I had a conversation at a wedding recently with this guy who runs a “distressed debt shop” in New York City. The man leaked a pure, cold draft of privilege that sent a chill right down my spine. Like, he told me he'd struggled growing up because his dad was “a lowly managing director at Lehman Brothers.” This guy lacked human emotion, carpooled with the Trumps as a kid (and found them to be a bit coarse, naturally), and actually fucking wept when Mitt Romney wasn't elected president of the United States. Had we not truly lost our way if we couldn't see the wisdom of leadership by older white management consultants who schedule feelings through their secretaries? The point I'm making is that this is the guy I got into an argument with about the medical benefits of cannabis. With him playing the part that had until now been reserved for gentlemen who work part-time in head shops and the other part of the time as Reiki practitioners. While I, meanwhile, played the part of Mitt Romney. I was like: Man, I don't have cataracts; I smoke weed to get high and forget for a few hours that I'll be dead one day. And this guy, in his Savile Row suit and his status as Republican fund-raising bundler, was talking about the adaptogenic qualities of your CBDs and THCs and natural oils and endemic terpenes. If you're looking for evidence of which way the prevailing cultural winds are blowing, look no further than the hippiest substance known to the Western world: marijuana.
It can be hard to see it sometimes, what with the current occupant of the Oval Office and how he's the direct heir to the human being most anathema to hippie-ism: Richard Nixon. But the secret truth is that hippie culture won. That's right, you chia-seed motherfuckers. You Transcendental Meditators. You alkaline-water drinkers. You Goop readers with your mushroom face masks and your vampire sprays. You don't believe me? How many yoga studios come up in Google Maps when you open it? How many of you have seen a slice of sprouted-grain bread?
The hippies may not have won immediately—we prefer leadership through consensus over single-minded will to power, feel me?—but they won. Their most cherished obsessions—sustainability, solar panels, downward dogs, mindfulness, mushroom masks, farm-to-table, biodynamism in wine and all else—are all the ideological and practical offspring of what was considered a threat to regular America in the '60s. Is Mercury in retrograde not as close as many of us come to religious belief anymore?
Or, here's a novel idea: Maybe it's because hippie values are enduringly good. Preserve the environment, treat your body well and the people around you well-er, chill out, be tolerant, don't tread on others, be compassionate, even to yourself. These are, I would argue, not values that belong to one end of the political spectrum. They're human values. And hippie-ness was always more about values than about gaining power, so it makes a kind of sense that Transcendental Meditation is the legacy of the era, not President McGovern.
Either way, you know it's true. Marijuana is ascendant, people. Fifty years after the hippies first walked the earth, this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. And it's sponsored by Lululemon.
12 Things Hippies Made Cool
The Summer of Love may be half a century behind us, but hippie culture is still a force in our lives. —Colin Groundwater
Vegetarianism
The number of vegetarians in the U.S. has grown by some 1,300 percent since 1971.
Brown Rice
Good source of fiber, good for your soul. What more could you want from a grain?
Tofu
Or tempeh, if you prefer. Hippies loved their soy products.
Turmeric
This hippie spice is having a moment. Add it to anything from chicken to yogurt.
Orgies
You don't need to move to the Haight for this! There's likely a vast, trendy world of sex parties in a city near you. Respect is mandatory; participation, optional.
Nudity
Tasteful photos from a naked retreat will be a hit on your Insta.
Polyamory
Free love is woke.
Meditation
Hippies called it meditation; we call it mindfulness. Think you don't have the time? There's an app for that.
Yoga
Office yoga is a thing now. Namaste, kids.
Psych Rock
Tame Impala psychedelic wunderkind Kevin Parker collabs with stars like Lady Gaga and gets covered by Rihanna.
Festivals
Thirty-two million Americans go to music festivals each year.
The Dead
Still grateful, not dead yet; now with John Mayer.