why do people hate phish? and hippies? and phish and hippies?

[timouse]

I try to use the same approach when somebody makes strong comments about any group of people' date=' including the following:

- hippies

- feminists

- conservatives/republicans

etc.[/quote']

Good angle, Mark; I think it's the only one that really works, since everyone comes with a bundle of presuppositions around any of these that depend on their own background, associations, etc. When all our trappings are stripped away from us, what are we, anyway?

indeed. people would regard me as a hippy because i have long hair, a social conscience, and love the music of the grateful dead.

but i also have a white collar job, a house, life insurance and investments, a well-developed sense of hygiene, and essentially live a mainstream life (with burts of "hippy" craziness thrown in to keep me sane).

i think that hippy is a generic term invented by people who are absolutely not hippies that can be used as a tool to pigeonhole and marginalize a particular viewpoint. in the same way, those of us who appear to the other team to be hippies use terms like right-winger/conservative/fascist to describe people who are opposed to what they think the term hippy stands for. there are conservatives who love their kids, have a well developed sense of social conscience, and are fundamentally decent folks.

going back to the original question posed in this thread, people tend to hate what they fear or don't understand. when normals go to a concert and see a band of wookies freak dancing down front, it makes them mad...maybe it's just their sight lines to the stage being obscured

i keep thinking about the end of "easy rider..." two guys who live a life outside of the mainstream get whacked becuase they have the nerve to live outside of the dominant culture, and are eventuallt broght down by fear and anger on the part of the rednecks with the rifle.

or perhaps i'm talking out of my ass

[StoneMtn]

Exactly.

Of course, I think badly of dirty, smelly, rude people. I dislike them for their lack of hygiene and their attitude.

I've known people dressed in suits to be dirty, smelly, and rude. I've also known long-haired deadheads to be clean, emanating no noticeable odour, and courteous.

I also think that people who act fanatical and crazy when they see any celebrity (whether it's screaming at John Lennon in 1965, swooning at a movie star in any era, or having a fit because Mike Gordon is in the same room) are embarrassing to watch.

I still don't know what a hippy is, though.

EDIT TO ADD:

It comes down to what is called the "Straw Person Argument". (Another boardmember and I recently discussed this in another context in a PM.) You can create a Straw Person by defining that person-of-straw however you want. "I hate dentists, because all dentists are sadists." (No one would argue against hating sadists; but many would find it hard to actually hate all flesh-and-blood, human dentists if they met them all.)

Of course, a person made of straw is much easier to tear down than a real person.

Edited October 9, 2005 by Guest

[Dr. J]

Seems to me that the term "hippie" is much like the terms "punk" and "prophet" and others that have enetered our everyday language, but translate badly outside their historical context. They carry with them a lot of cultural baggage. Yet, at their root, they probably have more to do with a particular frame of mind than with a particular fashion.

Recently, I saw hippie defined as "one who opposes and rejects many of the conventional standards and social customs of their day". Simplistic, but probably as close to the truth as we're going to get. At it's core, the term hippie probably has nothing to do with music, dancing, drugs, hygiene or hair. Although any or all of these could be used to express one's dissent/non-conformity etc. and certainly was in the historical period when the term hippie was coined (1960's). Then the movement was indeed counter-cultural. It was anti-establishment.

It's impossible to separate the term from its historical roots. With the end of the Second World War, the 1950's were a time of great industrial expansion. Young men came home from the war seeking to start families, get jobs and to buy the many things they felt they now deserved. It was a male dominated society and traditional family values were predominant as reflected in TV programs such as My Three Sons and Father Knows Best. Consumerism ran high. People themselves seemed to take on less importance, as did natural resources which were seen to be plentiful and ravaged at will. The fear of communism only heightened this need to stress traditional moral/social/political values and was reflected in the conservative way people dresssed...grey flannel suits and tight waisted skirts....and also prompted an increased emphasis on formalized religion and its leaders, such as Bishop Fulton Sheen who had his own weekly TV program.

It was into this milieu that the dissenters brought their invitation to Tune In Turn On Drop Out and they used their rock 'n' roll, psychedelic fashion, and mind-expanding drugs etc to do so.

I know I'm oversimplifying, but all I'm saying (and it's taking me forever to do so) is that there will always be those who will react/rebel against the prevaling customs and standards of their times. Depending on how they choose to do so, they may be termed a punk, a prophet or a hippie (or someting worse) depending on the historical context they bring to their protest. Phew....

w

[SaggyBalls]

hippiedom is serious about being 'not serious' - society wants either bad boys or artists, not musicians and fans that can party together without being pretentious or 'super cool'...

it's also a certain air of freedom and flakiness that look suprisingly similar to oneanother. most people are not laid back as hippies are and are focused more closely on fashion, societal woes, and keepingup with the joneses...

if only they knew that the joneses can't keep up with US.

[Hartamophone]

Dad, you make a great hippy. You're lazy and self-righteous, and your feet are jet-black.