Aparte
How
It's ____________(insert word)_____________how this is almost cliché these days.
Funny
Interesting
Scary
Heroic
Ridiculous
Trinidad &Tobago
Young men arround my age in the Caribbean enjoy themselves on the weekends fishing close to where they live...
July 7th 1967
TIME Magazine
One sociologist calls them "the Freudian proletariat." Another observer sees them as "expatriates living on our shores but beyond our society." Historian Arnold Toynbee describes them as "a red warning light for the American way of life." For California's Bishop James Pike, they evoke the early Christians: "There is something about the temper and quality of these people, a gentleness, a quietness, an interest—something good." To their deeply worried parents throughout the country, they seem more like dangerously deluded dropouts, candidates for a very sound spanking and a cram course in civics—if only they would return home to receive either.
Whatever their meaning and wherever they may be headed, the hippies have emerged on the U.S. scene in about 18 months as a wholly new subculture, a bizarre permutation of the middle-class American ethos from which it evolved. Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence. They find an almost childish fascination in beads, blossoms and bells, blinding strobe lights and ear-shattering music, exotic clothing and erotic slogans. Their professed aim is nothing less than the subversion of Western society by "flower power" and force of example.
Although that sounds like a pipe-dream, it conveys the unreality that permeates hippiedom, a cult whose mystique derives essentially from the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The hippies have popularized a new word, psychedelic, which the Random House
Dictionary of English Language defines as: "Of or noting a mental state of great calm, intensely pleasureful perception of the senses, esthetic entrancement and creative impetus; of or noting any of the group of drugs producing this effect." With those drugs has come the psychedelic philosophy, an impassioned belief in the self-revealing, mind-expanding powers of potent weeds and seeds and chemical compounds known to man since prehistory but wholly alien to the rationale of Western society. Unlike other accepted stimuli, from nicotine to liquor, the hallucinogens promise those who take the "trip" a magic-carpet escape from reality in which perceptions are heightened, senses distorted, and the imagination permanently bedazzled with visions of Ideological verity.
Hashish Trail. From this promise, possibly more exciting—and more dangerous—than any adventure offered by travel agents, was born the cult of hippiedom. Its disciples, who have little use for definitions, are mostly young and generally thoughtful Americans who are unable to reconcile themselves to the stated values and implicit contradictions of contemporary Western society, and have become internal emigres, seeking individual liberation through means as various as drug use, total withdrawal from the economy and the quest for individual identity.
Only last year, many sociologists and psychiatrists dismissed the hippie hegira with a verbal flick of the wrist. The use of mind-changing drugs such as LSD, said National Institute of Mental Health Director Stanley Yolles in 1966, was a fad, "like goldfish swallowing." City officials blandly waited for the hippies to go away; indeed, a year ago they had established scarcely half a dozen inchoate colonies in the U.S.
Today, hippie enclaves are blooming in
One sociologist calls them "the Freudian proletariat." Another observer sees them as "expatriates living on our shores but beyond our society." Historian Arnold Toynbee describes them as "a red warning light for the American way of life." For California's Bishop James Pike, they evoke the early Christians: "There is something about the temper and quality of these people, a gentleness, a quietness, an interest—something good." To their deeply worried parents throughout the country, they seem more like dangerously deluded dropouts, candidates for a very sound spanking and a cram course in civics—if only they would return home to receive either.
Whatever their meaning and wherever they may be headed, the hippies have emerged on the U.S. scene in about 18 months as a wholly new subculture, a bizarre permutation of the middle-class American ethos from which it evolved. Hippies preach altruism and mysticism, honesty, joy and nonviolence. They find an almost childish fascination in beads, blossoms and bells, blinding strobe lights and ear-shattering music, exotic clothing and erotic slogans. Their professed aim is nothing less than the subversion of Western society by "flower power" and force of example.
