Someone posted on a Couchsurfing 50+ discussion site this question:

Were You A Hippie? It got me to thinking. Long and deep.

Educated in a Catholic college prep school, my first doubts about the oppressive aspects of both religion and popular culture were given expression by reading, in high school as a teenager, Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. And “Siddhartha”-Hermann Hesse (1922) and “Razor’s Edge”-Somerset Maugham.

In my view, all hippies were counterculture but often for various reasons. Much of it was not ideological but was just adolescent rebellion against authority. So young people grew their hair long and dressed sloppy and purposely often dirty and freely engaged in sex.

The worldview of hippies and political activists alike included a make the world better mindset based on a combination of Eastern philosophy and secular Humanism. For some this meant nebulous peace and antiwar and all-you-need-is-love. For others this meant an active attempt to do something practical. They didn’t think the Hippies had a program.

I did some browsing on the internet and found this on Wikipedia.

European Roots Of The Counter-Culture Movement

Between 1896 and 1908, a German youth movement arose as a countercultural reaction to the organized social and cultural clubs that centered around German folk music. Known as Der Wandervogel (“migratory bird”), the hippie movement opposed the formality of traditional German clubs, instead emphasizing amateur music and singing, creative dress, and communal outings involving hiking and camping.[16] Inspired by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Goethe, Hermann Hesse, and Eduard Baltzer, Wandervogel attracted thousands of young Germans who rejected the rapid trend toward urbanization and yearned for the pagan, back-to-nature spiritual life of their ancestors.[17] During the first several decades of the 20th century, Germans settled around the United States, bringing the values of the Wandervogel with them. Some opened the first health food stores, and many moved to southern California where they could practice an alternative lifestyle in a warm climate.

About the same time Henry David Thoreau, a Transcendentalist, wrote “Walden,” a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay “Civil Disobedience,” originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government,” in the mid 19th Century was an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Over time, young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. One group, called the “Nature Boys,” took to the California desert and raised organic food, espousing a back-to-nature lifestyle like the Wandervogel.[18] Songwriter Eden Ahbez wrote a hit song called Nature Boy inspired by Robert Bootzin (Gypsy Boots), who helped popularize health-consciousness, yoga, and organic food in the United States.”

The song has been recorded by David Bowie and others and was part of the Moulin Rouge movie soundtrack.

Historical Roots in the U.S.

“Birth of the Cool”

The World Wars and Great Depression spawned a ‘beat generation’ refusing to conform to mainstream American values which lead to the emergence of the Hippies and the counterculture.

The “Beat” writers had picked up the lingo of Black musicians in the 40’s who were using the terms “hip” and “hep” and “hep cat.” This was the birth of “cool” and they were called “Beatniks.”

In 1962-64 in college we were having beat parties where we wore black turtleneck sweaters and leotards, drank cheap red wine and listened to Miles Davis and beat poetry like “Howl” by Allen Ginsberg (written in 1955 BTW) with candles burning in old wine bottles. And reading Kerouac and Alan Watts.

So the proliferation of the counterculture movement actually started in the late 50’s way before you saw any “hippies.” Right after the end of WWII the GI bill enabled returning men to get an education and become successful businessmen and their wives could enjoy leisure time with newly acquired wash machines and nice kitchens. The social environment was excessively restrictive after the chaos of the war when adults wanted predictability and order. The middle class rose like a sphynx. Families were headed by “The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit,”  a play of the same name, and dutiful wives played highly defined roles. To not be thought weird, dresses on women had to hit at exactly the right spot on the calf.

But their children rebelled against absentee fathers working long hours and restrictive roles for women and moral rules. They left home for freedom and the sexual revolution. The Beatles sang “She’s Leaving Home.”

Women began rebelling too. The Feminist Movement grew and women started meeting in “Consciousness Raising” groups. Women started wearing “granny” dresses and Mini skirts. The hell with dresses hitting that “right” spot on the calf. Guys grew their hair long in defiance of societal expectations of the male. Dress length on women and hair length on men became very  symbolic making a political statement.

Psychedelics 

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