What did the Hippies Accomplish?

[Softball Bat]

The "beatniks," shall we say?

The counterculture youth movement of the U.S. 1960's gained traction and spread to other nations.
Culture changed and blue hairs were not overjoyed.

"Love" without strings attached, drugs, psychedelic music, new artistic expression, new ways of thinking, new fashions, long hair, do what makes you feel good...

I guess Bubba Clintoon, while not really being a beatnik, was the first U.S. boomer president.
A little stir was caused by his admission in the early '90's that he "tried marijuana a time-or-two."

But of course he did not inhale. :)

We could clearly see the influence the hippies had on culture, because prior to that time no presidential candidate would admit to have used a substance.
It would have been a big no-no!

But Bubba won.


Now the hippies are winding down.
They are old.
And of course many, due to their "dangerous" lifestyles, checked out prematurely.

As their time moves to the end, we can ask, "What did the hippies accomplish?"

Do you think those that still remain feel good about their legacy?


Your thoughts on this?

[Wolfman]

I never got caught up in all that, but it is kind of funny to see some guy my age with a pony tail and "hippie" look. The music of that era is still cool to me.

[Screw_Michigan]

Someone should rename this thread the Thread for Old Fogies.

[LTS TRN 2]

A testimony to the geriatric hippies was on full display yesterday in Robin Williams meadow in S.F.'s Golden Gate Park as the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass event culminated with Emmylou Harris as usual, despite a two year break. Yes there were a good sprinkling of youngsters and young firm titties, but basically it was an AARP convention with wafting dank aroma gently weaving through the gentle crowd. Emmylou looks eighty but of course had a great band. And no fog.

As to the accomplishments of the hippies, this is pretty stark. That is, it's not some overall social paradigm at all, but rather the singular fact of LSD--and similar psychedelics. If not for the hippies these elements would never have become popular or produce the societal effects that in fact resulted. And of course psychedelics have nothing in common with other "drugs" like coke, opioids, or meth.

As for the negative accomplishments, the hippies basically gave popular voice to the radical (Communist) politics which had previously been remanded to seething cells of Jewish academics and labor leaders. But with the hippies, suddenly dangerous lunatics like the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, SDS, SLA, and the Spartacus League were being celebrated like heroes of "liberation" and similar hippie rhetoric.

Basically, I'd say an old fashioned hippie still makes more sense than a vacuous millennial on reddit.

[Roach]

My daughter gave me this book last year. Pretty much sums up how the GenX and Mils see us Boomers.



shows how America was hijacked by the Boomers, a generation whose reckless self-indulgence degraded the foundations of American prosperity.

Mostly says we are a bunch of selfish, fat, sociopaths. Making reckless debt with no care of who will pay. Spoiled at birth.

Perhaps the Hippies defined the essence of the boomers, the tip of the spear.

[Donnie Baker's Ghost]

In my world the lasting hippie contribution is their influence on societal boundaries in general and sex and drugs in particular. My dad was born in '29 so he was too old for the 60's and didn't get a blowjob until he was sixty two years old by his fifth wife and he said it hurt. I told him it's because she was scraping her (remaining) real teeth across his head like she was getting pulp off an artichoke petal. He shrugged. He was so grateful to finally have a mouth on his dick he fought through the pain and blasted an old man load most of the way up her cheek. Good work, old man. This woman also got him to try marijuana but it made him paranoid and he won't try it again.

The cultural revolution that happened between his generation and mine paved a path for guys to blast aborted retards all over the insides of mouths, asses, cleavages, and VW vans with carpet kits. No marriage, no kids, abortion was cheap if you fucked up, just grab a girl and ask her to get naked on a beach. We got to fuck in ways our ancestors could only dream of. Can you imagine meeting your great-great grandfather and explaining how you got to slide between a set of perky tits that aren't all stretched out by gravity and breastfeeding and finish in her mouth? Great-great grandpa only got to have sex once a month after all 7 kids went to sleep on the floor in the room where everyone slept together and he had to be all quiet and shit. Meanwhile I got road head in a 1979 Malibu station wagon while my buddies were shotgunning beers and laughing so hard beer snot was flying into her hair. That girl was an absolute freak. She had no boundaries at all. I have never orgasmed so hard but she was dangerous. Years later when Basic Instinct came out I was like holy shit that could have been me!

