February 20, 2008 at 10:47 pm (hippies, rant, utopia)
Politically, I constantly waffle between a desire for utopian anarchy, with no need for order because people will just respect each other, and a desire to have a governments that will take care of people with important benefits and services. I think this mindset is very American. When it comes down to it though, on a personal level I lean a little bit more toward anarchy. This is why I used to go to that nice little anarchist bookstore on Haight street. It’s where I first saw blueprints for intentional communities in a book. It’s where I bought Making Stuff and Doing Things (ostensibly as a gift for my cousin, but I took it for myself when he was done reading it), a D.I.Y. manual for everything from compost toilet construction to making your own cat food to making a secret stash box from an old 8-track tape. I don’t need to tell you how much I love this book. The D.I.Y ethic appeals to me on many levels. Not just the punk D.I.Y. ethic, but the more grown up, country housewife version (an example can be found at down—to—earth), and even, to a lesser extent, the popular culture Better Homes and Gardens, HGTV, Martha Stewart versions.
I don’t want to sound like a *cringe* hippie, but I really get tired of the consumer culture sometimes. I often long to get away from it. Living in an apartment in Braddon, so close to shopping areas, it’s hard to escape.
All I want is a small house, a big yard with a vegetable garden, a herb garden and a chicken coop. There will be a bike shed and a compost heap and a small play area made from recycled materials, and, if I’m lucky, the house will be recycled too. Like this one (-via Neatorama). In fact, why not expand this ethic to a community? A tool lending library, a bike sharing program and a neighborhood garden are easy enough to set up. A sewing circle devoted to re-purposing old clothes is a fun community building exercise and a local food co-op can save people money while supporting local growers and again, encouraging a sense of community. Why am I not doing any of this? I’ve got to go. There’s so much work to do.
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December 5, 2007 at 12:58 am (hippies, rant, utopia)
Tags: dehydration, earth, raw food, solar cooking
There are some ideas that my hippie/utopian side really likes, but my skeptical side really distrusts.
For instance: wicca/nature worship. I don’t believe in any gods, but I like the idea of treating the forces of nature with respect. I also like rituals, incense, drums, naked forest dancing and pentagrams. I just can’t bring myself to perform any spells for any function other than focusing my mental energy on a goal, or marking a significant event. And also, it’s a little silly because there’s no such thing as magic.
Similarly, I love the idea of “eating raw.” These “raw food,” “paleo” and “live food” diets are appealing to my imagination and my sense of “nature worship.” Even since I read Clan of the Cave Bear, I’ve romanticized my hominid ancestors and thought the idea of roughing it when it comes to food is exciting. I met an extremely skinny artist once who told me he was a “raw foodist.” When I asked how that worked, he said, “It involves a lot of chewing.” I tried it for a couple of days, and he was right. Celebrities like Demi Moore adhere to a raw food diet with excellent results, and it doesn’t sound too unhealthy, at least when compared to Atkins or other fad diets.
One thing I’ve learned when researching raw diets is that people on it tend to be the kind of elitist, self educated, one-track-minded people I tend to dislike. There are also plenty of misconceptions put forward about what our ancestors ate, not to mention the fallacy that somehow because our ancestors did it, it’s better for us. And so I often give up researching, frustrated by stupidity, and move on. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 16, 2007 at 3:57 pm (hippies, skepticism)
As promised, here is my rebuttal to my own post.
I would like to address certain points made by myself in the controversial blog post,
Why I dislike hippies (a rant)
First, I would like to address the use of the term “hippie”.
According to the dictionary that came with my computer, a hippie is defined as:
“A person of unconventional appearance, typically having long hair and wearing beads, associated with a subculture involving a rejection of conventional values and the taking of hallucinogenic drugs.”
By this definition, one could define both my husband and myself as hippies.
The author does not make a clear enough definition of what a hippie is. Instead she assumes that the reader shares her definition of a hippie as a bleeding heart, new-age, namby-pamby vegetarian, who thinks that social change can still be made through marches and protests, and that patchouli is an acceptable deodorant. Read the rest of this entry »
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November 16, 2007 at 4:09 am (hippies, rant, skepticism)
This is the rant I mentioned in my previous post.
EDIT: Disclaimer: Please keep in mind, I was in a foul mood when I wrote this after dealing with some particularly annoying people. I don’t have a problem with ALL hippies, just certain attitudes I’ve noticed among some groups of hippies. I used to be one myself, after all. See the P.S. at the end.
EDITED AGAIN:
After much consideration, I have decided to simply link to the original rant in my old blog.
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