They valued 1) being present in the moment (be-ins), 2) primitive and communal cultures (primitivism and tribalism), 3) nudity, 4) open sexuality and 5) drugs (primarily marijuana and LSD).

The Diggers, a group of San Francisco anarchists whose political goals included the end of government, advocated using activists’ lives and way of being in the world that would somehow change the world. Hippies, often called the “hip community” or the “counterculture,” had their philosophical roots in anarchist literature and the Digger movement. Being able to tell these groups apart was often difficult but usually their clothing and methods of protest set them apart from each other. All of these people shared goals in terms of what they felt a just and free world would look like: 1) people of all ethnicities would be treated equally, 2) women and men would be treated equally, 3) the poor and powerless would have a fair chance of a good life and 3) the American political system would support the needs of the people (even if that meant that there should be no government – Anarchy was definitely on the table as a political possibility). In the later years of the 1960s the Yippies (or Youth International Party) came into play and tried to bridge the gap between the Hippies and New Lefts. The counter-culture community developed in the 1960s into two groups (Hippies and the New Left) that were not exclusive of each other but that represented two very different ways of looking at the world (please note: there were some people of color involved in these movements but mostly – they were white). Hippie Maxim: “Turn on, tune in, drop out.” Timothy Leary.

“The Port Huron Statement,” by Tom Haydon of the SDS or Students for a Democratic Society.

“A Yippie Manifesto,” by Jerry Rubin, co-founder of the Youth International Party YIPs or Yippies).

We don’t care what name you go by, whether it’s ‘Hippie,’ ‘Peacenik,’ ‘Beat,’ ‘Flower Child,’ ‘Civil Rights Marcher,’ ‘Anti-War Demonstrator,’ or whatever, the important thing is that although there are minor differences, we’re really all in the same bag.

Hippie ways of life