I've done almost every drug. My favorites are psychedelics. Climb a mountain, eat a mushroom, and talk to God. I've seen pyramids in construction using anti-gravity systems and DNA shaped double-helix energy fields holding the universe together. I swear to God I have. Psychedelics might have been common before the hippies, but I doubt it. Some of the Indians...oops... Guardians have reported psych effects but they're definitely more common after the 60's.

What pisses me off is the current generation is fucking it all up. We worked hard to break down cultural barriers until our parents called the Priest to cast out the devil. And what for? Kids are having less sex now than has ever been measured. Hell, boys aren't even jacking off very much. I don't know if it's the plastics in our water bottles, glyphosate in our vegetables or if Mr. Kellogg finally got everyone to eat enough corn flakes he killed libido for an entire generation. Fuck that guy and the FDA, by the way. For me, the hippies were foundational characters for my way of life. For the current generation though, I'm not sure there is a hippie legacy. And that's sad.

[LTS TRN 2]

For the life of me, Roach, I cannot wrap my head around the constant and almost universal confusion of the terms "sociopath" and "psychopath." It's boggling. Look, a "sociopath" is completely unable to control his rage--and has no regard for anything and will violently act out anywhere. Like a car-jacker murderer or some lunatic with a machete going off in public, or a mass shooter. A "psychopath" will generally appear normal--even charming--as he seeks to hide his depravity. Thus, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, and Bill Clinton are "psychopaths," while Dylan Roof, the Vegas shooter, and similar loons who don't even care about escaping are "sociopaths." As for the book about Baby Boomers, it seems confused from the get go.

[Kierland]

They distracted you with “Peace” and “Love” while they stole the world blind.

[Softball Bat]

The cultural revolution that happened between his generation and mine paved a path for guys to blast aborted retards all over the insides of mouths, asses, cleavages, and VW vans with carpet kits. No marriage, no kids, abortion was cheap if you fucked up, just grab a girl and ask her to get naked on a beach. We got to fuck in ways our ancestors could only dream of.

Yes, but wasn't the world more orderly when Ward Cleaver could bang June once-a-week, on Saturday night, after Wally and Beaver went to bed?

[LTS TRN 2]

Or Eddie Haskell could sneak in and have June juke him with an octopus while spewing cream corn upon him? :wink:

[Kierland]

The cultural revolution that happened between his generation and mine paved a path for guys to blast aborted retards all over the insides of mouths, asses, cleavages, and VW vans with carpet kits. No marriage, no kids, abortion was cheap if you fucked up, just grab a girl and ask her to get naked on a beach. We got to fuck in ways our ancestors could only dream of.

Yes, but wasn't the world more orderly when Ward Cleaver could bang June once-a-week, on Saturday night, after Wally and Beaver went to bed?

First off, . Second, that’s why you love god, you want other people to tell you how to act. For the sake of being orderly I guess.

[mvscal]

The "beatniks," shall we say?

Beatniks weren't hippies. They spawned hippies.

[Softball Bat]

The Beatniks were the "rebels" of the '40s?

[mvscal]

The Beatniks were the "rebels" of the '40s?

Late 40s early 50's, yes. Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg etc. Generally not very political. They were part of the Silent Generation.

[Kierland]

So knowing who’s in what generation is also something you suck at.

Stupid and a nazii, how surprising.

[LTS TRN 2]

Squirmy, shut the fuck up. You're the most clueless idiot around here by a mile--which is at least fifty feet beyond Slop Fart, who doesn't seem to understand the difference between a hippie and a beatnik in the first place. Why even start the thread?

[Kierland]

That’s it, double down on being wrong about when a dude was born. Like the easiest thing on earth to google.