Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
True; as were Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Neal Cassady. The Beat Generation was the precursor to the hippies.
New age cosmic hippies and the far right
- Thread starter Blagsta
- Start date
True; as were Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Neal Cassady. The Beat Generation was the precursor to the hippies.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
See - another reason to hate hippies - we'd have eternal peace and love if only everyone smoked weed maaan.
taffboy gwyrdd
Embrace the confusion!
Anyways, it's 2012 now so you are all reading this from the 47th Dimension. Int that nice? 
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
You couldn't really call Kerouac a hippy (he reverted in the end to being a right wing reactionary living with his mother), or Cassady, who as far as I can gather was more of a speed freak than anything else. Ferlinghetti I don't know.
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
From what the thread says, reverting to a right wing reactionary is exactly what hippiedom is all about. Cassady: drug use doesn't disqualify someone from hippiedom.
Ferlinghetti: City Lights Bookstore etc.
SpineyNorman
Inappropriate content removed
Racism against hippies is the last form of acceptable prejudice on urban75.
And so it should be!
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Cassady was a high octane speed freak who spent his spare time throwing hammers. Kesey was an ex wrestler and top rated monumental novelist. They were clean cut, straight-dressed and full on- able to subvert post-1950's america because they were not drop outs. They did not need to tune in to turn on. Saying they were hippies because they were the precausers to hippies proves my point. They weren't hippies- and are more in the tradition of the ravers going back to the 1930 dance crazies.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
Racism against hippies is the last form of acceptable prejudice on urban75.
Because being a hippy is equivalent to being black / jewish etc?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
They were subversive to the prevailing culture. People might think it now, but having long hair and sandals is not what being a hippie was about.
crusty bloomer
Active Member
I always thought hippies were more right than left wing. It's a pretty Libertarian philosophy isn't it?
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
It's pretty hard to lump them all into one category or another.
TruXta
tired
But much more convenient.
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
Thanks for the info wrt Ferlinghetti, but if being a hippy was purely about being a right wing reactionary General Patton would have been a hippy, which is clearly ludicrous.
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
duplicate post
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
It doesn't mean that all right-wing reactionaries are hippies.
Meltingpot
Living in our pools we soon forget about the sea
Maybe not, but this thread fails to distinguish between the two (or most of the posters here do). Hippies were about communitarianism, at least in the early days.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Hippies were about all kinds of shit - there's very few definitive views that can be placed across the heads of them all. But the fact that some right-wing loons were not hippies is not at all evidence that there wasn't a strain of right-wing loonery running through many sections of general hippy milieu. This is pretty well established fact through thousands of autobiographies, cultural histories and so on.
Edit: and there's nothing whatsoever to say that communitarianism cannot be right wing - it's more recent explicit political expression was pretty far right - Etzioni/Blair/Third way etc
cantsin
Well-Known Member
wtf, are you genuninely this confused ? libertarian ( as oppposed to statist ) communists / libertarian anarchists etc have had 1000 % more input into the 'hippy' movenment then any 'right wing' Libertarian traditions have , from CND / anti Vietnam to Angry / Red Brigades ( both had roots in the UK /Italian / German 'hippy underground' , and were supported by them during trials etc to greater or lesser degrees ) , the Motherfuckers in the US ( street hippies / anarchos , inspiration for King Mob over here ) all the way through to the anarcho-hippies of late 70's UK / crusties of the 80's / travellers etc - plse name any significant, identifiably right wing Libertarian input into hippie culture / movements ?
The influence of 'hippy culture' into the left has generally had the same negative impact it has on whatever else it touches. It's one reason why people can accuse radical leftists of pushing a 'something for nothing' philosophy.
crusty bloomer
Active Member
I was arguing in the philosophy forum about how daft left and right wing are as labels sometimes. I would argue that the crusties and so on in the UK were apolitical, there was a communal philosophy, but it was not communist
The whole hippy idea of 'dropping out' and so on is bourgeoise as it still depends on a working class to support it, it still depends on having a capitalist society to drop out of. Not that it doesn't have it's merits, but it's more like an evolution of capitalism than a challenge to it
Google is a good example of right wing hippy philosophy, for a cultural one the obvious example is hippy preacher Bill Hicks
A fair few of the old hard left political radicals disliked their bourgeois outlook, despite them (the adherents of various revolutionary despots with their own isms) coming from similar affluent middle class backgrounds.
Idaho
blah blah blah
You can tell a lot about people by the things they choose to hate. The less rational and articulate their hates, the less likely much else about them will be rational.
There are plenty of elements, trends, fashions and ideals attributed to the (diverse) hippy movement which are worthy of contempt. But trying to bundle the concept of "hippy" as some unified theory, belief or practice that can be targetted for hate or criticism is intellectually moribund.
There are plenty of elements, trends, fashions and ideals attributed to the (diverse) hippy movement which are worthy of contempt. But trying to bundle the concept of "hippy" as some unified theory, belief or practice that can be targetted for hate or criticism is intellectually moribund.
crusty bloomer
Active Member
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
There's a streak of libertarianism goes via Robert Anton Wilson, into the later generations of hippies (given that Shea and Wilson's most influential work, "Illuminatus!" wasn't published until around '75-76 or so)
There's arguably another right-wing input, this time from much further right, via Pauwels and Bergier's "Morning of the Magicians", although it's less direct insofar as Pauwels' neo-fascist ties aren't really evident in the relevant texts, but they did start a lot of the 'Nazi Occultism' stuff going along with all the stuff Von Daniken would later be famous for.
It's notable that both of these currents come in via the occult/conspiracy dimension and certainly in Wilson's case, primarily effect what you might call 'neo-hippies' rather than the ones who went to Woodstock etc.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
There's also the hippy-entrepeneur types hooking up with The RAND corp and the US military in Silicon Valley from the early 70s onwards, then there's the Kurt Saxon survivalist wing...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Who are you talking to Idaho?
Similar threads
