The Impact of the Hippie on American Society :: Hippies, Sociology, 1960s Counterculture

American purchase order and culture experienced an alter during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American pelvispie, the most shady and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch veritable values. The hippies solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely. The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life. Hippies were ofttimes portrayed as criminals, subversive to the morals and best interest of the public. Although misunderstood, the hippie had a great impact throughout the country, still surviving at once in American culture. The name hippie itself became a universal term in the late sixt ies. It originated in a 1967 article in Ramparts, authorize The Social History of the Hippies. Afterward, the name was captured by the mass media as a label for the people of the new movement. (Yablonsky 28) Even before this, the word hip described someone who was in and down, wise to what was going on around him. By the 1960s, some of Americas youth created a gap between themselves and their parents. They grew their hair long because it was natural and therefore considered beautiful.At first, the idea of men with long hair was absurd and society considered it a sign of homosexuality. When it became clear that the establishment felt so strongly roughly hair, the attitudes of young rebels changed. One young man responded after being questioned active his unkempt appearance Growing hair does not mean that I am or am not a homosexual. It does mean that I am willing to stand up for my rights as a human race being and that includes my right to be harmless to all people. It also indic ates my unwillingness to get on the treadmill of killing for a vast machine-like government. If I am scorned and called dirty because I allow hair to get on on my face and my head, then so much the better, for by this I indicate the seriousness of my belief. I scorn the society that has created this monstrous robot-like consonance that feeds the war machine as Hitler found robots to feed his war machine.