What is a Hippie?
 

Two definitions of the term Hippie;

both incomplete:



The term hippie (or hippy) derives from "hip" or "hipster" used during the late 50s and 60s to describe someone who was a part of the Beat scene. Someone who was hip to the scene, or in the know. Beats were linked to Russian Bolsheviks and Refuseniks by the press labelling them Beatnik, suggesting a Communist connection. One of the first recorded uses of the term hippie was in a Sept 5 1965 article about the San Francisco counter-culture by writer Michael Fallon. The term was not generally used by those who were a part of the hippie culture, but rather by those on the outside writing about them. The term became popular with the media in the mid- to late-1960s as young people flocked to San Francisco, but also picked up negative connotations for many Americans.lhttp://www.erowid.org/culture/hippies/hippies_definition.shtml

Hippie, often spelled hippy, is a term originally used to describe some of the rebellious youth of the 1960s, although the dawn of the 21st century has brought with it a neo-hippie movement, holding similar beliefs and values as the hippies of the 1960s. The word hippie was popularized by the late San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen. Caen's articles were always written with the help of notes and letters from his San Francisco fan base. He is also credited as among the first to include the words beatnik and yuppie in his column.

Though not a cohesive cultural movement with manifestos and leaders, some hippies expressed their desire for change with communal or nomadic lifestyles; by renouncing corporate influence, consumerism and the Vietnam War; by embracing aspects of non-Judeo-Christian religious cultures (including much Eastern philosophy); and with criticism of Western middle class values.

Such criticism included the views that the government was paternalistic, corporate industry was greedy and domineering, traditional morals were askew, and war was inhumane. Hippies referred to the structures and institutions that they opposed as The Establishment.lhttp://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Hippie

 
We who are/were Hippies will generally disagree because we were so many things once we got a bit liberated.
Hippies sought to directly experience the ecstacy of Life.
October 1965 Allen Ginsburg first used the phrase 
"flower power" 
at a Berkeley rally to define a protest strategy of 
non-violence.