Youth: The Hippies

Friday, Jul. 07, 1967

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that they purport to reject.

Indeed, it could be argued that in their independence of material possessions and their emphasis on peacefulness and honesty, hippies lead considerably more virtuous lives than the great majority of their fellow citizens. This, despite their blatant disregard for most of society's accepted mores and many of its laws—most notably those prohibiting the use of drugs—helps explain why so many people in authority, from cops to judges to ministers, tend to treat them gently and with a measure of respect. In the end it may be that the hippies have not so much dropped out of American society as given it something to think about.

^{*The term derives from the pre-World War II jitterbug adjective "hep": to be "with it"; hep became "hip" (in noun form, "hipster") during the bebop and beatnik era of the 1950s, then fell into disuse, to be revived with the onslaught of psychedelia. *A 14th century English troubadourian vision, the Land of Cockaigne was inhabited by precooked "larks well-trained and very couth who cometh down to man his mouth." The larks were eaten by hooded monks, who prayed through psychedelic church windows that "turn themselves to crystal bright." A new U.S. postage stamp of Thoreau, designed by Painter Leonard Baskin, was under fire last week on the ground that it makes bearded, long-haired Henry David look like a hippie.}