AHC/WI: No hippies

[Hominid]

What would happen to culture if the hippie movement never happened?

 

[pattersonautobody]

Honestly, we would have a better USA at least. It butterflies the widespread acceptance of post-modernism in the popular mind's philosophical thought, which is real good. It also takes away a lot of the culture which got drug use more widespread, which ultimately leads to the crack epidemic. (I know I will get flak for this, but cocaine and heroin were hardly new drugs. The mere existence of drugs, or their relative decline in cost, does not make them popular.)

Politics is affected badly. We would have a more secretive government, maybe not Planet of the Apes IV style, but who knows. The whole "question the government" thing helped make the government more accountable to the people, which a lot of the WW2 era "US is always right" crowd were not willing to do. Vietnam and such was built upon purely lies. I think only until recently, with the IRS auditing political enemies (A Johnson and Nixon tactic) and all the government eavesdropping, are we even approaching the levels of lacking government accountability of the 60s and early 70s.

I think religion is also affected. I think much of modern fundamentalism is a reactionary response to hippies. Mainline religion was fully within the liberal camp for most of the 20th century until the hippies.

 

[Lateknight]

Well first of all we win Vietnam. S

 

[pattersonautobody]

Well first of all we win Vietnam. S

How? They fought as hard as they were going to aside from bombing cities into the ground and breaking out nhukes, which they didn't do before the hippy movement anyway.

 

[The Uchronian]

Honestly, we would have a better USA at least. It butterflies the widespread acceptance of post-modernism in the popular mind's philosophical thought, which is real good. It also takes away a lot of the culture which got drug use more widespread, which ultimately leads to the crack epidemic. (I know I will get flak for this, but cocaine and heroin were hardly new drugs. The mere existence of drugs, or their relative decline in cost, does not make them popular.)

What? Hippies had nothing to do with the crack epidemic.

Politics is affected badly. We would have a more secretive government, maybe not Planet of the Apes IV style, but who knows. The whole "question the government" thing helped make the government more accountable to the people, which a lot of the WW2 era "US is always right" crowd were not willing to do. Vietnam and such was built upon purely lies. I think only until recently, with the IRS auditing political enemies (A Johnson and Nixon tactic) and all the government eavesdropping, are we even approaching the levels of lacking government accountability of the 60s and early 70s.

That is probably true to some extent.

I think religion is also affected. I think much of modern fundamentalism is a reactionary response to hippies. Mainline religion was fully within the liberal camp for most of the 20th century until the hippies.

Some of it was, in both cases, yes(but not fully, by any means). But unfortunately, much of the rise of modern day hardcore fundamentalism, especially in the South, actually had a lot to do with visceral reactions to abortion and, unfortunately, Civil Rights as well(mostly in the South in the latter case, but there were some Northern traditionalist conservatives dismayed by racial equality as well). I honestly don't think the absence of the hippies would have really stopped that.

 

[pattersonautobody]

What? Hippies had nothing to do with the crack epidemic.

Drug culture. Cocaine and heroin were originally seen as medicinal in purpose, though people knew they were addictive. No one purposely took these drugs to get high. "Mind expansion" is a hippy thing.

Some of it was, in both cases, yes(but not fully, by any means). But unfortunately, much of the rise of modern day hardcore fundamentalism, especially in the South, actually had a lot to do with visceral reactions to abortion and, unfortunately, Civil Rights...

First, fundamentalism has almost nothing to do with civil rights. It really flared up in the 70s and especially the 80s, when that issue was settled.

Second, the issue of abortion was pushed by the indulgent-sex culture that was given rise by the hippies, though I would say that sexual restraint socially would loosen eventually even without hippies, because of the pill empowering woman to prevent unwanted pregnancies (though ironically, more common use of contraception leads to it more likely being used imporperly, which in of itself will increase unwanted pregnancies anyway).

I honestly don't think the absence of the hippies would have really stopped that.

It sounds like you are not very conversant in the doctrinal disputes that fractured denominations like the PCUSA, though it is possible I am just more conversant in my own mind than I am.

For what it is worth, the OPC split from the PCUSA over doctrine back in the 30s or something. However, the much larger fissue which led to the PCA was mainly sparked from abortion (doctrine is indeed important, but the PCUSA's stance on abortion brought doctrinal issues to a head.)

 

[Sonichu]

Drug culture. Cocaine and heroin were originally seen as medicinal in purpose, though people knew they were addictive. No one purposely took these drugs to get high. "Mind expansion" is a hippy thing.

Ridiculous. People have been getting high on purpose at least since Jesus.

 

[pattersonautobody]

Sorry, historically I have to disagree with this. Drug use was never that wide spread until after the hippies, even though the drugs themselves were widespread.

Let me repeat myself: Drug use was never that wide spread, even though the drugs themselves were widespread.

Read up on the history of cocaine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine#History

It was commonly used as medicine. Consider in US history, alcohol was outright banned but cocaine was allowed to be sold for medical purposes and heroin was only illegalized prohibition, when it's medical claims were proven to be nonsense.

Yet, there was no drug epidemic when it was legal. And no drug epidemic when it was illegal.

I insist that society drives drug use, not the existence of such drugs,

 

[DPKdebator]

The easiest solution to no hippies would be to avoid a Vietnam War or any other non-necessary conflict.

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

First, fundamentalism has almost nothing to do with civil rights. It really flared up in the 70s and especially the 80s, when that issue was settled.

