Why Are There Hippies?
Because a functional society needs people at its fringes, both to clarify the boundary and, in extreme times, to pull society back from an opposite extreme. With hippies in particular, I think the function is kind of like a pressure valve. I want to say it’s a response to an overly regimented society, but I’m not sure I can say that, because many of the hippies I’ve met from my generation aren’t the children of overly regimented parents, but rather the children of older hippies. There have always been back-to-the-earth movements and groups that flouted society’s laws and tried to be more “natural.” Hippies, I think, are one of these movements. I don’t think this makes them right, and I don’t think it makes them wrong, but I do think they’re a useful part of society, both in serving as a counterexample to keep people on track and as a counterweight to keep us from getting too rigid as a nation.
