Fascist Hippies
It's easy to hate on hippies, and for the longest time I had a hard time figuring out why. What are the main hippie ideals?
1. Love. Nothing wrong there.
2. Peace. Also largely sensible.
3. Drugs. Not necessarily my pot of tea, but nothing wrong with that if you like it.
4. Drum circles. Hmmm... I'm not the biggest fan. I don't like that you can't get out.
5. Natural things. This casts a pretty wide net. I'm going to reserve judgment for a bit.
Last weekend I was at a crazy hippie-fest known as the "Whole Earth Festival" and I wanted to like it. By and large, the hippie message has a pretty sound foundation, since at least the first two of the five pillars of hippie are generally fine things to have. So why did I feel such an overwhelming distaste for the hippies?
Three things you will find at a hippie-fest:
1. Raw food that costs as much as real food. Shouldn't they give you a discount if they're not going to cook it for you?
2. Expensive crafts booths with handmade, fair trade, hempen-ware, all with clever pun-based names. "Off The Beading Trail," for example.
3. Booths telling you that something you like is evil.
Once upon a time, my parents were hippies. The ethic behind how I was raised was very much rooted in the hippie ideal of "the natural." More carob, less Frosted Flakes. More gardening, less shopping. More granola, less steak. I'm not trying to disparage the lessons they imparted on me, since I think I've been served pretty well by them. But we are currently dealing with a new breed of hippies.
And these hippies are goddamn fascists.
Being a hippie today is largely about what you say no to. "Is that meat? Free range? Hormone free? Sustainably raised bison? Sorry, no." "Is that peach organic? Local? I only eat fruit that falls off the branch as the tree's offering of Nature's bounty. Sorry, no."
The end result is that current hippiedom is an arms race of snobbery. Organic gets trumped by local and organic, gets trumped by vegan, gets trumped by raw, gets trumped by the next new thing that's somehow more natural and healthier than everything before it.
Don't get me wrong, people should be able to eat whatever crazy stuff they think will give them inner peace, make them live forever, and save the world, but at a certain point, these claims are starting to smack of organic fair trade snake oil. This wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much proselytizing and judgment coming from the hippie faithful. Especially since it's pretty damn expensive to live an "all-natural" lifestyle as purchased from Whole Foods at $12 a pound. The upper-levels of hippie approval are only open to those that can afford it (kinda like Scientology).
Is eating less pesticides a good thing? Sure, why not? And having food be local and fresh? If you can afford it, great! But I think it's a huge stretch to think that this is the most important decision you can make in your life.
Almost nothing that hippies are for is a bad idea, but there's a fanaticism about these okay ideas that I just can't get behind. There's a kind of arrogance behind thinking that your small decisions are really important to the world. It's just as messed up to think it's vital to the planet's well-being to only use organic recycled unbleached toilet paper as it is to think that there's a God who cares about whether or not you eat bread in April and how many penises are in your marriage (Answer: between 0 and 8).
Bottom line: eat what you want. Live how you want. Drum in whatever geometric shapes you want. But if you start telling other people how to eat, live, and drum, and judge them for doing it differently than you, check your bus ticket because you're heading from crazy-town to fascist-ville. And a place where you can only eat organic, only wear hemp, and never watch mind-numbing TV for hours on end is no Utopian commune I'd ever want to live in.
1. Love. Nothing wrong there.
2. Peace. Also largely sensible.
3. Drugs. Not necessarily my pot of tea, but nothing wrong with that if you like it.
4. Drum circles. Hmmm... I'm not the biggest fan. I don't like that you can't get out.
5. Natural things. This casts a pretty wide net. I'm going to reserve judgment for a bit.
Last weekend I was at a crazy hippie-fest known as the "Whole Earth Festival" and I wanted to like it. By and large, the hippie message has a pretty sound foundation, since at least the first two of the five pillars of hippie are generally fine things to have. So why did I feel such an overwhelming distaste for the hippies?
Three things you will find at a hippie-fest:
1. Raw food that costs as much as real food. Shouldn't they give you a discount if they're not going to cook it for you?
2. Expensive crafts booths with handmade, fair trade, hempen-ware, all with clever pun-based names. "Off The Beading Trail," for example.
