In the West in the 1960s, a considerable number of young people despised tradition, abandoned morality, consciously stayed away from the mainstream society, and expressed their rebellion against the real society with a unique lifestyle that the mainstream society could not tolerate. These people are called "hippies", and the rebel movement in which hippies participate and whose main content is cultural rebellion and life rebellion is called "hippie movement".
Driven by rebellious self-consciousness, the hippie movement began its journey to the unknown world. It can be traced back to the mid-1950s, when new york and other places rebelled against traditional Biniki elements. These people advocate being far away from society and advocating "new life", "new literature" and "new art" They smoked marijuana, listened to jazz, opposed the traditional gender concept, and created the word "hip", which was the first in hippie culture.
In the 1960s, under the historical atmosphere of student rebellion, the hippie movement took shape and hippie culture became the norm. At that time, many young people wore strange clothes, wore long hair and beards, wore miniskirts, took drugs, listened to jazz, danced swing, were gay, lived in villages and other extreme behaviors, rebelled against society and traditions. 1967, a 16-year-old middle school student named Mike Mertelj from Massachusetts, USA, left home and traveled all over the country, hoping to find friendship and brotherhood. 1968, he returned to his hometown of Leiden, and together with seven college and middle school students who dropped out of school, he established the original group village-"Leiden Commune". They live a simple life, with men and women separated, drawing water from the stream next to the wooden house and cooking with wood. The main foods are potatoes, corn and soybeans. Under the guidance of slogans such as "back to the prehistoric" and "Looking for Friendship", social activities have mushroomed in the United States. At first, the cluster villages were mainly built in the Shanshan Ridge area of San Francisco, the sunset area of Los Angeles and the East Village of new york, and later spread all over the country. 1970, there were more than 200 social villages with 40,000 members in the United States. 197 1 year, with nearly 3,000 social villages. Living in the group village advocates a life of returning to nature, implements public ownership of property, children and even sex, and attaches importance to education and environmental protection. Members of the collective village want to create an alternative life. They think, "We live in America, but we don't belong to America". Collective village activities continued until the late 1970s and early 1980s. The hippie movement soon spread to Europe, where many hippie villages appeared. In the Federal Republic of Germany, there are about 1 10000 such villages. On the outskirts of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, there is the largest "free village" in northern Europe. Its members are all young men and women. They abandoned all the shackles of modern civilization and lived freely and "primitive".
Hippies are also keen to vent in extreme ways. They seek fantasy and excitement from drug abuse. In the 1960s, drug abuse even became a fashion for young people. According to the statistics of Newsweek, 1969, 3 1.5% of the students in 57 universities in the United States were infected with drugs. Some people call this phenomenon "drug culture". Some hippies are still addicted to male and female sex and homosexuality, in order to pursue pleasure, get rid of distress, despise and resist traditional sexual concepts.
Many hippies come from wealthy white families. They abandon wealth to feel and praise poverty and experience a simple and casual life. It is precisely because these rich children have enjoyed the comfortable life of the mainstream middle class that they are likely to become rebels of this comfortable life that stifles people's creativity, and only those who really feel the mainstream culture can see its disadvantages and criticize it. 1969, Rozak, the representative of youth counterculture, published the book The Formation of Counterculture, clearly pointing out that counterculture is a reflection on modern technological society. Participants in counter-mainstream culture disdain to solve social problems in a participatory and democratic way, just like participants in the new left and student movements. He believes that as long as the concept of objective consciousness is still controlling society, the control of technology and the rule of experts will not end. Hippies believe that the United States is a world full of conventions and stereotypes, which has become the sum total of stereotypes that suppress people's personality and persecute individuals' free life. Only by escaping from this society and getting rid of all kinds of connections with the real society and the real cultural model can individuals and American society avoid entering a dead end. In order to effectively resist this society with highly developed science and technology and extremely rich material, but the human spirit is controlled, they put forward the slogan of "back to the prehistoric", hoping to find spiritual strength in prehistoric times. They especially appreciate "governing by doing nothing" and think that only a simple society and a simple life can guarantee the dignity and freedom of citizens. As a result, they set off a "life revolution" against the mainstream, elite, technology and material society from life.
"Do your own thing"
Although from the form of expression, the hippie movement is contrary to the student resistance movement that actively participates in political life and criticizes the government. Instead of participating in the transformation and improvement of society through active social propaganda, it is passively resisting society in a secluded way. But in fact, hippies themselves believe that western society is at the intersection of old and new cultures. They are pioneers of the times and are actively creating unprecedented new lives and new careers. Hippies believe in the motto "Do your own thing", which reflects their views and resistance to reality and tradition. Hippies hope to escape from the mainstream society and live freely, find back the original lust of people lost in the highly developed modern rational society, restore the power of cultural creation contained in people's personality, resist the strangulation of human nature in modern rational society, and realize cultural transcendence, spiritual liberation and the renewal of people's living conditions. They believe that with the rise of the hippie movement, the public will have a new awakening, and a new century of true freedom, equality and fraternity will soon dawn. What needs to be further explained is that although the hippie movement originated from the rebellious consciousness and impulse of young people and from the suspicion and denial of all existing things, the spiritual core of the hippie movement and hippie culture is still the two basic values of capitalism-liberalism and individualism. "Doing your own thing" not only means rebelling against the rights of reality, tradition, morality, rules and culture, but also means that the process of creating new life and new things starts from yourself and your feelings. Another representative work of counter-mainstream culture, American Youth by Ray, holds that creating a new life requires a new consciousness, which is different from the traditional world outlook that American farmers and small business owners want to climb up, and the belief that individuals should bear more public responsibilities since Roosevelt's New Deal. The government can solve American problems by adopting more planned management, but in this organized society, individuals have lost their concept of self. The new consciousness comes from the suspicion of all existing things. It starts from the self and emphasizes that individuals are responsible for individuals. It is essentially a modern version of individualism. In the hippie movement, the life of the poor reflects the instinctive feelings of individuals, the fancy clothes show personality and democracy, and the purpose of life is no longer to climb the social ladder. Life is just a series of goal choices and a process of self-realization. The essence of this consciousness is the rediscovery of human self, and its most important function is to create a brand-new society suitable for human needs.
The hippie movement and the hippie culture it created were not only popular in the United States for a while, but also influenced to varying degrees in western countries. To some extent, hippie culture became a symbol of western social culture in 1960s and 1970s. Many of its connotations have been affecting today.