"If you're going to San Francisco"
"Please don't forget to wear a few flowers on your head"
When we hear this, the first thought should be, why do we go to San Francisco and wear a few flowers on our heads? In fact, this lyric comes from a popular song published in the United States on May 13, 1967 - "San Francisco". This song not only attracted many Young Americans to participate in this hippie carnival, but also accompanied many young people around the world through the confused green years.
Hippies, a group that has been controversial since its inception. People put too many labels on hippies: peace, nature, rock 'n' roll, rebellion. In China's educational philosophy, hippies have always been regarded as a symbol of the degeneration, negativity and decadence of US imperialism and thus rejected by mainstream consciousness as a beat generation.
But is this really the case?
The main reason hippie movement has been criticized is because of its three most salient features: rock and roll, peace and nature. But if the far-reaching impact of the sport on the entire United States and the entire world is completely denied just because of these three external manifestations, then this judgment is also one-sided.
As a microcosm of the background and social sentiment of the American era in that era, the rise and demise of hippies were deeply influenced by the development of society and the times at that time.
<h1>First, the formation of the hippie movement</h1>
Hippie's English name "Hippie" is actually a suffix of hip plus ie, which was originally a nickname given by old musicians to a new generation of young musicians, and American jazz musicians also like to call their highly skilled peers Hip or Hipster.
In the summer of 1967, many young Americans wore flowers on their heads and listened to "San Francisco" rush from all over San Francisco to Participate in a large performance called "Summer of Love", marking the official outbreak of the hippie movement, most of whom came from well-off middle-class white families and received a good education.
(i) The historical reasons for the formation of the hippie movement
The origins of the hippie movement can be traced back to the 1960s, but before that, there were already similar movements in the bud. In the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, a group of Bohemians became known for opposing the culture of mainstream societies such as capitalism, consumerism, and materialism. But at that time, this movement was mostly literary, and the scale of the movement was very small.
With the advent of the 1960s, "hippies" replaced the original "Beats" and became a new counterculture.
Like the passive "Beats" of the previous era, hippies were exposed to rock and roll, the same anti-war, contempt for the existing dominant culture, and disdain for the rule class of modern techno society. But unlike their increasingly cynical predecessors, who escaped reality through drug illusions, the core idea preached by hippies was no longer simply "rebellion" but "love."
This kind of love is actually different from the society's understanding of love at that time, and the "love" advocated by hippies is actually a kind of tolerance and harmony in a larger sense, that is, a kind of love without borders, regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of faith. They oppose all forms of organization and the heavy yoke that modern society imposes on people.
(ii) The background of the era in which the hippie movement was formed
After the end of World War II, with the help of the war and the dividends after the war, the U.S. economy entered a period of stable and rapid development. As the pace of industrial civilization continued to move forward, by the 1960s, middle-class families in the United States accounted for the vast majority of the entire social structure.
The modern rational industrial society provided a very good family and material life for the young people of this era, and they did not have to work hard to enjoy the rich material wealth of their parents. However, as they grew older and matured mentally, they found that although their material lives were very rich, they often felt empty and lacking spiritually, and they hoped to attain a higher level of happiness.
With the ongoing cold war and the outbreak of the Vietnam War, these young people, far from the clouds of war, found that the life that their parents and teachers had portrayed for themselves was not as good as they thought. The doomed war caused reflection among large numbers of American youth.
They began to think about the problems that existed in American society at that time: racism, war, and capitalist oppression.
Under the existing social conventions and stereotypes, this group of young people began to think about love and life, trying to contact the ideal and the future. But between the coldness of reality and the warmth of dreams, in the rich material conditions and the empty spiritual world, they feel lost and painful.
They express their aspirations to society through music.
In that chaotic and confused era, the hippies opposed racial discrimination, against war, they were the epitome of that era, the contradiction between Buddha and Demon.
