The Woodstock crowd, 1969

I DIDN’T ATTEND WOODSTOCK—I was in ROTC summer camp at Ft. Bragg. But there was a time in my life when I considered myself a citizen of the Woodstock Nation.

Recently, looking over my faded and dog-eared copy of one of the Whole Earth Catalog editions that came out in the late sixties and early seventies, I reflected on what the hippies got right. Each cover displayed that first iconic satellite image of earth seen from space and bore the subtitle “access to tools.”

The series was like a Sears & Roebuck catalog of resources for alternative lifestyles, with all you needed to know about guides to living off the land, healthy lifestyles, spiritual development, sustainable energy, affordable shelter (including geodesic domes), and anything else you might need to drop out and start a commune.

In retrospect, I see the Whole Earth Catalog as the Bible of the hippie ethos. I had never heard of ecology or meditation until I read the catalogs, and editor Steven Brand became one of my primary culture heroes. Apple founder Steven Jobs has described the catalogs as a predecessor of the world wide web.

the final issue

I came to hippiedom long after the funeral for the movement had been held in San Francisco, and five years after Woodstock. I had been a Citadel cadet during the “summer of love,” and an Army officer until 1974. But in grad school I grew a beard and shoulder-length hair and rebelled against the Establishment for a few years. Then I decided, like so many idealists of my generation, to drop the costume and self-indulgences of the movement, and “join the System to change it from within.”

Hippies were essentially a media invention to explain a very real generational rebellion. I expect that when most people who never identified with the movement think about it, they think about long hair, tie-dyed clothes, drugs, and free love. But these were only the outer trappings. Some of the hippest folks I knew in the day dressed conventionally and did not do drugs or sleep around. Promiscuous sex and the glorification of recreational drug use were not among the things the hippies got right.

But when I look at certain positive trends in the 21st century, I see their origins in the hippie counterculture. The notion that we should question authority and conformity has proliferated in my lifetime. Unconventional hairstyles are no longer “freak flags” that brand the wearer a presumed drug-using anarchist; they are simply preferences in style. The hippies challenged the idea that being “normal” (conventional) was a virtue. I think the “Rainbow Tribe” view of mankind–tolerance for decent people who don’t necessarily look like you or act like the majority has endured and spread within our culture.

The whole green movement—everything from organic farming, recycling, and composting to renewable energy—got its initial momentum from the hippies. The counterculture promoted the notion of the earth as our mother—or alternately as Spaceship Earth on whose life-support system we all ultimately depend.

“You are what you eat” was a hippie mantra. Hippies were ridiculed as granola eaters and “health food nuts,” and now we have public service campaigns about healthy diets, and detailed nutritional information is printed on the packaging of most processed foods to help us make better choices. Granola, yogurt, and tofu have gone mainstream, and vegetarians are no longer regarded as weirdos.

Hippie resources like the Whole Earth Catalog introduced many of my generation to yoga and other forms of meditation. These practices have subsequently been scientifically validated as activities that promote wellness and have become mainstays of behavioral medicine.

The hippie ethos was a rejection of the unquestioning conventionality of the post-war era. Some of its seeds have taken root and flowered, helping to cultivate more tolerant, free thinking, health-minded, and environmentally conscious Americans. •

Jeff Koob is a Columbia psychologist and the author of Two Years in Kingston Town: A Peace Corps Memoir. You can reach him at jkoob@sc.rr.com.

This article appeared in The State newspaper in Columbia, SC • August 17, 2009. It is reprinted here with permission from the author.