hippie

I got to thinking this morning about the word “hippie.” I was washing my hair, trying to remove all the gunk from the salon yesterday, and thinking about Jenn’s comment on my hair post and how much I notice the same thing she pointed out, the two prevailing looks of undergraduate women, the “square-headed, 80's helmet-hair channelling wanna-be teevee news anchor,” (which is a spot-on description of what I had going on yesterday, post-salon) and the “the long haired, flip-flop wearing pseudo-hippie.”

Like Jenn, I’m disinclined to use the word “hippie,” straight up, as an authentic moniker for people that age. I associate the term with my parents’ generation. I also associate its derogatory use with my parents’ generation, which is why I’m continually amazed to hear people my age and younger dissing one another with it. I was particularly astounded to see such a diss in an NPR story the other day, featuring a 16-year-old who is apparently newsworthy because she has created a big website about why she doesn’t believe humans are causing climate change. This very strange child is, in fact, considering a career as an architect of energy-efficient buildings. (She knows a lot about anti-Al Gore pseudo-science but less, it seems, about the concept of logical inconsistency.) The reporter writes, “She does not see herself as an environmentalist, though. She says that makes her think of hippies.”

Either this girl’s parents are more Republican than George Bush’s Jesus or they are living the nightmare that so many of us liberals secretly envision: that our children will enact their inevitable rebellions against us by becoming minions of death and destruction and making bad jokes and snarky comments about…hippies. Twenty-first century teenagers, snarking about hippies. And here I’ve been spouting off to older folks about how Barack Obama is popular with my generation in part because we’re all so goddamn sick of every presidential election being about what so-and-so was up to during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, someone sixteen years younger than me is worried that if she becomes an environmentalist people will confuse her with a hippie. She probably doesn’t call herself a feminist because people will think she doesn’t shave her legs. For frak’s sake, what is up with this shit?!?

I never realized how active the word hippie remains in the current lexicon until the wars started and I began going to protests. In Lansing, I marched and sat vigils in front of the capital with fellow university students, innumerable church people, Muslim women in hijab, every age from toddler to 80-plus, and on one memorable occasion, a touring cadre of Tibetan monks. It’s true that there were always a handful of 20-ish Trustifarian types crooning “Give Peace a Chance” on a reel with confusing renditions of “Get Up, Stand Up,” but overall, I’d say we were a hard group to pigeonhole. Nevertheless, without fail, there was some posse of dorks somewhere along the way hollering things like “Hippies! Dirty hippies! Take a bath! Get a job!” I always thought it was sort of quaint, like their dads clapped them on the back beforehand and sent out the next generation to carry on the torch of hippie-hating, same old vocabulary and all. There were, of course, plenty of incidents in which the hecklers disturbed or enraged me, such as the day after the Iraq war started when some guy streaked past our quiet, traumatized peace vigil screaming, “Too late you dumb shits, it’s already going down!!” But when a 20-something-looking man attempts to insult me by calling me a hippie, my first reaction is not so much offense as curiosity. Where, I wonder, did someone your age acquire these odd ideas about hippies, bathing, and unemployment? I sometimes speculated that they had a behind-the-scenes deal with the aforementioned Trustifarian kids and were all using our events as a stage for 60s reenactment performances.

In my fairly new hometown of Lawrence, a town renowned throughout Kansas for liberals and weed, the word hippie seems to be in frequent use by nearly everyone, regardless of political or ideological affiliation. In the mouths of many, “hippie” is just another word for “Democrat.” There are “old hippies,” meaning baby-boomers who show their age by sporting bumper stickers from fifteen years’ worth of political campaigns on the back of their dented vans (easily found in the food co-op or public library parking lots), and there are “young hippies,” who accept the term as a badge of pride for living in this town, the only town in this state where such folk are numerous enough to be seen as a genuine cultural force (i.e. threat to the Repubs). A few summers back when I worked on a farm just outside of town, one of my asparagus cart buddies, a terribly sweet guy, asked if I knew any nice thirty-ish hippie girls I could introduce him to. It was almost gallant, sort of Austen-esque, a man of a certain age enquiring after suitable females of a similar social class. (Sadly, all such females of my acquaintance were either too young for him or married.)

I finally decided to take my questions to the Urban Dictionary, a resource my World of Warcraft-loving spouse refers me to when I am unable to understand his e-mails, which are lately full of webslang such as :p and w00t. The top-rated Urban definition claims “A Hippie is a person who was raised under the ideological system that came out of the tumultuous 1960's in North America and western Europe. They are either of the flower-child/baby boomer generation or that generations' subsequent offspring. They possess a core belief set revolving around the values of peace and love as being essential in an increasingly globalized society, and they are oftentimes associated with non-violent anti-governmental groups.” I guess that works, sort of. That would certainly include me, despite the dangerously news anchor-like swing of my haircut.

But the definitions that follow are more fun, as they range from blatantly apologist (“HIPPIES ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE!!!”) to the apologist ridiculous (“One who loves everyone without prejudice”) to the plain ridiculous (“There are so many different types of hippies in the world that they have become a whole different race of people.”) (I’m sorry. I have to revel in that one for a second. Hippies are a racial category. That is stoner logic if EVER I have heard it.)

Perhaps this one is best opened up to the floor. What does the word “hippie” mean to you? Do you identify with it? Hate it? Have you hurled it at someone in anger, or in a moment of smug judgment that you may or may not regret? Please share. Stating your age is encouraged. (This is not an official survey. I just like making people state their age. That’s why I’m constantly stating my own age. By the way, while I was writing this a plumber came to fix the toilet and called me ma’am a bunch of times, eroding any sense I had of youth or hippie-tude.)