Totally.

I'm hoping to score the "hippie" subculture for my ethnography project. It's definently a less intimidating group of people than biker gangs or vampire/human hybrids. If I were to go out into the field to study these subjects, I wouldn't feel very endangered by a flock of stoners sitting around a drum circle.

Whether or not it is as sincere and ground-breaking as the first hippie movement of the 60s, there seems to be a new wave of peace-endorsing, free-loving young adults popping up in droves. Today's youth, like the historical hippie, are struggling with war, dramatic political movements, and a very different coming-of-age process than the generation before them. With such similar social circumstances as their flower-child predecessors, it makes sense that kids today are borrowing from old hippie culture and beliefs.

I'm not entirely sure exactly what kind of information will be required for the paper, but hopefully I will be able to explore the differences between the two movements, and also what are universal hippie characteristics and mind-sets. No doubt, both traditional and modern peaceniks will agree with this: there's a lot more to it than jam bands and pot-smoking and tye-dye. It's about the cause. And that's what's kept it alive for half of a century, and surely, many years yet.