Love Or Hate Hippies From The 1960s Here Is The Best Documentary To Understand Them

[Music] in 1968 almost every American knew what these were hippies a few of the estimated 16 million cultural Rebels who abandoned 1950s Notions about how life in America should be lived and by 1968 almost everyone in in America knew what these people were too student protesters activists part of a small but vocal group of political Rebels who were fighting not only to end a war but to transform even dismantle the American system and this is Jerry Rubin to try to make sense of the 60s you have to listen to what he was telling America in 1968 you know you know America is so obsessed with bad breath and with underarm deodorant these are the biggest problems in the world if you watch television at Prime Times advertising is not is not concerned about poverty not concerned about race oppression not concerned about the police but the biggest problem is is your hair groomed and what's it like under your arms and do you have bad breath and this is the American Obsession and so and so I think that I think that a generation of kids which says we don't care about your concepts of cleanliness is a revolutionary generation we want we want to understand the effect Jerry Rubin and others like him had on America you have to see them for what they were they were people who had most Americans convinced that hippies and political activists marched hand in hand but for the most part they never [Music] did February 1964 We Came Here We Came you at 6:00 in the morning 5:30 to see them and all they do is push your bom fall away and then they don't let you see [Applause] [Music] them I was in college in uh early 64 and I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that a rock and roll band from England was going to be on The Ed solent Show so I thought I would go to the commons room in my dorm and watch it and I figured there'd be five or six people there as there usually were and we'd have the usual argument about what to watch and I hoped I would get to see this and instead there were hundreds of people in this room and everybody there for the same reason God knows why I think there must have been some sense that it's time for something new to happen and maybe this is going to be [Music] [Applause] it the music was something that you could talk about with your friends and that you couldn't talk about with people who were older than you it gave people a sense of generational solidarity and a sense that they were different in a sense different from the rest of the country different from any other generation in American history that they were in some ways special and blessed and it gave them a sense of being embattled of of of being considered Outsiders reprobates bad people I want to be a I never P my so I can look these kids may not look like it but they are the Leading Edge of a youth Rebellion a movement that would ignite one of the most powerful and pervasive cultural shifts in United States history why so many people stopped conforming to the rules remember that appearances are misleading and especially in the 1960s appearances were very important a perfect example do you think these haircuts have come to stay well this one has you know stuck on good and proper now is that a beetle haircut you yes how'd you work it out well I put my hair flop around until it's all messy what do your parents say about it they don't like it are you a boy are you a girl with your arm head you look like a girl you would physically get approached and you know qu or whatever it was you know you know a lot of people did not understand long hair at all they really it was really a threat to them it was really uh it really flew in the face of conventionalism and long hair was a flag for someone you could see somebody across the street and if they had long hair you knew how they thought you knew that they were into good music you knew that they were into uh uh uh reasonable life you knew that their thought processes you knew that they probably hated the government you knew that they probably knew where the best Dr drugs were you knew that they that it was someone that you could just nod to and have this understanding between anybody that had really short hair you knew what short hair meant strange isn't it well there are great number of people they sto taking haircuts all together mainly around colleges number one number two even those which do take haircuts they come so in such long intervals it isn't funny [Music] anymore a style a flag of membership a conscious Act of defiance what made long hair such a confusing and profound symbol was that it could mean any and all of these things and to the dismay of the older generation millions of young people suddenly began to care a great deal about but looking like they didn't care how they [Music] looked sometimes I was ashamed to introduce them to some people I just thought of that cuz they were just you know sometimes the way they dressed and the way they appeared it just didn't quite suit me to introduce them to some of my friends if parents were uncomfortable with the way their sons and daughters were Beginning to Look imagine how confused they'd become when they saw how this younger generation was starting to [Music] behave the counterculture was just drenched with eroticism the very Act of having long hair is an act of [Music] sensuality then you add to that the fact that there was also an an enormous amount of sex much more and think there's no that people were having an awful lot more sex Than People of their of the same age had had a decade before certainly certainly in the 50s um I mean I came I became interested in girls in the in the middle 50s and believe me it was all talk until the 1960s sometimes everything just comes down to a very basic level and there's nothing wrong with it I think that sex is just much groovier when there's love you know there's a lot more happening but there's nothing wrong with just sex for sex such talk was not only provocative but at the time downright immoral this generation seemed determined to tear down conventions that had in 1950s America defined proper [Music] behavior and it's somewhat ironic to think that scientists would unwittingly pour gasoline on the fires by coming up with the shest contraceptive ever devised fear of pregnancy perhaps the most powerful sexual restraint was undone up the gr the says the UPS use of another drug marijuana would further separate members of this generation not only from their parents but also from their inhibitions B was important because it was it did describe us like them and US kind of of course we all grew up 18 19 20 years of being rich rigid little you know puppets or something and suddenly the grass relaxed us it allowed us to be the people we really are or really [Applause] were in high school