<h1>The demise of the hippie movement</h1>
"Left Turn" has a saying: "Its rise is also bold, and its death is also sudden." The hippie movement is like a meteor streaking across the night sky, leaving a brief and brilliant light. After the Woodstock Festival reached its peak in 1969, the hippie movement gradually began to decline under the disdain of tradition, in its own confusion and opposition from outside governments.
(i) External causes of the demise of the hippie movement
When the time entered the 1970s, the former hippies began to enter the year of establishment, many years of hippie career and experience made them begin to face and reflect on their own values and ideas, and the rebellious teenagers who were once full of ideals began to compromise with reality.
At the same time, the United States in the 1970s was struggling from the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and its economy was suffering from a severe post-war recession. The economic development of the past was not comprehensive, and a considerable part of the black population was still in poverty, and with the economic decline, the number of people in this group increased. The social problems of the recession forced these hippies to face material economic problems that they did not need to face.
Faced with the test of life, hippies have to think about their own survival first. This has led to the contradiction that originally gave rise to the hippies as a group— the contradiction between the rich material life and the scarcity of the spiritual world— that the hippies are losing the soil for survival. This change, combined with the bloody repression of the authorities, caused the already unorganized and unled movement to fall silent quickly after a vigorous campaign.
(ii) The internal causes of the demise of the hippie movement
Although external factors have played a certain role in promoting the demise of the hippie movement, the root cause is actually that the hippie group itself has gone to extinction in the fall.
First of all, the movement of hippies is spontaneous, they lack mature ideas, they think they are doing the right thing, but they are confused and they do not understand why they are doing it, they do not think about what they are doing, what kind of ideals they are doing. Yes, they share the same demands, but they don't share a common vision.
Second, hedonism and early shallow idealism led the movement to division.
However, rock music did not gather the morale of the counterculture warriors, but made them become spiritually depressed, and eventually became slaves to entertainment. The American scholar William O'Neill pointed out: "Hippies who wanted to despise a greedy and numb society opened the door to a worse society." ”
Although they chose to fall in order to distinguish themselves from mainstream society. Here, shallow idealism begins to face a choice: on the one hand, towards true idealism, and on the other hand, towards hedonism.
Since then, a large number of young people who have been attracted by the original anti-war struggle have been attracted to the emerging hedonism, from the original demand for "love and freedom" to the pursuit of television and the car can not be satisfied with the spiritual desire. When most hippies no longer do what they want in order to pursue their inner ideals, but only to satisfy their inner desires, the movement is bound to decline rapidly.
<h1>III. Conclusion</h1>
Behind the hippie movement was a spontaneous rebellion by American youth against the Value System of American society at the time in the 1960s. Although the hippie movement disappeared with the demise of the former hippie community, the impact of the movement on American society and the world at large has not dissipated. Many hippie cultures have been absorbed by mainstream culture and have had many influences on today's society.
It can be said that the hippie movement was actually a wake-up call to American society in the middle of the 20th century. The impact of this movement on American society has awakened the country from a comfortable, tedious and mercenary social atmosphere. More importantly, the idea of "love" advocated by the hippie movement shook the "exclusivity" contained in the audience of traditional social values at that time.
When a society forms a systematic set of values, it means that the society will reject other cultural forms and values. When this exclusion spreads from culture to other areas, such as race, such as gender, it will be one of the sources of social contradictions. Just as the Hundred Schools of Thought during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and then to the Confucianism after the Han Dynasty, the dynastic changes in the past two thousand years, and the thinking has not changed much.
It is conceivable that without the launch of the hippie movement, without the reflections left by this movement, the value system of American society may be solidified. Although the "love" advocated by the hippie movement did not come, the inclusive elements it contained were absorbed and passed down by mainstream society, and thus influenced the development of the culture and value system of the United States and even the world.
bibliography
[1] A long-dead movement: the rise and fall of hippies
[2] 50 years of the hippie movement: a world changed by hippies
[3] Hippies – changed The United States changed the world