Critical Introduction

    Hello and thank you for reading our blog, The Hippie Movement. We (Joey Williams, Joy Zhang, Nicole Fowler, and Jack Payne), are undergraduate students at the University of Maryland currently studying rhetoric in English 101. We have conducted a lot of research on the events that propelled the hippie movement as well as the major ideals and beliefs that were shared by hippies. We have chosen two pieces of rhetoric that we feel are very important to understanding the time period and the hippie movement. Understanding the hippie movement is very important to get a full understanding of the social change that occurred in the ‘60s and the decades that followed.

     The texts we have chosen, the song “Imagine” by John Lennon, and an iconic but untitled photograph, both portray the views and goals of the Hippie Movement in the 1960s. In “Imagine,” Lennon tells the listener not to settle for their current situation; people should aim for a world in peace, where war does not separate mankind. In the photograph, there is a group of young Americans displaying their disdain towards the Vietnam War by burning draft cards and waving posters with powerful messages. Together these texts inspired a growing number of significant protests. Both the song and the photograph led to social deviance by influencing people to rally, expressing their disagreement with the Vietnam War and their hope for peace.

     The 1960’s was a significant decade that was essential to America’s future in the rights of it’s people. There were many important movements including the civil and feminist movements which helped gained rights for African-Americans and women. But there was one movement that was very unique from the others, which was the hippie movement. The hippie movement was unique in that it changed the culture of America through the creation of a counter culture starting in the sixties. Hippies saw a problem in the world, they sought peace and happiness. While some of their lifestyle like the focus on drugs may not be relevant, a lot of what the Hippies stood for is still relevant today. Born out of the movement was a never before seen music style that revolutionized music and influences music today. Not only that, but Hippies protested against war, and for equal rights. They wanted to break down the social restrictions that were set that people could all be equal and live in peace. And they spoke their mind on the environment, how it should be cleaned up before it deteriorated further. Now we have equal rights for women and people of different race but it is still an underlying issue that affects America and is still relevant. Also, the environment still needs to be cleaner with pollution and population at an all time high. So the ideals of the hippie movement are still relevant today and there are still many people today that try to continue what was started in the 1960’s. Readers of our blog should be able to gain a clear understanding of what the Hippie Movement was about and how it shaped present day America.

     In creating our blog, we chose to first analyze the major rhetorical argument and the rhetorical situation of each of our chosen texts in order to supply our readers with enough background information to allow for a proper understanding of texts.  This allowed the readers to get a clear understanding of how the texts were going to be talked about in our blog.  Next, we focused heavily on the appeals to ethos and pathos because they had a strong presence in our texts.  The rest of our blog posts did not follow a set structure.  The next few posts were there to support our arguments made in the previous posts.
     Our texts we chose had a large pathetic appeal to their audience in the 1960s and we hope that they continue to have an influence on our readers today.  The hippies had a huge impact on the Vietnam War protests.  We ask our readers to empathize with the individuals pictured in the photograph and to picture either you or your loved ones being drafted for the war.  We also ask our readers to really sit back and listen to the lyrics sung by John Lennon.  We want you to consider the possibility of peace and life without wars. Ultimately, we hope that our readers have a better understanding of the Hippie Movement and their influence on Vietnam War protests across the country.  Thank you for taking the time to view our blog!