Writers Unbound

What is “the Literate Hippie”?

The Literate Hippie thinks it best to answer the question by defining the terms. First item: “the,” an article, denotes a single and distinct entity, a particular person, rather than an “in general” item. As this applies to the question, just any old literate hippie won’t do. We are discussing “the” Literate Hippie, as distinguished from others masquerading as similar beings. Don’t be fooled.

Second item: “literate,” an adjective describing the state of both education and intelligence. The most basic meaning is the ability to read and write; we can expand it to describe one who is well-versed in literature, or further generalize to mean one who is well-versed in any particular field.

Third item: “hippie,” a noun, and herein resides the heart of the question, are we correct? Articles are simple, and you know what they mean. Literate is a common enough modifier, and if you’re reading blogs about writing and reading then you can most probably use the modifier accurately to describe yourself. No surprises there. But hippie. That’s what you’re not sure about. You’re trying to picture a bearded man sitting in the mud at Woodstock, documenting it all on his laptop. Incongruous, to put it mildly. Or is it? What do you think of when you hear the term hippie? Rebellion? 1960’s? Sexual revolution? Daisy chains and tie-dyed skirts?

Special brownies?

There are lots of associations with hippie. Many of them are negative, at worst, and laughable, at best. Let’s distill the term down to the heart of what, in a multi-cultural sense, we mean by hippie. We mean this:

someone who is unfettered by the social conventions of the day. Someone who enjoys creativity more than materialism. Someone who values freedom, originality, and ingenuity more than social status.

Separate yourself for a moment from your normal associations with the word hippie. Hippie, as we mean it, isn’t about the shoes you wear (or don’t wear) or the beard you grow (or don’t grow) or the stuff you smoke (or don’t smoke). It’s about not letting conventionality be your standard. It’s being okay with being ostracized. It’s wanting to think for yourself.

It’s what most truly literate people end up being in spite of themselves.