The other day a friend and I discussed the following workplace theme. What's worse: working in a kitchen or construction site with wage-slaves who occasionally break out the racist humor and funny accents, or working with privileged (generally college-educated) people who complain about the homeless, panhandlers, "welfare bums," etc.
We also discussed hatred of "dirty hippies," the the go-to demographic of ridicule for lots of people (along with "yuppies" and "hipsters"). I've had renewed occasion to think about hippies and hippie hatred since I moved into hippie central in East Vancouver. I break down hatred of hippies into three categories:
1) INTERPERSONAL/SENSORY or AESTHETIC- this comes from first-hand encounters with the sour stench of Patchouli and BO; with obnoxiously repetitive and flaky conversations; with PHISH. This category is mostly politically neutral.
2) REACTIONARY - this is when people talk about how hippies are lazy and unproductive. It's at bottom a conservative polemic about "drop-outs," "potheads," and "granola-crunchers"; yet I hear people who hate on hippies in this way as if they're not just recycling 50s-era conventional wisdom of a knee-jerk pro-capitalist kind.
3) RADICAL - this is the view that hippies are hypocritically self-serving and politically or socially complacent. Fact is, very few people are in any kind of
a position to level this charge in good faith.
While the content would completely differ I think my tripartite taxonomy--Aesthetic, Reactionary, Radical--would work for hatred of "yuppies" and "hipsters" too.
*And
FWIW, midwesterners are just watered down Canadians.*