In Defense of Hippies & Others Who Live Outside the System

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:



In Defense of Hippies & Others Who Live Outside the System
It's the clean cut Wall Street types who swindled America

By Carolyn Elliott


The soul of this country has always been nurtured by people more interested in freedom than in regular baths: revolutionaries, pioneers, cowboys, Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman all lived in sweat and dirt.

Yet in mainstream media I see a sentiment expressed time and time again: the Occupy movement would be great if it wasn’t just a bunch of dirty hippies. The implied notion is that to be dirty (presumably to be relatively unwashed- clothes muddied, hair greasy) and to be a hippy (someone committed to ideals of peace, equality, justice— someone more interested in love than in profit) are cardinal, unforgivable sins.

.....(snip).....

Work is important. Work is tremendously valuable. Work is labor directed in such a way that the whole community benefits. That’s the kind of work that even the Puritans valued: work that kept the village alive and prospering. Labor done in the service of a gigantic corporation is not work in this sense. It doesn’t put value into the community so much as it extracts it. All those laboring in these kids of jobs are left feeling depleted, drained, purposeless. Their work has no obvious benefit to their community aside from the pay check it brings, and that is ever-shrinking. The value of their work floats off into the hands of their corporate overlords rather than extending to their children, their friends, their neighbors.

So then what happens? People become filled with ennui. They turn to pornography, drugs (both psychiatric and recreational — the distinction is perhaps not that substantial), alcohol, over-eating (witness the obesity epidemic), inane television. Anything to numb the pain of not being free, of not being allowed to live as their souls dictate. D.H. Lawrence said that people think freedom means being able to do whatever you want— but it doesn’t really mean that. Freedom means the ability to obey your own soul rather than an external authority, and it’s an ability that can be cultivated and exercised even in the most adverse conditions, even in conditions that mean it might be hard for you to wash your clothes and get a bath if you chose to obey your soul. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/defense-hippies-others-who-live-outside-system

[Laelth]

1. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[marmar]

3. I think you missed the point of the article, by about six miles.

nt

[Integral]

4. Perhaps.

I'm just saying my opinion on the whole "freeloading" debacle.

[bonzotex]

6. what freeloading debacle?

The linked article is pretty good. ...And short.

[PeaceNikki]

8. Oooo.. a "freeloading debacle"!?? Do tell!

Are there Cadillac Queens and drug addicts!?!

[hootinholler]

11. You'll be waiting a while for them to tell. n/t

[eridani]

15. 70% of OWS folks are employed vs 56% of teabaggers

http://wepartypatriots.com/wp/2011/11/09/get-a-what-a-job-70-of-occupy-wall-streeters-are-employed-compared-to-56-of-tea-partiers

[Scuba]

5. ...

[bonzotex]

7. thanks, nice link.

I know plenty of clean hippies too. The world needs more, bathed or not.

[bvar22]

9. Hippies Here, with a cool K&R!

LESS is MORE!

Grow your Own





You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green][center]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[dreamnightwind]

12. Good find!

Thanks, I loved this article. It also led me to another work by the author, which she is selling in Kindle format (you can download a free Kindle reader for your PC if you don't have a Kindle), which she is selling for only $0.99, very kind price, and from what I've read so far it is also an excellent work. Link is below:

Awesome Your Life
http://www.awesomeyourlife.com/

[prepperdad]

13. I totally support that

a person can live his life as he sees fit. I feel that our entire society is designed to lock people into meaningless jobs and a completely stupid cycle of consumption and debt.



[url]http://www.survivingeconomiccollapse.net[/url]

[Kurovski]

14. "D.H. Lawrence said...

that people think freedom means being able to do whatever you want— but it doesn’t really mean that. Freedom means the ability to obey your own soul rather than an external authority..."