Not quite, you should read this:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...ort_for_segregation_not_against_abortion.html

Edit:

Here is the original piece:

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133.html#.VDRf6leumIl

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

The easiest solution to no hippies would be to avoid a Vietnam War or any other non-necessary conflict.

Yeah, if you really want to get rid of the hippies, or at least keep them as a small movement like the beatniks, then you need to prevent escalating the Vietnam War.

 

[Sonichu]

Sorry, historically I have to disagree with this. Drug use was never that wide spread until after the hippies, even though the drugs themselves were widespread.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psilocybin_mushroom#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)#History
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca

Unless you're literally only referring to powder cocaine and heroin, both only synthesized for mass consumption in the 1890's (in which case I neither agree nor disagree with you, since the issue is so specific and without merit as to not be worth considering), drug use has been around for a very long time. The use of psychoactive substances is actually damn near universal in human societies.

It's also fun and all to ignore how there was a period of massive psychotropic use in the late 1800's and early 1900's, followed by a period of legal prohibition which failed utterly and had catastrophic social effects - fun, but intellectually disingenuous.

Edit: Also, you can go on about how cocaine and heroin were used as medicine and not as drugs, but this is strictly not true. Our first accounts of people using those substances for euphoric highs, as well as our first accounts of debilitation addictions to those drugs, pretty much come right after they were first introduced to the public. There wasn't a magical moment in history which turned heroin from an innocuous medicine into a dangerous drug. It's not like there was a hippie movement and that somehow changed the biochemistry of opiates and the corresponding receptors in our brains. Heroin has ALWAYS gotten you high, and it's ALWAYS been addictive, from the moment it was first created. Attitudes toward the drug may have been different but that's essentially an irrelevant fact. You say that "No one purposely took these drugs to get high." It's far more accurate to say that "A decent number of people purposely took these drugs to get high, but then they became illegal, so they started taking less and focused on other drugs like the historically dominant alcohol to get high. Then later they took these drugs again (as opposed to those other drugs, which are "okay") because the social climate changed."

 

[Ultimate Paragon]

Yeah, if you really want to get rid of the hippies, or at least keep them as a small movement like the beatniks, then you need to prevent escalating the Vietnam War.

I was under the impression that hippies were mostly apolitical.

 

[Just Leo]

I think a more relevant question is not what would culture be without hippies, but rather what culture would not have spawned hippies in the first place. The culture didn't arise from a vacuum.

 

[Admiral Ackbar]

I was under the impression that hippies were mostly apolitical.

They were anti-war, and with an increasingly unpopular war sending young men off to possibly die, it created an environment where more people against the war would join them, and where the reaction from the establishment and conservative parts of the country would consider the movement of being anti-American/communist-sympathizers/partly responsible for losing the war.

Take away the war and they will probably still exist, only they'll be a smaller movement and not seen as such a threat to America from the "silent majority."

 

[Richmond_Pope]

They were anti-war, and with an increasingly unpopular war sending young men off to possibly die, it created an environment where more people against the war would join them, and where the reaction from the establishment and conservative parts of the country would consider the movement of being anti-American/communist-sympathizers/partly responsible for losing the war.

Take away the war and they will probably still exist, only they'll be a smaller movement and not seen as such a threat to America from the "silent majority."

With the demographics, you're always going to see some sort of large-scale youth movement. Plus, with the invention of the Pill, all of the previous sexual mores get thrown out the window. And if you think that's no big deal, consider the big "scandal" in early 1968 was that a Bernard sophomore was found to be living with her boyfriend off-campus.

At best, without the draft and Vietnam, you get some mega Civil Rights/Free Speech movement. At the middle, you have the biggest, trashiest decade-long party the world has ever seen.

 

[Realpolitik]

Eric Cartman would have to focus on Jews a lot more.

 

[RousseauX]

Sorry, historically I have to disagree with this. Drug use was never that wide spread until after the hippies, even though the drugs themselves were widespread.

Let me repeat myself: Drug use was never that wide spread, even though the drugs themselves were widespread.

Read up on the history of cocaine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocaine#History

It was commonly used as medicine. Consider in US history, alcohol was outright banned but cocaine was allowed to be sold for medical purposes and heroin was only illegalized prohibition, when it's medical claims were proven to be nonsense.

Yet, there was no drug epidemic when it was legal. And no drug epidemic when it was illegal.

I insist that society drives drug use, not the existence of such drugs,

OTOH, the "crack epidemic" etc occurred with African-Americans who were a completely different demography than the hippies so the relationship is kinda dubious at best.

 

[RousseauX]

I think a more relevant question is not what would culture be without hippies, but rather what culture would not have spawned hippies in the first place. The culture didn't arise from a vacuum.

You would have had the politics of the new left in the 60s/70s anyway. Remember that the hippies was only really a very small % of the overall population and that the ideas of feminism/racial equality/economic leftism was going to be big anyway.

The proof is that those ideas were popular with the youth of non-US countries without a hippie movement (i.e France).

 

[Richmond_Pope]

OTOH, the "crack epidemic" etc occurred with African-Americans who were a completely different demography than the hippies so the relationship is kinda dubious at best.

You could also blame the creation of the Interstate Highway System back in the 1950s for the explosion in drug use. It got way cheaper to transport pot (or whatever) from the fields to the cities, so there you go. You created the means by which a network of middlemen can make a living at it.

And if moveable type hadn't been invented, very few people would have read On The Road, Howl, etc. etc.