The Hippies like most men and women in American at the time, had family member and friends fighting in a battle that was not theirs. The Hippies protested and made their anti-war views heard, “hoping that they could bring peace and harmony to the world in a time of such great violence and atrocity”(Clark 3). War was not the only thing they protested about. Buddhism being a model for Hippies, they also spoke out about another major errors of the time, racism and women's rights. These being two very touchy subjects then and even now Hippies were very brave to speak out about them. They believed every being is equal, no one should have their right stripped away because of their gender and especially not because of the color of their skin.Since the Hippie movement influenced artist and musicians, their views left impressions on and reached a larger crowd of people. Lyrics like this, “Southern change gonna come at last! Now your crosses are burning fast, Southern Man.” (Neil Young) created thought and generated interest on the now and made people realize the pain of the
time. By the mid-1970s the movement decreased, and by the 1980s hippies had essentially disappeared making way for a new generation of youths to make a change in the world. Although this movement popularized the ideas of recreational drug use and casual relations, it also brought light to the political

errors of the time and liberated youths and making Americans more comfortable with changing times and their bodies. Nonetheless, Hippies made an unreversible cultural impact throughout America for generations to come.