Cue the Grateful Dead or Bob Marley. This blog should have it's own soundtrack.
"How do people construct generalizations about categories of people?"
There seems to be some kind of fixed essential notion that most environmentalists are tree-hugging dirty hippies who believe in free love, communal living, nudity, and pot smoking. Hippies have long-standing stereotypes that have left negative footprints in the minds of a more traditional and conservative society. Typically associated with old white guys in tye-dyed t-shirts with beards giving a peace sign and smoking a joint, hippies have come to represent one of the counter-culture groups around the world. Media representations of this group are rooted in 60s fundamentalism that remains timeless. It's true. Many hippies are liberal, environmentally-conscious consumers - wearing locally handmade clothes, buying organic produce (or growing their own), and living a minimalist lifestyle. But, if that's all it takes - count me in. I'm a hippie.
(For what it's worth, my older sister calls me a hippiewannabe.) The question really seems to become... what part of this image is missing or silenced? You don't have to live out in the woods (or literally in a tree) to be an environmentalist. What about the young professionals that drive hybrid cars and shop at Whole Foods? Or members of the Green Party? There must be environmental lawyers who wear a suit to work everyday that consider themselves environmentalists? Why are there no images of ethnic minorities who care about the Earth? Surely they exist. I find it extremely interesting that it's the year 2007 and we all still know what a hippie is, yet there has never been any formal teaching. 
As they are bombarded with image after image through television, movies, magazines, internet, etc. children learn, whether we want them to or not, exactly what stereotypes exist. A parent's job is no longer limited to feeding, clothing, and loving their little ones but involves counteracting the forces that create narrow-minded judgements. Look at how Native Americans are portrayed - as savage Indians running around in loin cloths with tomahawks. Look at how "beautiful women" are portrayed. We now have children as young as 5 becoming anorexic. Look at glorified sports stars and the non-stop schedules that some of these children now have after school. The media, often driven by the superpowers that be (corporations with money), still shape the the views of the public at large. The power of society... wow.
1 comment:
My mom was a hippie. A real hippie. The kind that moved to Europe because she didn't want to raise her kids in a country that was going to send them off to fight unjust wars at the tender age of 18. She lived in England for two years before finally figuring out that things tend to be the same all over. She moved back to the U.S. when a bunch of her British hippie buddies stole all of her valuables and left her to fend for herself. Go figure.
I grew up in CA where hippies were cool. Again, I'm talking about the real hippies. I suspect that most of the "dirty hippie, smelly hippie, pothead hippie" anti-hippie sentiment you hear so much nowadays actually comes from a reaction to the kinds of neo-hippie grungey dreadheads that overpopulate cities like Portland and small beach towns like Santa Cruz. So many of those kids are simply trying to be part of a scene-- they have no concept of political activism, they just like patchouli oil and hemp and patchwork skirts and smoking doobies and talking about peace. Somewhere along the way, being a hippie became wearing certain clothes and having a stylist give you dreads. My mother would be appalled.
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