3. Booths telling you that something you like is evil.
Once upon a time, my parents were hippies. The ethic behind how I was raised was very much rooted in the hippie ideal of "the natural." More carob, less Frosted Flakes. More gardening, less shopping. More granola, less steak. I'm not trying to disparage the lessons they imparted on me, since I think I've been served pretty well by them. But we are currently dealing with a new breed of hippies.
And these hippies are goddamn fascists.
Being a hippie today is largely about what you say no to. "Is that meat? Free range? Hormone free? Sustainably raised bison? Sorry, no." "Is that peach organic? Local? I only eat fruit that falls off the branch as the tree's offering of Nature's bounty. Sorry, no."
The end result is that current hippiedom is an arms race of snobbery. Organic gets trumped by local and organic, gets trumped by vegan, gets trumped by raw, gets trumped by the next new thing that's somehow more natural and healthier than everything before it.
Don't get me wrong, people should be able to eat whatever crazy stuff they think will give them inner peace, make them live forever, and save the world, but at a certain point, these claims are starting to smack of organic fair trade snake oil. This wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't so much proselytizing and judgment coming from the hippie faithful. Especially since it's pretty damn expensive to live an "all-natural" lifestyle as purchased from Whole Foods at $12 a pound. The upper-levels of hippie approval are only open to those that can afford it (kinda like Scientology).
Is eating less pesticides a good thing? Sure, why not? And having food be local and fresh? If you can afford it, great! But I think it's a huge stretch to think that this is the most important decision you can make in your life.
Almost nothing that hippies are for is a bad idea, but there's a fanaticism about these okay ideas that I just can't get behind. There's a kind of arrogance behind thinking that your small decisions are really important to the world. It's just as messed up to think it's vital to the planet's well-being to only use organic recycled unbleached toilet paper as it is to think that there's a God who cares about whether or not you eat bread in April and how many penises are in your marriage (Answer: between 0 and 8).
Bottom line: eat what you want. Live how you want. Drum in whatever geometric shapes you want. But if you start telling other people how to eat, live, and drum, and judge them for doing it differently than you, check your bus ticket because you're heading from crazy-town to fascist-ville. And a place where you can only eat organic, only wear hemp, and never watch mind-numbing TV for hours on end is no Utopian commune I'd ever want to live in.
Comments
So go to Burning Man you will have more fun and eat lots of playa dust it's worth the $300.00 for the ticket.
Cheers.
Certainly there are reasonable ethical and environmental concerns relating to where the foods we eat come from and how it was produced. This is true with almost everything we consume. However, eating locally, wearing only hemp, and dismissing those who don’t follow the same path, when taken to such a militant and financially demanding level seem to resemble feudal-ville more than fascist-ville.
In feudal times all food and goods a society consumed came from within a twenty five mile radius. The region was controlled by a small group of wealthy folk who determined how everyone would live and what everyone could consume. Very few would ever travel outside of their twenty five mile circle. But, is that really something to be nostalgic of?
Sure, the environment was happy. Those with land ate well. The castles were rad. But woman were considered objects. Even the most affluent women were considered ‘irrational’ and the most they could hope for in life was to be ‘the wife of -insert rich or powerful or both male here-’. Even the vast majority of men had no choice on how to live out their lives. Education was mainly for those who would use it to convince other people to fear god.
This is not my resume to become the resident term nazi of fascist-ville. Nor is my point to argue eating locally will devolve our society back to a feudal one, or that it is even necessarily a bad idea. My point is that it is ironic and tragic how a movement once focused on fighting for personal freedom and making the world a better place is now an exclusive club. And like all exclusive clubs, it is probably not much more in touch with the world than feudal-ville.
Leslie:
I think people politics become less important than food politics about the same time it became more expensive to feed a cat than eat at Taco Bell.
but i must also say that there are loads of 'hippies' still active in areas that benefit human rights issues and environmental concerns. i do stuff with greenpeace and other more 'hardcore' groups. we're not namby pamby, and aren't obsessed with vegetables. we're the real modern hippies, liberal to peoples individualities. its the spice of life!
i share your dislike of fascist hippies!! x