Although that sounds like a pipe-dream, it conveys the unreality that permeates hippiedom, a cult whose mystique derives essentially from the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. The hippies have popularized a new word, psychedelic, which the Random House
Dictionary of English Language defines as: "Of or noting a mental state of great calm, intensely pleasureful perception of the senses, esthetic entrancement and creative impetus; of or noting any of the group of drugs producing this effect." With those drugs has come the psychedelic philosophy, an impassioned belief in the self-revealing, mind-expanding powers of potent weeds and seeds and chemical compounds known to man since prehistory but wholly alien to the rationale of Western society. Unlike other accepted stimuli, from nicotine to liquor, the hallucinogens promise those who take the "trip" a magic-carpet escape from reality in which perceptions are heightened, senses distorted, and the imagination permanently bedazzled with visions of Ideological verity.
Hashish Trail. From this promise, possibly more exciting—and more dangerous—than any adventure offered by travel agents, was born the cult of hippiedom. Its disciples, who have little use for definitions, are mostly young and generally thoughtful Americans who are unable to reconcile themselves to the stated values and implicit contradictions of contemporary Western society, and have become internal emigres, seeking individual liberation through means as various as drug use, total withdrawal from the economy and the quest for individual identity.
Only last year, many sociologists and psychiatrists dismissed the hippie hegira with a verbal flick of the wrist. The use of mind-changing drugs such as LSD, said National Institute of Mental Health Director Stanley Yolles in 1966, was a fad, "like goldfish swallowing." City officials blandly waited for the hippies to go away; indeed, a year ago they had established scarcely half a dozen inchoate colonies in the U.S.
Today, hippie enclaves are blooming in
Histeria colectiva
El 30 de enero de 1962, los alumnos de la pequeña escuela de Kashasha, en Tanzania, debieron de gastar una broma tan divertida que provocó un ataque de risa colectiva. Después de algunos minutos, la risa pasó de los chicos a los compañeros de otras aulas y se contagió entre los profesores, hasta el punto de que cuando terminó la jornada todo el colegio estaba riendo. Los chavales regresaron a sus casas y contagiaron la risa a sus amigos y familiares, que a su vez siguieron riendo sin control de un lado a otro. En apenas unas horas, el ataque de risa se había extendido por decenas de aldeas y afectaba a centenares de personas.
Lo que parecía una broma inocente se convirtió en uno de los casos de histeria colectiva más estudiado por los psicólogos. La epidemia de risa, como se denominó al fenómeno, duró entre 6 y 18 meses y se agravó hasta causar verdaderas complicaciones. La risa incontrolada provocaba problemas respiratorios, dolor y hasta pérdidas de conocimiento entre muchos de los afectados.
Antes de desaparecer por completo, en junio de 1964, la epidemia se extendió por 14 escuelas y afectó a un millar de personas de las aldeas que rodean el lago Victoria en Tanzania y Uganda. Como medida preventiva, las autoridades cerraron los colegios y pusieron a las aldeas en cuarentena.
Durante meses, los investigadores buscaron algún tipo de gas tóxico o virus que pudiera haber generado aquel comportamiento, pero no encontraron nada.
Lo que parecía una broma inocente se convirtió en uno de los casos de histeria colectiva más estudiado por los psicólogos. La epidemia de risa, como se denominó al fenómeno, duró entre 6 y 18 meses y se agravó hasta causar verdaderas complicaciones. La risa incontrolada provocaba problemas respiratorios, dolor y hasta pérdidas de conocimiento entre muchos de los afectados.
Antes de desaparecer por completo, en junio de 1964, la epidemia se extendió por 14 escuelas y afectó a un millar de personas de las aldeas que rodean el lago Victoria en Tanzania y Uganda. Como medida preventiva, las autoridades cerraron los colegios y pusieron a las aldeas en cuarentena.
Durante meses, los investigadores buscaron algún tipo de gas tóxico o virus que pudiera haber generado aquel comportamiento, pero no encontraron nada.
!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)