my girlfriend an and I went around with Jim and Bob they both smoked pop that's jive talk for marijuana I'd been smoking pot for quite a while before I met Chuck I guess he was what the newspapers call A A Peddler he had the heroin habit before I knew it I was hooked bad around this time millions of young people tried marijuana or knew someone who did in response films like this were shown in schools to curtail the growing marijuana problem but students who saw these films knew that most marijuana smokers weren't going crazy or becoming heroin addicts so many kids concluded they were being lied to and they'd have to find the truth for themselves even if it meant breaking the law I I I think making Lo when you're you're turned on in in any sense is 100% better I mean just fantastic I turned on a girl for the uh first time this vacation and she said afterwards that like anytime I touch her it was just soft and tender you know it wasn't harsh or an act it was just like floating and you know just like two jellies almost gliding into each other it's just different I I sat for an hour with the gr and we both just explored each other's faces with our fingers you know it was it was just beautiful I mean it's just incredible because well that that's that's your attitude toward everything I mean just you want to reexamine things that you've just taken for granted I remember arriving at college and the worst part was my parents left and there I was sitting in this room it was boring and next door there were two guys playing a record by a group called The Mothers of Invention and the and what it was was Susie cream cheese or I guess it was the fugs and it was called Susie cream cheese and what it was was it's um an oral account of sexual inter course screaming next door and here I am this naive kid and I have no idea what all this noise is there's an upper classman next door the whip who's banging on the floor as hard as he can and then there's this guy who is obviously um I'd never met anybody who use drugs who was obviously on drugs uh writing on a table outside my room now when I say writing on a table I don't mean writing on a piece of paper on a table I mean this guy's writing on a table and I sat there in the rain listening to this thinking my life has just ended and I thought I bet better write somebody a letter and I wrote here I am at college and this is wonderful um I'm just loving being here thinking I hope I can make it through the [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] week and the stimuli out there were so many there were so many things to try and to do that every time I tried one began to ask myself gee who am I what am I about and I remember going through some severe depressions trying to figure out the answer to that question sometimes I thought I had it and indeed I did sometimes for hours or days I remember one day sitting on a beach talking to friends when I realized I understand it all I comprehend the whole world and it's working uh that lasted for several days uh before I realized you don't understand any of it uncertainty was not something parents wanted to hear from their children parents after all had worked hard to direct their kids along the smoothest path to success but with ever increasing numbers of young people exploring alternative directions the fundamental cultural tension of the era emerged it came to be called the generation gap the for me The Cutting Edge was I thought that life had the world had changed changed that everything which had perhaps given meaning to life in the past all the Traditions whether it was religion manners dress marriage family everything all of that had [Music] collapsed my father seems to have already settled down settled into his ways settled knows what's right knows what's wrong and every time I want to say something to him I don't want to be settled down even no matter what I say this is not a final decision that I want to just sort of try things out and trying things out on parents never seem to work you can't try things out so the best thing I can do with my father is tell jokes I mean that's sort of you know that's something cuz that's sort of you know that's all right that's safe U it doesn't get you into problems I had a strong feeling that these children were Rebels without a cause they had everything they could have had everything and I found it very hard initially to see what they were rebelling against when the Vietnam war came along and the big St the the the peace demonstrations you know at least focused on something but initially when they started dropping out from society I was baffled because I thought it was a pretty good Society they were dropping out from then I couldn't see what they had that was going to replace it or that was better it could possibly be better happy no matter how if you're happy then you're a success I mean if you're a BM and you're happy being a you should stay a happy you're happy that's right this kind of talk about happiness seems like the typically naive enthusiasm of adolescence but as with the issue of here here's another instance where appearances can be misleading your parents want you to make money go to school have a nice job I want to have a nice job I'll do anything I'm happy in the 1960s this belief that happiness could be a goal in itself would take on historical significance it's being happy what has it been let me put it this way to you do you think this country at this time needs something that it hasn't got yes what in Need Love it's the whole people have to know each other you know what about people older than say 30 older people do you think they can indulge in this too yes they should do they I don't know if they do but they should what do you think older people think of all this most of them think it's ridiculous why do you think they think it's ridiculous cuz I don't think it can be done are you a part of the Love Generation yes do you love me yes I love everybody is it possible to love everybody yes how come how come people haven't loved everybody for 2,000 years because they've been mixed up be happy love one another age-old Concepts but at a time of unprecedented affluence a time when much of society was still clinging to 1950s conformities most importantly a time when the massive Baby Boom generation was coming of age these Concepts would emerge as The Guiding doctrines of a values Revolution what would come to be known as the counterculture do you take drugs huh do you take drugs no would you ever take drugs yes you would why I'm I'm experimental I'm experimental what a lot of the U members of the counterculture came to see was that um changing people's cultural values may have to do with changing their state of consciousness and hence you get this fascination with anything that will change people's mode of perception they open the doors of