What do you think of the hippie movement and hedonism?

A couple of points.

The Hippie movement of the 1960s-1970s is NOT the Hippie Movement of 2019. I don’t know what sort of event you are describing in your question.

The Hippie movement of the 1970s needs to be put in historical context – a lot of anti-Vietnam-war sentiment, and a great deal of reaction to the buttoned-up post-WW2 straightness and the 1950s. Hippies in the 1970s were reacting to a very straightlaced couple of decades that had happened before.

What you are describing seems totally different.

It sounds like you’re reacting to people being kind and friendly to you for no reason that you can discern. Do they have to have a motive? Can people simply be nice and generous without an ulterior plan?

I’m a little worried that you’re either paranoid or overly cynical. Not everything needs a rationale. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The hippy movement is back?
It was weird, creepy and phony back in the 60’s and 70’s and it sounds like it hasn’t channged.

Do you have to admire someone in order to treat them nicely? Do we not all have an intrinsic value by virtue of being human? If someone does something evil, then the act should be punished, but we must still treat the person humanely. Torture, for example, is not appropriate.

Maybe Bohemianism would be a better word, or an additional word to describe what you mean, than hedonism.
I find the notion careless and unkempt.

Would you rather people treat you like shit?

@elbanditoroso I was in an environment where people dressed much like 60s hippies, where they were ‘spiritual’ and were making love to each other in some parts of the place, and everyone was extremely nice. It reminded me of Woodstock… I talked to some and they all were like “just show some love, thats what life is about” which I found retarded because it seemed like they didnt know their intent. They were selfish, but they were hiding that behind the phony love thing. wasn’t that exactly what 60s 70s hippie thing was about? All of them were on drugs, too. It might be a reaction to cold war. doesn’t make it right though. do you think the movement was a success? do you think those young people , those hippies , were truly intellectual as they were portrayed by the media like Times Mag?

@LostInParadise Yeah… Nicely is one thing, but to be too nice for the sake of free love and sh*t, that is not very genuine. I think mindfulness and reason is missing. And like I said it seems selfish…

Hippies were not about hedonism. Who made that up?

Well, kind of, they were @Jeruba .

The hippies of the 60’s and 70’s were driven by a whole lot of things. The Anti-Vietnam war movement was just part of it. It was really an age of questioning the status quo. Distrust of the government was really starting up and things were being questioned. Drugs played into it. Hedonism was sort of there though not full blown. The communes that were formed were all about a group living together as much off the land as possible with none of the normal barriers such as societal norms, property ownership, marital relations, etc.
I was not aware that there was any effort to revive those days. But if there is, it will likely fail for the exact same reasons it failed the first time. I think the world could do with a lot more of the love-thy-neighbor attitude and less of the hate-everyone-that-disagrees-with-me. But there is a balancing act to be done. Love and freedom but responsibility as well. Even if they have a group that works well together, they still have to interact on some level with the rest of the world.

@dopeguru It sounds to me like you’re talking about negative aspects and judgemental perspectives about it, rather than something succinct or someone in particular. In my experience, hippie is a label and doesn’t mean one thing, and even if some individuals embrace the term, each one is an individual, and some of those have seemed to me great people, and others not, just like other people with other labels.

In general, I would expect to greatly prefer hippies to rednecks, corporate CEOs, Reagan-era-or-later Republicans, evangelists, Mormons, anti-abortion nuts, most of Congress, etc.

Frankly, I kind of love hippies.I love the sharing, the lack of judgement, the exchanging of love and affection, food, drink, drugs, things, etc…. Communal living and raising children sounds so cool. In all the hippie events my family took me to growing up, I never felt anything negative, maybe a few rowdy drunk people, but it was a great thing to be raised around and even today, I don’t shirk from conflict but I don’t enjoy it either.

And if they chose to be hedonists, that’s their choice, doesn’t bother me. I’d love to take a year of and just do what feels good and allow my animal instincts free reign.

I also find it ironic how many of the people who disdain “hippies” seem to tend to identify as “Christians”, and yet, wasn’t Jesus and his social preachings and flock much closer to hippies than the cultural identities that tend to condemn them?

@Zaku Yes!! Jesus was a very kind man. But a passionate man, too. Intrinsically good.

But the OP is wondering about pedophiles and bad people. Maybe @seawulf and others know what the communes did about abuse or harming others.

It’s groovy baby, yeah!

It was a way to keep them high and easier to manipulate except now the drugs are more damaging.

What? No.

@Inspired_2write Citation PLEASE !

@Inspired_2write I agree lol

@KNOWITALL The problem with it is how they weren’t self-aware enough. They weren’t aware of their intents, and they didn’t need to – they just focused on the act itself and conformed into an “idea”, a utopia, which they deemed as “cool” because it was all about love(which sounds positive) and promises.

Reading philosophy in the bathroom was a very hippiesh thing to do. Peace and love man. Groovy.

@dopeguru Many of them were hyper self aware, many did not do drugs, were vegan-do no harm. We cant generalize such a large number of people. Its interesting seeing the movement negatively, I acknowledge it, but my overall takeaway has been admiration for their conviction and follow thru.

My auntie has a bus card with ‘wacky environmentalist’, maybe I just know too many great old hippies to see from you pov. They arent poor or perverts, just good people trying to make the earth a better place.

Actually, much of the Hippie, “free love” movement came about due to the availability of birth control Yee Haw.

@Tropical_Willie

I have seen documentaries that also state this. Here in part then the link;

“LSD guru Tim Leary, who was also at the conference, addressed questions about the LSD/CIA issue with much more mischievous intent.

Leary said, “The LSD movement was started by CIA.

I wouldn’t be here now without the foresight of the CIA scientists.

It was no accident. It was all planned and scripted by Central Intelligence, and I’m all in favor of Central Intelligence.

” Leary already had a history of making outrageously unbelievable claims in the media about LSD (e.g., he claimed in his Playboy Interview that LSD could give a woman a thousand orgasms and that it could cure homosexuality), which suggests this claim about the CIA may have been just as full of hot air.

On the other hand, before Leary became a proponent of LSD, he was a psychologist who specialized in personality testing, including inventing a personality test that was used by the CIA. ”

The rest of the article interesting: Link is: ( read John Pennington answer number 5)

https://www.quora.com/Did-the-CIA-create-the-hippie-movement-of-the-1960s