So, Who Are Hippies?

The main ideas of hippies, such as:

1. vegetarianism

http://www.rorymotion.com/page5.htm

2. nudism

3. natural medicine

4. abstinence from alcohol

5. clothing reform

6. settlement movements

7. garden towns

8. soil reform

9. sexual reform

10. health food and economic reform

11. social reform

12. liberation for women, children and animals

13. communitarianism

14. cultural and religious reform: i.e. a religion or view of the world that gives weight to the feminine, maternal and natural traits of existence

were widespread in early 20^th century, so hippy subculture have a perennial history.  If you are interested in the roots of the movement, you can read the article . There is also a theory that ideas of Ancient Greeks, espoused by philosophers like Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics are also early forms of hippie culture.Find out more.But here we will write about the prime of the movement- 1960s in the USA.

So, what was the reason, which caused great flowering of this subculture? The Vietnam War was the major event during that time and the main ground for circulation the ideas of peace.

The age of a hippie ranged from 15 to 25 years old. A lot of young teens ran away from their families to join this popular group of careless people. The Hippie movement appealed to teens because it represented Freedom and a way to have fun. Hippies believed in a utopian society in which all differences in class, race, social status, and gender should disappear so that each individual could satisfy his or her actual needs.

http://aronbengilad.blogspot.ru/2011/08/catholics-for-renewal-petition.html

Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and some used drugs such as cannabis, LSD, and magic mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

Public gatherings—part music festivals, sometimes protests, often simply excuses for celebrations of life—were an important part of the hippie movement. The first “be-in,” called the Gathering of the Tribes, was held in San Francisco in 1967. A three-day music festival known as Woodstock, held in rural New York state in 1969, drew an estimated 400,000–500,000 people and became virtually synonymous with the movement. Hippies participated in a number of teach-ins at colleges and universities in which opposition to the Vietnam War was explained, and they took part in antiwar protests and marches. They joined other protestors in the “moratorium”—a nationwide demonstration—against the war in 1969. They were involved in the development of the environmental movement. The first Earth Day was held in 1970.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Woodstock_poster.jpg

By the mid-1970s the movement had waned, and by the 1980s hippies had given way to a new generation of young people who were intent on making careers for themselves in business and who came to be known as yuppies (young urban professionals). Nonetheless, hippies continued to have an influence on the wider culture, seen, for example, in more relaxed attitudes toward sex, in the new concern for the environment, and in a widespread lessening of formality.