A Case of Cultural Criticism 105rejects eating alone (when we eat in a group it is only ever done by
simply adding extra individual portions, as symbolized now by the use
of cloth or straw placemats which, gesturing towards the elegant, mark
out the eating space of each guest; whereas the hippies, in Berkeley
for example, have a collective cooking pot, communal cooking).
as for accommodation, there is the same collectivism (one room
for several people), as well as nomadism signalled by the bag, (that
pouch) which the hippies have dangling around their long legs. Clothing
(the outfit, should we say) is, as we know, a specific sign, the main
choice made by the hippy; in relation to the norms in the West, there
is a dual subversion, the elements of which sometimes go together:
either there is absolutely manic fantasy, so as to transgress the limits of
what is conventional to make this into a clear sign of that transgression
itself (brocade trousers; draped jackets; long, white nightshirts; going
barefoot even out on the street), or by borrowing overtly from ethnic
costumes: djellabas, boubous, hindu tunics, all nonetheless rendered
other by some aberrant detail (necklaces, multicoloured and multi-
layered neckbands etc.). Cleanliness (hygiene), the most important of
american values (at least mythically), is counteracted in spectacular
fashion: dirt on the body, in the hair, on the clothes; clothes dragging
along the street, dusty feet, fair-haired babies playing in the gutter (but
somehow it is still different from real dirtiness, different from a long-
engrained poverty, from a dirtiness which deforms the body, the hand;
hippy dirt is different, it has been borrowed for the holidays, sprinkled
over like dust, and, like a footprint, not permanent). and finally, long hair
on boys, their jewellery (necklaces, multiple rings, earrings), means that
the sexes are becoming indistinguishable, not so much with a view to
inverting gender identities but more so a process of removing them:
what they are after, by switching between the normal features that
distinguish between the sexes, is the neutral, i.e. a challenge to the
‘natural’ antagonism between the sexes.
We are not talking here about counter-values ‘in your mind’ by which
the hippies put so much stock: drug use, withdrawal from the world, loss
of aggression. It is quite clear that, if only in terms of making an impact,
the hippies want to make a reaction political—clothing, accommodation,
food, hygiene, sexuality are all made into reactive forces: this is meant in
the nietzschean sense; paradoxical as it may seem, the hippy (if only they
would invest more intelligence into their adventure, their quest) could be