Proper Tidy
Arsed
Primal Scream had it right.
New age cosmic hippies and the far right
- Thread starter Blagsta
- Start date
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
at the risk of boring everyone, its not a coincidence imo that so much of the early support for national socialism and the nsdap came from the Wandervogel and similar and it's not a coincidence that one can see elements of the attitudes that created that support continuing to this day. everyone thinks sometimes i'm sure that they'd like to escape and go and live in a cave etc, and this is not necessarily wrong - being a hippy or living a lifestyle that is "bohemian" is not wrong, we all would like to do it, especially when it seems that the world has become "stupid" as Lletsa sometimes puts it. However, wanting to do it or doing it for a short time is not the same as actually doing it, or basing political conclusions based on that. Firstly, there is the fact that due to the very nature of what you're doing (needing to be able to live for a long time without work or money) you will need to have money and time that many, perhaps most, people do not have access to, or even if they do, have other responsibilities that prevent them from doing so, such as kids, jobs, business etc. This doesn't mean that all hippies are cunts or that nobody should live that lifestyle, it is simply a fact. And continuing to live that lifestyle undisrupted depends on not being, for example, evicted for squatting, which is becoming increasingly difficult now.
as for the far right, it's easy to see how people who started out from what was often a relatively privileged position in society (mostly from the middle class, although in the early 20c it was also members of the minor aristocracy) who became both isolated physically and mentally from everyone else, would perhaps (but not always) come to adopt those views. There's also the fact that the idea of dropping out, that there's no point participating in society or the majority of people in it , is at best a defeatist attitude, which may make some kind sense on a personal level (im sure everyone has felt like this!) but politically, especially when combined with the authoritarian leadership mentioned earlier on, could lead to some very nasty attitudes forming. You know the idea of the "sheeple" etc.
Again i'm not saying that all hippies are like this but i don't think it can be classed as purely a left wing movement.
as for the far right, it's easy to see how people who started out from what was often a relatively privileged position in society (mostly from the middle class, although in the early 20c it was also members of the minor aristocracy) who became both isolated physically and mentally from everyone else, would perhaps (but not always) come to adopt those views. There's also the fact that the idea of dropping out, that there's no point participating in society or the majority of people in it , is at best a defeatist attitude, which may make some kind sense on a personal level (im sure everyone has felt like this!) but politically, especially when combined with the authoritarian leadership mentioned earlier on, could lead to some very nasty attitudes forming. You know the idea of the "sheeple" etc.
Again i'm not saying that all hippies are like this but i don't think it can be classed as purely a left wing movement.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Idaho
blah blah blah
I would happily do so. Just as I am trying to insist that its not inherently right wing.
Idaho
blah blah blah
Eh? That's not remotely what a straw man is. Its a very simple logic test. Even my 9 year old son could work it out.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
You're setting up an argument that no one has made, then attacking it.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
No one has insisted its " inherently right wing".
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
Admittedly my experience of hippies is pretty limited to festival going, but stumbling upon a hippy forum during the Dale Farm eviction, I saw some pretty strong and consistent negative attitudes towards Irish travellers (and utter ignorance of their culture/issues), as well as putting themselves on a higher pedestal than 80/90s new age travellers, and indulging in a healthy bit of immigrant bashing too.
Idaho
blah blah blah
Really?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Much is said about the fact that a true communist system has never existed, or at least, has never flourished. Would it be possible to have a true communist system that employed any of the products of the capitalist system?
The second question is whether or not it's right to say that the things they didn't reject, ie, medical and scientific achievements etc, are in fact products of the values they were attempting to reject. As I recall, the values they attempted to reject included overacquisitiveness, the pursuit of money as the highest ideal, the ignoring of the environment in the pursuit of human goals, etc. I think it's debatable to say that the great scientific achievements etc, are the product of some of the negative values that have come to be attached to our society.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
\
In my opinion, their transformation of society goes much broader and deeper than that. I'd also say that to the extent that they chose to or allowed themselves to be co opted by the system, it was accompanied by an abandonment of the values that they claimed to have wanted to promote, during their phase as 'hippies'.
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
Right.
