What Did The Hippies Want?
by Alicia Bay Laurel November 19, 2001 We wanted intimacy–not a neighborhood where you didn’t know anyone on the block, or you competed, kept up with the Joneses. A hunter-gatherer or early agricultural community meant that people lived, worked and sought deeper contact with the holy spirit as a group, and they all knew one another, from cradle to grave. I used to call my hippie friendships “a horizontal extended family,” as opposed to the ancient tribal extended family, which was multi-generational, and therefore, vertical. We wanted a culture which acknowledged the human body, not just for sex, but to hug each other, to be naked without shame, to revere the body with natural foods, beneficial exercise, herbs, baths, massage, deep understanding. This was not part of the culture from which we came. We wanted a culture that thrived on gift-giving. We hitchhiked, shared our food and drugs, gave away our possessions. People who could afford to buy land invited others who could not to liv