perception right it could be drugs the fascination with drugs was not fun in games in the 60s for many people it was a way to see reality differently and hopefully therefore to change your values I've taken acid three times that's all and uh I reckon you people ought to know about acid too acid's a hoax it's biggest hoax the century acid doesn't exist don't you know it's tasteless odorless colorless just something in the mind here's one of the truly fateful twists in this tale of cultural Rebellion a collision that put the most potent [Music] [Music] that the inner body the inner soul that we don't need money and we don't need the cars other things in fact I've had the feelings that I want to give away all my things to people who need them who want to live in the society with others and start a new inside [Music] myself this was a question that the authorities were very interested in everybody that took LSD felt that they were undergoing enormous personal changes they weren't the same person after having LSD and there was a scientific study it was done by a Rand scientist and in 1966 he published his findings and what he said was even though all of these people said that they felt enormous changes had taken place the personality test showed that they were largely the same person in every area but one area and this was called the ways to live scale the ways to live scale indicated that one dose of LSD uh stimulated enormous changes whereas this the uh the person taking the test might have said it's important for me to get a corporate job it's important for me to have a good car after one dose of LSD they were saying I think maybe a contemplative lifestyle might be what I want to have I think I'd like to travel before settling down I think uh maybe I want to look for some spiritual value in my life things totally changed around the the LSD trip is best understood as a religious pilgrimage the LSD kick Timothy liry was the Psychedelic movement's profit of perception a high-profile LSD Advocate who was scaring the hell out of mainstream America in declaration independence said life liberty and pursuit of happiness Pursuit of Happiness means the right to get high the morals in this country have changed the kids just don't buy that whole uptight keep your legs crossed uh pure meth aim of the game is to feel good and the function of government is to get everyone high and feel good it's odorless colorless tasteless lirry was alarming because he was proposing to radically alter fundamental institutions he was terrifying because it seemed like some of America's best and brightest young people were listening to him I took a hit of osley white lightning acid and I became an in instant hippie I fell in love with nature and I looked at the Rocks I could sit there looking at weeds that were normally an item of horror to my parents and trip on the intricate structures of ragweed and thistle plant and I began to become a Discerning acid head I only took it every 3 days mind you so that I could clean up properly and and and all but the real issue was was when I went to San Francisco in 1967 in the summer it was the love that bought me into the hippie movement the council for a Summer of Love proclaims a Summer of Love in the city of San Francisco we believe that hate Ashbury is the focus of a universal Spiritual Awakening The Summer of Love is an expression of this Awakening we call upon the world to help us celebrate the infinite Holiness of life this song reached the top of the charts that summer of 67 and nearly near 100,000 young people responded to it by going to San Francisco what's more the nation's news media sent their correspondents to report what was happening in ha Ashbury beaming the summer of love into America's living rooms CBS news without any flowers in its hair is in San Francisco because this city has gained the reputation of being the hippie capital of the world I'm Harry [Music] reer The Summer of Love was one of the most pivotal and provocative events of the 60s to mainstream Americans young and old this summer was an eye full an odity an outrageous display of weirdos going way way out but a lot of young people found it downright fascinating and to those across the country who were already searching for alternative Lifestyles and values the reports from the hate conf confirmed that they were not alone everybody was your brother everybody was part of your tribe part of your group you could stop and talk to anybody because they all look the same they all wear the same clothes they all felt the same y all sang the same songs they danced to the same Tunes went to the same parties the favorite pastimes of the hippies besides taking drugs are parting seminars and groups of discussions there was festivals and concerts and uh the religious groups popped up and the Hari krishnas were there we'd all go and hang out over in one group and chant and home with them and then we'd go to another group and dance with them and it was it was like a big party [Music] many of the residents of hay Ashbury were seriously trying to construct an alternative Society one with an alternative press people think of newspapers as institutions we don't try to cater the audience so much as shape and develop those people that are ready to Rebel in the [Music] society with alternative business and Enterprise with alternative religions majority of young people are very interested in eastern philosophy perhaps because they're unsatisfied with uh their own philosophy or religion and perhaps most important of all the people of the hate were committed to new kinds of social welfare listen you slip your beads and your shirt off [Music] here there was alternative everything because this was a community that was was throwing out the old rules and living by an entirely new set of [Music] values the concept of Love is a public phenomena The Mention Of Love in a public way be outside of the church this is the first uh I heard of it you know love peace man you know that love and peace that was the refrain uh the concept was that life was there to be experienced fully experience everything have no fear make no plans make no career plans test and enjoy the limits of life

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 2,813,515

Keywords: hippies, grass, dope, early rock 'n roll, haight, flower children, 60s, American history, 1968, sixties generation, alternative lifestyle, 1960s, marijuana, Hippie (Film Subject), Cannabis (Drug), early 1970s, hippie revolution, Born Dropped Out 12 Questions For Hippie Kids, Hippie Hill Documentary, groupie, the hippie revolution, teenage girl ruby, summer of love, jefferson airplane, haight ashbury, san francisco, 60s music, love generation, hate hippies, baby boomer hippies

Id: vm6DvlZ2O20

Length: 27min 36sec (1656 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 13 2017