This is an article from the 2026 Civitas Examiner (Volume 3, No. 2) and was written by one of our students, Lux. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue. To read more Civitas Examiner stories or to submit your own, click here.
Hippies. The word will probably evoke an image of teenagers and young adults who are dressed in loose clothes, bright colors, wearing tassels and drawn to protesting and drugs alike. It was a loosely related result of the Beat movement, which had core idols such as Jack Kerouac, John Cellon Holmes, and Allen Ginsberg. The movement was focused on intellectualism, a rejection of material goods, and a sort of restless distaste for how things are. Hippies descended to be more spiritual, following the development and popularization of LSD and marijuana. In cities such as New York’s Greenwich, and Berkeley California were considered two of the starting points.
The group was anti-war, anti-hate, music fans, and genuinely focused on living life to the fullest. As Timothy Leary once phrased it: “Turn on, tune in, drop out”. Though, the surplus of people knowing about the culture ended up disenfranchising it. Popular streets for the teenagers, like Haight- Ashbury, ended up having more standard Americans come and watch as if they were something inhuman.
Even the word hippie was hardly what the young adults would call themselves, and was used as more of a negative term by Americans who aren’t a part of the movement. Those in the movement referred to themselves as freaks, heads, long hairs, or even lovechildren. As more fame ended up shifting the familiar hotspots, some of the ‘hippies’ began to settle down in small groups called communes outside of cities.
In 1971, in Polanski, California, the view of the hippies shifted. Following the horrific Manson murders, Manson was convicted of first degree of murder in January, 1972 along with three of his members. Headlines bleared out “Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares,” and it quickly became one of the most sensationalized crime stories and was titled as an early American cult.
Although, that wasn’t the only reason for the hippie subculture to fizzle out. Another main factor was the ending of the Vietnam War after Nixon was elected, when troops started to be pulled out. Protesting the war was a large staple of the movement, but with that fading, there was less drive to stand out from the majority of Americans. Police brutality also hurt the movement, and as less protests were needed, the longhairs faded.
Though, this is all missing a very important term: counterculture. As Merriam Webster defines it, “A culture with values and mores that run counter to those of established society”. The Beat movement falls within this, alongside the Hippies. Though… Did counterculture ever truly die, even if those movements have faded into obscurity? I don’t think it did. Instead, in 2026, there’s a new word for different fashion, different music, and even different politics. Alternative. It is the persistent genres of political rock and metal music, the goth category, the punks as seen with bands like Green Day. Those things aren’t new, having begun with 60’s counterculture, but they’re still around and have created a new basis for the current young generation. It’s no longer a strong movement like it was, now, it’s an established part of American society.
Even in STL, at music venues such as Mosh Mellow, the bands of teenagers will let out cheers for Palestinian freedom before playing their music.
In all, I think it would be a shame to have everyone assume 60’s counterculture has faded– it has merely evolved, and it shines even more under modern-day monotony.
