There is a phrase I try to live by: Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke. The biggest problem I have with hippies is that they take themselves way too seriously. It's as if in an effort to be more sensitive to the ideas, thoughts and feelings of others, they have lost the ability to laugh at tragedy and see the humor in sick jokes.

Laughter is a funny thing. (Duh.) It's a lot like crying, but it's less so. You cry when in pain, but laugh when tickled. You cry when tragedy strikes, but laugh when it strikes someone else. If someone dies, you cry, if they are injured, you laugh. Cry when you're scared, laugh when you're nervous. Sometimes you laugh so hard you cry. Laughter is an important form of catharsis. In classical Greece, a Dionysian festival included a three part tragedy followed by a comedy of broad humor that would send the audience into fits of laughter. Often, these comedies dealt with very serious things: death, war, etc. It is by laughing at horrible things that we remove their power to hurt us.

I used to work in Mill Valley, a den of hippies if I ever saw one. I live on the border of Berkeley, which is similarly ripe with patchouli. The difference is mostly in age. People come to Berkeley to be hippies, people in Mill Valley did the same, but a generation ago. Their children have become disillusioned by their parents' hypocrisy and the ineffectual, whiny rhetoric that keeps them from learning how things are in the real world.

Another point: Hippies think they are better than everyone else. This is wrong. They are no better than anyone else. There is nothing scarier to me than someone who thinks that the choices they made are right for everyone else. Vegetarianism, pacifism, socialism, paganism: These are all valid points of view, but they are not for everyone. Your opinion does not give you the right to say that all people should be a certain way. Idealism is fine, but be realistic. Not everyone wants to be a vegetarian, not everyone gives a shit about little bunnies getting lipstick shoved in their eye. Lots of people like shaving their bodies, and actually very few people like the smell of patchouli. I am not one of them. Also, hippies tend to make huge generalisations without actually doing any research. (If you point out that this whole rant is a sweeping generalisation, skip down the the P.S. at the botton of the page and lighten up.) Hippies who only get their information from other hippies and assume that all other sources are wrong cannot know the true nature of the situation. It's like people reading the South Beach diet and thinking that qualifies them as nutritionists.

Let me tell you a story about my friend Miss G. Miss G. was raised by her hippy mother. Her mother would not let her have candy. She would not let her have sugar. She preached her hippy philosophy and filled her daughter with anti-capitalist propaganda. She raised her to be just like her. Miss G. grew up and now lives on junk food and prescription medicine. She listens to punk and techno and will not eat anything green. She goes to raves and plays videogames all the time. She is in a management position in a corporate business and is doing just fine. Miss G. is a good person and a friend of mine, but she rebelled so far in the opposite direction that one wonders if the experience of growing up like that was harmful.


Stupid people are bad enough. When stupid people think they are smarter than everyone else, it makes me want to kick them in their face, then laugh in it.

P.S. If you are a hippy who can take a joke and can respect the validity of other points of view, then this rant is not about you. And congratulations for being real.