One of the fundamental problems that both the far right and the far left are going to encounter is that their ideas have little chance of being accepted. You have a few choices what to do about that. You can accept that you'll never be part of the mainstream, you can accept that you'll never see the change you're advocating be implemented in your lifetime, or you can resort to coercion. Coercion is always going to be tempting because its easier.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
It's not a big deal. The maypole dance you see here has been going on for a long long time. And truth be told, some days, I'll jump right in and grab a strand. Today, I'm not wearing my dancing shoes.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
It's certainly not an argument I have made. Can you quote where someone has said it?
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
One of the key points of the modern marx derived theory of communism is that capitalist development has made communism possible. It's pretty central. Second, further development along those lines is now hampered by the social relations that led to those developments - by capitalism. Communism is not a rejection of those 'values' (if you insist on that term and the idealist perspective it implies) or developments but the raising of them onto a higher social level.
It would be impossible without them.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
No: the insistence has been that they are inherently 'right-wing/reactionary'.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
I was under the impression that a society that had 'from each according to his ability, to each according to his need' as a prime objective, was rejecting a philosophy of 'I'm all right, Jack'.
Hippies of course arose from the culture of their parents.
In fact the insistence has been that major aspects of the hippy philosophy are individualistic and ripe for co-option by the capitalist system (as we have seen). Other roots it shares with fascism and other elitist movements.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
no it hasn't. there is however an idea that things like that are "left-wing." my view is that while it's not necessarily "reactionary" i think that combined with the socioeconomic constraints placed upon people involved (or who would be invovled) in the movement, it can end up creating an atmosphere that's conducive to elitism or worse.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
The society of fifty years from now will include accomplishments from the past 300 years, unless there is a major nuclear war that wipes the slate clean.
Tbh, I don't understand the criticsim that hippies tried to change some societal values, but still availed themselves of some of the positive aspects of modern life.
Blagsta
Minimum cage, maximum cage
Its actually a bit more nuanced than that, but continue to misread if it makes you happy.
Many weren't averse to returning to that culture whenever they needed a bit more money to fund their 'alternative lifestyle.'
Yuwipi Woman
Whack-A-Mole Queen
Not mutually exclusive.
Sometimes it's "I'm all right, Jack" until you ask them to contribute. You'll notice that some of the far-right are against taxation, but not at all averse to taking the benefits of taxation.
I heard a great quote this morning: "Capitalism will never fail because Socialism will always be there to bail it out."
Dropping out isn't really changing society, but involves rejecting the bits you don't particularly like while always being able to resort to those you need when necessary.
Proper Tidy
Arsed
That was the idea.
It's a shit idea.
Point is, most of the people that could afford to be hippies were middle class. Whole idea stinks of doilies and vicars and cucumber sandwiches. My mum and dad said the whole drugs/sex thing didn't happen here til the 70s, the 60s were largely dull and hippies were something you saw on the telly. A whole ethos built around pissing about doing whatever makes you feel happy, contributing the sum total of fuck all, living on the backs of the boring dull normals who couldn't afford to be hippies and only ever see you on the telly anyway. And all the while demanding people respect your cultural authority or something. It's like the aristocracy with shitter clothes.
Anyway the really scruffy bastards are always posh.
Mods then skins then casuals all the way
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yes, as i said. An overcoming of the private nature of production and acquisition by putting them on a social footing. And values aren't free floating things that just drive society in certain directions - the communist criticism of capitalism is not a criticism of peoples values as such but of how society is materially organised and so what sort of values this organisation and the social relations it requires produces and reproduces. Criticising values alone gets you nowhere - if this is your understanding of what communism is then we're not going to get much further.
It's a shit idea.
Point is, most of the people that could afford to be hippies were middle class. Whole idea stinks of doilies and vicars and cucumber sandwiches. My mum and dad said the whole drugs/sex thing didn't happen here til the 70s, the 60s were largely dull and hippies were something you saw on the telly. A whole ethos built around pissing about doing whatever makes you feel happy, contributing the sum total of fuck all, living on the backs of the boring dull normals who couldn't afford to be hippies and only ever see you on the telly anyway. And all the while demanding people respect your cultural authority or something. It's like the aristocracy with shitter clothes.
Anyway the really scruffy bastards are always posh.
Mods then skins then casuals all the way
And as I said yesterday, hippies always spawn really obnoxious kids.
Similar threads
