Hippies were seeking individual and group liberation of humans from the constrictions of 1950 Eisenhower rigid social norms. It even worried everyone’s grandfather Ike enough to warn of the coming Military-Industrial Complex that threatened American’s democracy and free way of life.

The fate we sought to escape is summed in a song from just before the era, later used as a theme to the show Weeds, ‘Little Boxes’.

And they’re all made out of ticky-tacky. And they all look just the same’, was not true for hip folks.  Only squares easily fit in those little boxes!